September 21, 1933:- Who Was Annie Besant ?

On this day, 88 years ago, Annie Wood Besant passed away. A champion of women’s rights, Besant, a British rebel, moved to India in 1893 after converting to Theosophy. She founded the Central Hindu College, and celebrated the splendid ancient past of India through many forums. During World War I she founded the All-India Home Rule League to demand self-government. She became the first woman President of congress in 1917. She different with Mahatma Gandhi in the right approach for India’s freedom struggle. 

 

At 19, she married Reverend Frank Besant. She later admitted that they were “an ill-matched pair”. She took up writing but was dismayed to learn that as a married woman, her earnings were not her own. She was alsoii horrified by the prospect of a third pregnancy, having had two children in 18 months; they could ill-afford another child, and Annie’s autobiography indicates that she was completely ignorant of the facts of sex and reproduction until her wedding night.

Besant’s struggle with her faith began in 1871, when her daughter almost died of whooping cough. On discovering that she was exploring freethought, her husband gave her an ultimatum: take communion regularly in his Lincolnshire parish, or leave. “Hypocrisy or expulsion,” she later recalled - “I chose the latter.” With her brother’s help, she obtained a legal separation and a small allowance, and in 1874 moved to London with her daughter.