Reverie
The Gift of India
Question: How is ‘ The Gift of India,’both lament and Pride for Mother India?
Answer: ‘The Gift of India’ is a patriotic poem written by Sarojini Naidu which shows the grief of Indian mothers who gave their sons to sacrifice their lives for the interest of the British. At the same time the poem also shows the feeling of pride for their brave sons.
The poem has personified the country India as the mother of all it’s people. The boundless grief of Mother India for her heroic sons,who were killed in foreign lands, is expressed in the poem. One of the critics mentioned that
“It is India only, the great India, which represents itself as eternal Mother India, who loves her sons and daughters as a real mother does…”.
In this poem Mother India considers the precious lives of her sons as her gifts to the British. With broken hands, pale brows,far away from home, the dead bodies of these soldiers lie in alien graves. It is hard to measure the grief of those mothers who gave their sons to be sacrificed in the War for the sake of the British. Losing these priceless gems thus fills Mother India’s heart with immeasurable sorrow and grief.
The Indian soldiers displayed their strength and courage on different battlefronts for the Allied forces in the First World war. They died unknown and unlamented and were “gathered like pearls in their alien graves”.
The British can not estimate the Pride that runs along the despair of her heart, yet she is interested in the sad but glorious vision of true freedom, where “the terror and the tumult of hate shall cease.”
Despite losing her numerous sons in the battlefield she is hopeful and believes that life will become anew on “anvils of peace”. Mother India believes that the sacrifice made by Indian soldiers would create a world devoid of hate and terror. Love, respect and honour will be inextricable part of this new world, laid on the foundation of the gift of India – the blood of her martyred sons.
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