Biography

[b]INTRODUCTION[/b][br /]
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It was November 16, 1893 when a British lady landed for the first time – on an unknown soil known as India, a land of spirituality and mysticism. She did not know much about this sacred soil. The enthusiastic Hindus warmly welcomed her. Within a short span of four months, she visited various sacred places in India covering over 6,000 miles. She was so passionate about the Indians that she decided to settle down in India forever, which she regarded as in very truth the Holy Land. It was, none other than the renowned theosophist Dr. Annie Besant.[br /]
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[b]BIRTH[/b][br /]
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Annie, the daughter of William Burton Persse Wood and Emily Roche Morris, was born on October 1, 1847, within the earshotof Bow Bells, in London. Her parents were staying with their friends and her arrival had taken them by surprise. William, a doctor by profession, was a keen intellectual, mathematician and a classical scholar who had mastered the French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese languages. Annie’s mother was of pure Irish descent. Although her father’s family was English, Annie was proud of her Irish lineage. She never failed in her life to remind her listeners that three quarters of her blood and all her heart were Irish. As she said in her autobiography, the Irish tongue is music to my ears and the Irish nature dear to my heart.[br /]
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[b]CHILDHOOD[/b][br /]
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Annie’s father died early, when Annie was only five. William had left no money for the family. After about six months, Emily decided to move to a less prosperous part of London in order to survive.They moved to Richmond Terrace, Clapham, a place not far away form where Annie's grandfather lived. Annie's three aunts lived lived with him permanently and it was in them that Emily found some moral support. Her grandfather invented things and had deviced means to fasten the ends of a railway track. He was a cheerful man and was the only adult male close to Annie while she was a child.[br /]
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Many relatives tried to help the young widow but her pride kept them at arm's length. Her mother then became engrossed in the upbringing of her brother Henry, as she had promised her husband that Henry would study law. Henry, therefore had to go to a public school and later to Oxford or Cambridge. Her stand found critics in the family but still they helped the family in every possible way. When Annie was only seven, Emily took lodgings over a grocers shop in Harrow and kept looking for a suitable house. She wanted a house to board some boys, thereby earning money as well as prepare Henry for school. Soon she found a boy about the same age as Henry whose parents were glad to place him in under her charge and thus she engaged a tutor to prepare the two for school. It took Emily nearly a year to find a house.[br /]
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[b]LIFE WITH ELLEN AND SCHOOLING[/b][br /]
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They moved to the new house on October 1, 1855. Their new life promised much to all three of them after three years of constraints and sorrow. Annie, being close to her mother, reflected her rising spirits and fell in love with the house and the garden. It provided her the happiest memories of her childhood. When Annie was only eight years old, her happiness was abruptly snatched away when she was told her that she had to go away to be educated, coming home only in the holidays. Ellen Marryat, a wealthy and charitable spinster offered to take Annie to live with her and bring her up with her niece Amy. Emily had resisted the suggestion but was pursuaded by the argument that Annie could not be left in a house full of boys. Emily’s relatives paid for Henry's education at Harrow School, whereas Annie was lucky to get free education in the home school of Ellen Marryat. Ellen was 41 when she took Annie in her charge. She had been accustomed all her life to affluence, social position, and duty towards others less fortunate than herself. Ellen took Annie to a place called Fern Hill, near Charmouth in Dorset. It was a sunny house under the rim of the headland dividing Charmouth and Lyme Regis. Here she provided recreation for the children in a deeply serious and studious atmosphere. Religion was its chief concern and study. Riding was Annie's favorite exercise. [br /]
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Annie disliked Ellen's Calvinistic teachings which tended to make her morbid. But her account of the teaching imparted to her leads us to think that she was not fair to Ellen. Although Ellen's Evangelicalism was resolute and enduring, she kept a sense of proportion. Annie and Amy were spared of the effect of the excessive zeal which shrivelled the enthusiasm of so many Victorian children brought up too harshly under its austere influence. Every Sunday, Ellen made the children sing hymns and told them stories of missonaries. They used to repeat passages learnt by heart from the Bible and when they were older, taught at the village Sunday school. It was here that he learnt a principle – personal self-denial for the good of others – a principle by which she stood for the rest of her life.[br /]
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[b]INCLINATION TOWARDS ROMAN CATHOLICISM[/b][br /]
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In the spring of 1861, Ellen announced her intention of travelling on the continent. Annie and a new protegee, Emma Mann, were to accompany her. The girls who knew a little French were made to study German as they had to stay in Bonn for several months. Their stay at Bonn turned out to be pretty. Mischievous students followed them wherever they went while sentimental Germans whispered complimentary phrases as they passed. Such behaviour was not proper in Ellen's eyes and she sent the girls back home for the holidays rather in disgrace. Two months later, Ellen went to Paris where the girls joined her and their introduction to the European culture began in earnest. They had no respite from studies and had to visit galleries and churches. It was during one such visit that Annie was appealed by the tangible expression of Roman Catholicism. She discovered the sensuous enjoyment that lay in introducing color and fragrance and pomp into religious services gratifying the aesthetic emotions which became dignified with the garb of piety.[br /]
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It was now that images, symbols and rituals assumed a very important place in Annie's life as they gave her spiritual imagination.The picture galleries of the Louvre, crowded with madonnas and saints, the incense-laden air and exquisite music of the churches brought joy to her life and and 'a more vivid color' to her life. Annie found Roman Catholicism very attractive and came close to embracing it more than once.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE'S CONFIRMATION[/b][br /]
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In the spring of 1862, the chaplain of the church in the Rue d'Aguesseau took advantage of a visit to Paris by the bishop of Ohio to arrange a number of confirmations. Annie was a candidate and Emily came over from London to attend the ceremony. During the preparation, Annie was plunged into a deeply emotional state. When she knelt at the altar rails before the bishop, she felt as though his touch was the very touch of the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly Dove. She took vows made in her name in her baptism, to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil, with a heartiness and sincerity equalled only by her ignorance of the things she had readily resigned to. She had resolved to refuse anyone who dared to ask her to a ball for conscience's sake.[br /]
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In spite of this, there was still much to delight her in Paris. She, Emma and Ellen mingled with the crowds in the Champs-Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne and climbed on the top of any and every monument that promised a view over the city. Their stay in Paris lasted seven months. On their return to England in the spring of 1862, the seclusion of Fern Hill gave way to the sociable though highly decorous atmosphere of the nearby Goergian watering place of Sidmouth where Ellen had taken a new house. Ellen had carefully thought of detaching Annie and Emma. They were trained to work alone and when Annie complained about it, Ellen told her not to expect her to support Annie all her life. This gentle withdrawl of constant supervising and teaching was one of the wisest and kindest thing Ellen ever did for Annie. Ellen further relaxed her supervision in the winter of 1862–63 when she moved to London. Annie was enrolled in French classes and soon attained fluency in it. Her fluency in German and French served her well later on.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE AND EMILY[/b][br /]
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In the spring of 1863, Ellen told Annie that she had done all she usefully could do for her. So after eight years, Annie took leave of her teacher and returned to Harrow. For the next three years Annie's time was divided between Emily and her own private world. There was no outward conflict between them : one was domestic and social, while the other was spiritual and intellectual. Annie was happy in both. She now accepted invitations to parties, croquet, archery contests and even balls. Emily reciprocated Annie's intense love for her. She used to lay out dresses for Annie to wear during parties. If Annie would coax Emily to let her help, Emily would tell her to go to play or read books. Ellen's prohibition on novel reading and theatre continued, but concerts were encouraged as both loved music.[br /]
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[b]MOVING CLOSER TO CATHOLICISM[/b][br /]
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Annie loved oriental fantasies. Homer and Dante's translated classics were among those which she liked to read. She devoured Plato and found the 'insatiable questioning' of Socrates annoying. Annie detested cross-examination. Under the influence of the religious awakening she had experienced in Paris, she moved closer to Catholicism. She began to fast, sign the Cross and went to weekly communion, much to the dislike of her mother. True to Ellen's teaching, Annie had to find out things for herself, to try to trace the lines of doctrine back to their origin. Strange mystic writers fascinated her. What thrilled her was their nearness in time and place to Jesus himself. Annie immersed herself in their lives and works. For the first time she learned about things as the transmigration of souls, divinity through knowledge, the higher virtue of celibate life and the reality of evil as opposed to good. In many works, she found description of an ancient world religion originating in pharaonic Egypt, whose secrets were revealed only to inmates. All the information – exoteric and esoteric – were always stored in Annie's precise and capacious memory. She could always recall anything she had read. Her concentraion was remarkable. [br /]
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[b]TEST OF FAITH[/b][br /]
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Annie implicitly believed hat Jesus was supreme and unassailable. Her spiritual life revolved around him. To serve Christ through his Church became her definite ideal. Looking back on her 18-year-old self in 1884, Annie confessed that she was the very stuff of which fanatics were made. Annie and Emily spent the Christmas of 1865 with her aunt at Clapham. Aunt Minnie and her niece offered their services to the local vicar. Annie and Minnie arranged flowers and rejoiced at the thought of serving the God. Looking back, Annie judged that they had only been amusing themselves. Annie was back at Clapham the next year around Easter. She made a cross for the high altar of camellias, azaleas and white geraniums. This delighted the poor and the children as many of them had never seen a flower before let alone a white geranium. The preceeding week while the church was dark with mourning and the altars bare, she followed the stations of the cross in her mind. In order to make the events of the Holy Week more real, she resolved to write a history of of those days compiled from the Gospels. She set down in four columns the incidents and the times at which Matthew, Mark, Luke and John said they had occurred. This was a highly dangerous proceeding as discrepancies leaped at her from the four columns. Finally doubt at the veracity of the story sprang up 'like a serpent' hissing in her face. She struck them down and assured herself that the contradictions were necessary as tests of faith. [br /]
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[b]MARRIAGE[/b][br /]
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When Annie was only 19, she met Rev. Frank Besant. It was a moment of exultation, of temptation put aside, no doubt strengthening her vocation, that Annie met the man who was to be her earthly husband.He was at that time no more than a humble deacon. In her words, it was ‘due to religious idealization of the messenger of religion’, that she secured her future by marrying the rigid Anglican priest, Frank. Annie was very progressive. Her progressiveness and Frank’s rigorousness proved a poor match. In her autobiography, she said, "we were an ill matched pair, my husband and I, from the very outset; he with very high ideals of the husband’s authority and the wife’s submission, holding strangely to the master of my own theory, precise, methodical, easily angered and with difficulty appeased. I, accustomed to freedom, impulsive, hot-tempered and as proud as Lucifer. In me, harshness roused first incredulous wonder, then a storm of indignant tears and after a time a proud defiant resistance, cold and hard as iron." In the autumn of 1866, Annie and Frank were formally engaged. They married on December 21, 1867 in the parish church at Hastings.[br /]
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[b]UNHAPPINESS AND DISGUST[/b][br /]
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Their union was the beginning of great unhappiness for both of them. For Annie, her wedding night was an outrage : shock promoted disgust and fear, while for Frank was the victim of her untutored anticipation. Annie's mother had totally disregarded her daughters fatal innocence and unrealistic expectation. The predicament in which her innocence had plunged both Frank and Annie was not unusual. Annie felt strange there among her husband's large family. She was scornful of the narrow domesticity of the ladies of the house who talked of only babies and servants. She found all this utterly boring. Incessant talk made her timid, dull and depressed. The sweeping condemnation of the women of the house made her intellectually isolated. Her incompetence in household management was apparently equalled by the sketchy way in which she undertook it. She knew nothing of the use of money and her shyness prevented her from rebuking the servants.[br /]
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[b]BACK TO LITERATURE[/b][br /]
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In 1868, she tried to recapture the excitement she had felt on reading Milton. She decided to write an account of the Black Letter Saints – those not significant enough to command space in the church calendar but whose lives had been sufficiently remarkable. She also tried her hand at short stories but she found them to be flimsy. They were published in the Family Herald, a domestic magazine of useful information and amusement. 'Sunshine and Shade' earned her the first money she ever earned. Annie, unfailingly generous in disposing money, was shattered when Frank appropriated the money.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE AND CHILDREN[/b][br /]
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The pressure on Annie to write was irrestible but in the summer of 1868 the impulse was checked as she became pregnant. She was ill for months before the birth. The constraint exercised by Frank brought on an attack of acute depression during which she did not touch her books or pen. Annie became the mother of a son on January 16, 1869. Annie doted on the baby and looked after him herself, as they could not afford a nurse. It is not known why she called her son Digby. Before the year was out,she was pregnant again and she gave birth to Mabel, a daughter on August 28, 1870. It was a period of struggle for Annie, as her ideological differences with Frank had reached the peak. The winter of 1870 brought another catastrophe. Emily had been cheated of all her money by a solicitor she had implicitly trusted over a period of years.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE IN DESPAIR[/b][br /]
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Fate had an even greater blow in store for her. In April 1871, both her children fell ill with whooping cough. Digby soon recovered but Mabel, only eight months old and delicate, contracted severe bronchitis. Sitting day and night with the choking baby on her lap, Annie was plunged into utter despair. Mabel recovered but was frail for years and afterwards developed epiliptic fits. Once Mabel was out of danger, Annie rested for a week and rose a changed woman with the resolve to submit no longer but to overcome somehow her adverse fate. Her religious past now became the worst enemy of her present. The presence of pain and evil in a world made by a good God made Annie desparate. What followed inflicted great suffering on Annie but at the same time satisfied a deep instinct in her nature – to fight adversity – deploying all her talent and capacity in attack. Mental anguish topped with ill health and unhappiness finally produced a nervous collapse. She lay helpless for weeks, conscious of nothing and when she recovered, they decided to move away from the place to – Sibsey, a village in Lincolnshire. [br /]
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[b]ANNIE'S AGONY AND DIVORCE[/b][br /]
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Annie agonized over her abandonment of belief in Christ as God Incarnate. If one took away the dogma of the Atonement, how could one account for so tremendous a miracle as the incarnation of the deity, she wondered ? There was another cruel dilemma. The moment Annie renounced belief in the deity of Christ, she had, in honesty renounced Christanity itself. As a clergyman's wife how was she to live if she did that ? She believed in the vows she had taken at her marriage; because her husband was a minister of the Church, through him she was bound to it as well.She obtained Frank's consent to an arrangement whereby she would attend all those services in which God was represented as a loving Father and Creator, but she would not attend those which celebrated the deity of Jesus Christ. As long as she remained in Sibsey, she continued to depart each communion Sunday. Frank realized how dangerous their 'arrangement' might be for him. In late 1872, Frank discovered a pamphlet written by Annie called What Think ye of Christ ? A few weeks later when the pamphlet was published, with the inscription '[b]By the Wife of a Beneficed Clergyman[/b]', Frank anxiously tried to dissociate himself from Annie's views. A few months later, on being urged by a relative, Frank issued an ultimatum to Annie indicating that she must either return to Sibsey and take her place at all the services of the Church, including holy communion, or she must leave her family and go to her mother. Her refusal to attend the communion in 1873 broke up their marriage. She was left to choose between hypocrisy and expulsion and she chose the latter. When in 1873 the legal separation took place, Annie was to get custody of her daughter Mabel. But her son Digby, stayed with his father.[br /]
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[b]LIFE AFTER DIVORCE[/b][br /]
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After separation, she supported herself by writing and lecturing for the Freethinkers, Theism and Fabian Socialism, completely rejecting Christianity. But her life found a true direction in 1874, when she met British Social reformer Charles Bradlaugh at a lecture where Bradlaugh spoke on the resemblances between Krishna and Christ. Bradlaugh, an editor of the radical National Reformer, offered Annie a job in his publication. Annie accepted the offer and became an active member of the National Secular Society (NSS) headed by Bradlaugh. During the next few years, she wrote many revolutionary articles on vital issues of those times such as marriage and women’s rights.
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From 1875, Annie Besant actively took part in public life. It was the beginning of her new career as a speaker and writer. Annie and Charles traveled together throughout Britain and gave lectures on Atheism. Soon she became vice-president of the NSS.[br /]
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The year 1877 was a difficult year for both Besant and Bradlaugh, when they published a pamphlet The Fruits of Philosophy, advocating birth control. They were arrested on charge of obscenity. They were put on trial for publishing material that was "likely to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to immoral influences". Their defense was, "We think it more moral to prevent conception of children then, after they are born, to murder them by want of food, air and clothing." Though both were pronounced guilty and sentenced to six months imprisonment, the sentences were later quashed on appeal, and that made the book a bestseller.[br /]
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In March 1878, Mabel fell ill with scarlet fever. When annie's anxiety was at its height, her husband served her a notice to take their daughter Mable away from Annie’s custody. She then took it up as her personal mission to help unfortunate children since she was without her own. During this period Bradlaugh was the only person who stood by her and Annie’s friendship with him lasted till his death. After the court case, Besant wrote her own book entitled The Laws of Population. The reaction was acerbic that newspapers like The Times alleged Annie of writing ‘an indecent, lewd, filthy, bawdy and obscene book".[br /]
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[b]HALL OF SCIENCE[/b][br /]
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In July 1879, Annie decided to study for a degree and chose science instead of law. At the same time, ahe undertook to help in teaching at the Hall of Science. Beginning in the autumn, the classes attracted a growing number of young men and women, not all of whom were secularist. In 1880 she earned her BS at London University, gaining a First Class in botany and animal psychology. She became a qualified science teacher and taught elementary psychology to a class of 30. Not to be outdone, Hypatia and Alice, daughters of Charles Bradlaugh, gained a First in mathematics and botany. Hypatia taught elementary chemistry while Alice taught French. Within two years the results were good enough to qualify for a grant from South Kensington despite vociferous protest in the Parliament.[br /]
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The year 1880 was witness to election of Charles Bradlaugh as the Member of Parliament. Whenever a new Parliament assembled, its new members were required to swear an oath of allegiance to the crown. As he was not a Christian, he refused to take the oath which contained the words, 'So help me God'. This issue was hotly debated and the argument slowly inflamed the nation. As a result, he was expelled from the House of Commons. Annie took a prominent part in his long struggle against the Parliament, over this issue. While working with Bradlaugh, Besant developed friendships with other socialists such as Walter Crane, Edward Aveling and George Bernard Shaw.[br /]
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In the spring of 1883, Annie and Alice filed an application in the University College, London, to be admitted to a class in botany. There was an uproar as the college feared publicity as a result of admitting ladies whose names were too well known, and whose purpose, they suspected, was to serve the cause on Bradlaugh than to acquire scientific knowledge. They were refused admission in spite of the storm raised by the supporters of Annie. Moreover the fear that Annie would 'start a propaganda' among the students and drive them away with her obnoxious opinions was another reason why the University College refused her application. This fear closed many other doors for her as well. Several attempts were made in the House of Commons to withdraw the recognition of the Hall of Science school.[br /]
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Duty, Love and Work : these were the vital threads in the pattern of Annie's life as it formed in the years after 1875, when she embraced free-thought. At the beginning of the 1880s that pattern appeared likely to continue as long as she was able to sustain the effort it required. In 1886, Annie suffered from erysipelas in the face, and colds that lasted for weeks at a time. By the end of the year she was convinced that she had heart disease. After her lectures, she used to show Hypatia how cold and numb her hands were. It was hardly surprising that Annie betrayed signs of exhaustion; she was constantly on the move. She either lectured or attended other people's lectures.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE AND SOCIALISM[/b][br /]
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In 1887, Annie's vigorous propaganda for the socialist cause was continually assessed for the damage it could cause to Bradlaugh's parliamentary career. Each time he denounced her new associates, the newspapers hailed a breach between them. As socialism became more and more a question of practical politics, differences of theory tended to produce differences in conduct, and it was this that gave rise to inconveniences. In October, she resigned as the co-editor of the National Reformer but continued to contribute articles to the paper. [br /]
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Influenced by George Bernard Shaw, Annie Besant joined the socialist group, the Fabian Society in 1889. She wrote an influential book Fabian Essays, which included articles written by George Bernard Shaw, Sydney Webb, Sydney Olivier, Graham Wallas, William Clarke, Hubert Bland and herself. This book, edited by Shaw, sold 27,000 copies in a short span of two years.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE AND MADAME BLAVATSKY[/b][br /]
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In the same year in May, Besant came in contact with Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society. Besant joined the society in May, and soon involved herself in the activities of the society. Thus, from being an agnostic and almost an atheist, she turned into an enthusiastic and ardent Theosophist. The entire course of her future life and fame revolved around this event.[br /]
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Theosophical Society was a powerful spiritual movement with a base in India. In 1891, when its President Madame Blavatsky died, Annie Besant was given the Chair of the society. Before her arrival in India, Dr. Besant was – housewife, propagator of atheism, trade unionist, feminist leader and Fabian Socialist, all rolled into one, now was the time to embark upon the most fructifying phase of her life and dreams.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE IN INDIA[/b][br /]
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It was Charles Bradlaugh’s influence that Annie first started taking interest in Indian affairs. She was always sympathetic to Indian aspirations but as a Theosophist, when she was invited to visit India, she refused to go there. The reason was that she thought India had to fight for its own salvation and freedom from the British Empire. Later she deferred from her earlier decision and in her words, happily left ‘barbaric England for more civilized India". November 16, 1893 witnessed her first step on the Indian soil. Not only did she come to stay but also accepted Indians as her own brethren and worked hard, for the uplift of Indian society. Her life in India was a bizzare adventure, a fantasy made real by the exercise of a tenacious will. Her aim was visionary; Millennial – to bring about a universal, theocratic state under whose firm, wise rule men could not behave as brothers. The plan was first put in effect in Benares, the heartland of the Aryan race. After coming to India, Annie learnt Sanskrit and in 1895 published an English translation of the Bhagvad Gita.[br /]
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[b]THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY[/b][br /]
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The Theosophical Society had its headquarters in Adyar in Madras (now Chennai). In 1896, Benares was made the headquarters. Money given by Ursula Bright, a close friend of Annie, enabled Annie to buy a small estate in Kammacha near Benares. Annie's house was in a corner of the estate and lived there from November to April each year. She called it Shanti Kunj (Abode of Peace). In 1898, she established the Central Hindu College at Benares, which later developed as the Banaras Hindu University. One of her most enthusiastic helpers was Pandit Motilal Nehru.[br /]
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In 1905, she earned the disapproval of the extremists by ordering the staff and boys of the Central Hindu College not to join in the day of mourning called to protest against Curzon's decision to partition Bengal. Her aim was to stand alone as an independent force and this required skill as well as nerve. In 1907, Annie was elected as the President of the Theosophical Society. In February 1910, she launched a sensational attack on the British for racial prejudice when a venerable Theosophist was turned out of a first-class carriage by an Englishman. Besant spent her mid-life in Madras and worked ceaselessly for social reform and education of Indian masses, till her last breath.[br /]
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[b]ANNIE'S ACTIVE INTEREST IN INDIAN POLITICS[/b][br /]
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In 1913 she launched a determined bid for power but it was not until 1914 that she started taking interest in the political movement of India. Thereafter as a driving force, she went ahead becoming a firm and ardent supporter of Home Rule Movement in India. In 1916, she spearheaded the struggle for Indian Home Rule and became its President. She also published a revolutionary newspaper called New India. She took an active part in Indian politics and in 1917 became the President of Indian National Congress, but later split with Mahatma Gandhi, due to her political inclinations. She established Indian Boy Scouts Association in the same year. The association was merged with the International Movement on request of Sir Robert Baden Powell in 1921.[br /]
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In April, Gandhiji had called a hartal (cessation of all activities) in Delhi against the Rowlatt measures. When his followers forced shopkeepers to join in, a riot began. Soldiers fired on the crowd killing several and Besant's desire to emphasize her disapproval of Gandhiji's methods betrayed her in giving a hasty response. She said that it was the government's first duty to stop violence and brickbats must be answered by bullets. On April 17, 1919, she compounded her error (bullets for brickbats) by broadly supporting the action of the soldiers in the Jallianwallah Bagh Massacre. It was a tragic irony that Besant, who had been among the first to sound a warning about the dangers of racial discrimination, was now irrevocably identified with what was percieved as tyranny. In May, she acknowledged the growing opposition and resigned as President of Home Rule League. In later years of her life, she withdrew from politics and again confined herself to her Theosophical work in Adyar, Madras. [br /]
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In 1920 when the Congress endorsed Gandhiji's policy of Non Co-operation, Besant stormed out of the meet. But in 1922 when Gandhiji was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison for incitement, Besant stepped in with a proposal that leading Indian personalities of all shades of opinoin should come together to frame a new constitution for the country.[br /]
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[b]LAST DAYS[/b][br /]
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During 1926 and 1927, she traveled back to her motherland, Britain and the United States with her [b]new messiah[/b] J Krishnamurti, a world-renowned Indian philosopher. She believed him to be a [b]World Teacher[/b].[br /]
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Dr. Annie Besant, who had her epitaph carved with simple words, She tried to follow Truth, left for heavenly abode on September 21, 1933, at the age of 86. She unfortunately was not to be a witness along with Mahatma Gandhi, of the auspicious occasion of [b]her dear[/b] India’s freedom.[br /]
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