Not out of right practice comes right thinking,
but out of right thinking comes right practice. It matters enormously
what you think. If you think falsely, you will act mistakenly; if you
think basely, your conduct will suit your thinking. Annie Besant
Annie Besant(1847-
1933),
English social reformer, author
(The Political Status of Women,1874; Marriage, As It Was, As It
Is, And As It Should Be: A Plea For Reform, 1878; The Law Of
Population, 1877), freedom fighter and worldwide head of theTheosophy movement
Born
Annie Wood in Clapham, London, her childhood was unhappy after her father's
death when she was five. Besant was educated by Ellen Marryat, sister of the
noted writer of sea adventures, Frederick Marryat. Miss Marryat was a strict
Calvinist, but she saw to it that Annie's education was not too narrow and
included travel in Europe. In 1867, Annie Wood married a vicar, Frank Besant,
resulting in the birth of two children, but her increasingly irreligious
views – when she refused to attend communion, Frank ordered her to leave
the family home – led to a legal separation in 1873, with her husband
retaining custody of their son (and she later lost custody of their daughter
because of her progressive views). At this point, Annie Besant completely
rejected Christianity and in 1874 joined the Secular Society.
She
studied science at university, something considered very unfeminine at the
time, but did not ever take her degree, because there “was one examiner in
the University who told her beforehand that however brilliantly she might do
the papers which were set, he would not pass her, because he had a strong
antipathy toward her atheism and to certain of her activities for the
masses, which he considered immoral” (Nethercot, Arthur H, The
First Five Lives of Annie Besant, p. 186).
In 1877, Besant and Bradlaugh were convicted of selling birth control pamphlets in the
slums of London; in court they argued that “we think it more moral to
prevent conception of children than, after they are born, to murder them by
want of food, air and clothing.” They were sentenced to six months
imprisonment for publishing “an obscene libel”, but the verdict was
overturned on appeal and the publicity helped to liberalise public
attitudes. However, her activism in this case cost Annie custody of her
daughter, Mabel, whose custody was awarded to Frank Besant on his
application.
Besant soon wrote and
published her own book advocating birth control, The Law of Population.
That a woman would advocate birth-control received wide-publicity, with
newspapers such as The Times of
London accusing Besant of writing “an indecent, lewd, filthy, bawdy and
obscene book”.
The Bryant & May ‘Matchgirls Strike’
Dear Lady they have been trying to get
the poor girls to say that it is all lies that has been printed and trying
to make us sign papers that it is all lies; dear Lady nobody knows what it
is we have put up with and we will not sign them. We thank you very much for
the kindness you have shown to us. My dear Lady we hope you will not get
into any trouble on our behalf as what you have spoken is quite true. Anonymous letter received by Annie Besant
from a Bryant & May worker (July 4, 1888)
After joining the Social Democratic
Federation, Annie started her own campaigning newspaper, The Link. On
June 23, 1888, Besant wrote an article, ‘White
Slavery in London’, in The Link, the consequence of which was a three-week
strike among the employees of the
Bryant
& May match company, whose female workers worked fourteen hours a
day for a wage of less than five shillings a week. In this she was
aided by HH Champion.
(Ironically, perhaps, Bryant and May was founded in 1852
by two Quakers,
William
Bryant and Francis May, with the specific aim of making only safety
matches, no doubt because of the founders' social conscience.)
This
action, in which Besant campaigned with
Catherine Booth
of the Salvation
Army, was the first strike by unorganized workers to gain national
publicity. The ‘Matchgirls Strike’ was also successful at helping to
inspire the formation of unions all over Britain, and Bryant & May
workers gained some protection against the appalling conditions under which
they had formerly worked, and the yellow phosphorus-induced diseases that
had plagued them. Yellow or white phosphorus
caused yellowing of the skin, hair loss and phosphorus
disease (‘phossy
jaw’ a necrosis
of the jaw). Symptoms included the whole side of the face turning first
green and then black, the discharge of foul-smelling pus, and usually death.
…
in the case of Caroline Hawkins, the first symptoms of the poisoning were
detected on Jan 19 last. She had been at work in a Lucifer match factory –
work which was always attended with danger from the inhalation of the fumed
which arose, which brought on necrosis of the jaw, cases of which were not
infrequent. Daily Chronicle, June 2, 1898
Annie
Besant, together with William Stead,
Catharine Booth,
William Booth
and Henry Hyde
Champion continued the campaign against the use of yellow phosphorus and
in 1891 the Salvation
Army opened its own match-factory in East London. Using only harmless
red phosphorus, the workers were soon producing six million boxes a year and
paying the ‘matchgirls’ fourpence a gross (144 boxes), twice as much as
Bryant & May paid their workers. These new matches, tipped with harmless
red phosphorus, were sold under the brand-name ‘Lights in Darkest
England’, and their success is one of the reasons that many corporations
today make match heads that are artificially coloured red, as a reassurance
to customers. The success of the matchgirl strike, and then the dockers strike
that followed, gave impetus to what became known as ‘new unionism’ or
the mass organisation of unskilled labour, the rise of progressive politics
in Britain, and the establishment of the Labour Party.
She was converted to Theosophy after
reviewing The Secret Doctrine by
Madame Helene Blavatsky in
1889. Soon after becoming a member of the Theosophical
Society, Besant went to India for the first time (1893). Thereafter she devoted much of her
energy not only to the Theosophical Society, but also to India's freedom and
progress. Annie Besant, said Mahatma Gandhi, awakened India from her
deep slumber – Gandhi had portraits of Jesus, Tolstoy, Annie Besant and a
few others where he lived when he was in South Africa (source),
but in later years the two had a falling out
and she opposed him. She started the Home
Rule League in India for obtaining the freedom of the country and
reviving the country's cultural heritage, attended the 1914 session of the Indian National Congress and was elected its president in 1917. Because of her
activism for Home Rule for India, during the First World War she was
interned by the British authorities. Even while in India, Besant continued
to write letters to British newspapers arguing the case for women's suffrage
and in 1911 was a keynote speaker at an important NUWSS suffragist
rally in London.
With Charles
Webster Leadbeater she investigated paranormal
phenomena such as clairvoyance.
The two became embroiled over Leadbeater's advice to young boys to
masturbate, which was highly controversial at the time, forcing Leadbeater
to leave the Theosophical Society in 1906. In 1908 he was back in the fold, through the
agency of Besant, who had been elected president of the Theosophical Society
in 1907.
Annie Besant was
also largely responsible for the upbringing of the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, shown at right with his mentor.Krishnamurti grew discontent with
his role as a kind of messiah and in 1929 finally disbanded the Order of the Star of
the East, of which Besant had been instrumental in making him the
leader, and which was founded to support him. Krishnamurti's decision impacted
heavily on Annie Besant's spirit, as it went against her whole belief
system. She tried to accommodate Krishnamurti's views into her life, but
never really succeeded. However, these two remarkable people remained
friends until, in her beloved India, she passed away on September 20, 1933.
Born in slums,
driven to work while still children, undersized because under-fed,
oppressed because helpless, flung aside as soon as worked out, who
cares if they die or go on to the streets provided only that Bryant
& May shareholders get their 23 per cent and Mr Theodore Bryant
can erect statutes and buy parks?
Girls are used to carry boxes on their heads until the hair is rubbed
off and the young heads are bald at fifteen years of age? Country
clergymen with shares in Bryant & May's draw down on your knee
your fifteen year old daughter; pass your hand tenderly over the silky
clustering curls, rejoice in the dainty beauty of the thick, shiny
tresses. Annie
Besant,‘White Slavery in London’, The
Link (June
23, 1888)
With chattel slaves Mr. Bryant could not
have made his huge fortune, for he could not have fed, clothed, and
housed them for 4s. a week each, and they would have had a definite
money value which would have served as a protection. But who cares for
the fate of these white wage slaves? Born in slums, driven to work
while still children, undersized because underfed, oppressed because
helpless, flung aside as soon as worked out, who cares if they die or
go on the streets, provided only that the Bryant and May shareholders
get their 23 per cent., and Mr. Theodore Bryant can erect statues and
buy parks? Oh if we had but a people's Dante, to make a special circle
in the Inferno for those who live on this misery, and suck wealth out
of the starvation of helpless girls.
Failing a poet to hold up their conduct to
the execration of posterity, enshrined in deathless verse, let us
strive to touch their consciences, i.e. their pockets, and let us at
least avoid being "partakers of their sins", by abstaining
from using their commodities. Annie Besant,‘White Slavery in London’, The
Link (June 23, 1888)
Q: What is the cause of the strike? A: Why, a girl was dismissed yesterday; it had nothing to do
with Mrs Besant. She refused to follow the instructions of the
foreman, and as she was irregular anyway, she was dismissed. Q: Is it not very unusual that all the girls should strike
because of one? A: Yes, but I've no doubt they have been influenced by the
twaddle of one. Annie Besant; interview
with Bartholomew Bryant in The Star newspaper (July, 1888)
Many women now, educated more highly than
they used to be – women with strong brains and loving hearts – are
being driven into bitterness and into angry opposition, because their
ambition is thwarted at every step, and their eager longing for a
fuller life are forced back and crushed. A tree will grow, however you
may try to stunt it. You may disfigure it, you may force it into
awkward shapes, but grow it will. Annie
Besant; The Political Status of Women, 1874
I was dazzled, blinded by the light in
which disjointed facts were seen as parts of a mighty whole, and all
my puzzles, riddles, problems, seemed to disappear. The effect was
partially illusory in one sense, in that they all had to be slowly
unravelled later, the brain gradually assimilating that which the
swift intuition had grasped as truth. But the light had been seen, and
in that flash of illumination I knew that the weary search was over
and the very truth was found. Annie Besant;
Autobiography,
p. 310
Not
out of right practice comes right thinking, but out of right thinking
comes right practice. It matters enormously what you think. If you
think falsely, you will act mistakenly; if you think basely, your
conduct will suit your thinking. Annie
Besant
...
those who can serve best, those who help most, those who sacrifice
most, those are the people who will be loved in life and honoured in
death, when all questions of colour are swept away and when in a free
country free citizens shall meet on equal grounds. Annie
Besant
This
is the India of which I speak – the India which, as I said, is to me
the Holy Land. For those who, though born for this life in a Western
land and clad in a Western body, can yet look back to earlier
incarnations in which they drank the milk of spiritual wisdom from the
breast of their true mother – they must feel ever the magic of her
immemorial past, must dwell ever under the spell of her deathless
fascination; for they are bound to India by all the sacred memories of
their past; and with her, too, are bound up all the radiant hopes of
their future, a future which they know they will share with her who is
their true mother in the soul-life. Annie
Besant; Besant,Annie, India: Essays and
Lectures, Vol. IV, The Theosophical Publishing Co., London, p.
11.1895
After
a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the
world, I find none so perfect, none so scientific, none so
philosophical and no so spiritual that the great religion known by the
name of Hinduism. Make no mistake, without Hinduism, India has no
future. Hinduism is the soil in to which India's roots are stuck and
torn out of that she will inevitably wither as a tree torn out from
its place. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism who shall save
it? If India's own children do not cling to her faith who shall
guard it. India alone can save India and India and Hinduism are one. Annie
Besant
India
is the mother of religion. In her are combined science and religion in
perfect harmony, and that is the Hindu religion, and it is India that
shall be again the spiritual mother of the world. Annie
Besant;
lecture at the Grand Theatre, Calcutta on January 15,
1906; Har Bilas Sarda, Hindu
Superiority
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