Question

The gift of india is an anti-war poem.comment or discuss.

Answer 1

The Gift of India: About the poem

The Gift of India is a poem written in 1915 by the Indian poet, freedom fighter and politician Sarojini Naidu. The poem is a tribute to the contribution of Indian soldiers in World War I. Over ten lakh Indian soldiers from the British Indian Empire served in the Allied forces in the First World War. A vast number of them sacrificed their lives. Indian troops fought in different locations of significance to the allied stronghold and had an important share in many of the battles throughout the course of the war. However, the contribution of the Indian soldiers is overlooked in the vast expanse of the War’s history. These selfless sacrifices of the Indian soldiers for the western agitation are captured in Naidu’s poem ‘The Gift of India’.

The poem not only concentrates on the theme of soldiers making their ultimate sacrifice for someone else’s war, but also talks about the numerous benefits the foreign countries reaped from India. The poet regards these benefits as gifts given by India to the colonisers.

The poem can be regarded as a kind of reminder or appeal to the allied forces to remember the Indian contribution to their victory.

Form and language of the poem

The poem The Gift of India has a simple and elegant rhyme scheme of aabbcc. Each of the stanzas have six lines, where the first two lines introduce either an idea or create a picture, the next two lines build up on them, and the final two present a sort of small conclusion for the stanza. (In many anthologies and websites the poem is treated as a whole undivided piece. 

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