Sister Nivedita’s contribution highlighted in exhibition

An exhibition to highlight the contribution of Sister Nivedita in spreading education has been organised by Central Kolkata’s Mahua at their Saraswati puja pandal to pay tribute to Sister prior to her sesquicentennial birth anniversary, next year.

Margaret Elizabeth Noble, an established educationist in London came to Kolkata in 1898 at the invitation of Swami Vivekananda and set up her school in North Kolkata to propagate education among girls coming from middle class background. She faced enormous challenges in getting students as in those days parents were not interested in sending their wards to a school run by an European woman fearing social repercussion. 

Finally, she set up her school at 16, Bosepara Lane in Baghbazar with a couple of students. Sister Nivedita was a constant source of inspiration to Jagadish Chandra Bose and was present at Bose’s lecture at the Science Congress in Paris in 1900. She had played a major role in convincing the British rulers to set up the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. 

She was also the first person to translate Rabindranath’s Kabuliwalla in English which attracted famous people like Yeats and William Rottenstein. Ajay Das, a spokesman for the club said: “In addition to paying homage to Nivedita, the exhibition was held to inform the young generation about her contribution. They should know about her contacts with great personalities of the era like Tagore, JC Bose, Aurobindo, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bipin Chandra Pal who admired her personality, intelligence and her ability as a litterateur.” Artist Rahul Majumdar has made 20 sketches which were on display along with incidents related to her life, 

Das added.