Annie Besant: An Indian Tomtom

Sunil Khilnani explores the journey of Annie Besant, from late Victorian campaigner and social reformer in England to leader of India’s Congress Party.

Possessed of a self-belief some thought inappropriate for a woman, Annie Besant’s struggle against convention would make her an object of ridicule to many of her compatriots. So she escaped them: embarking on a life that would ultimately stretch across three continents and leave a mark on each of them

She became a polemicist for an array of ideas that challenged the complacencies of the Victorian age: atheism, the rights of workers and of women, birth control, free speech, Fabian socialism, Irish Home Rule. She became the first woman to study for a science degree at University College, London. She organized an infamous match girls strike. She advocated for more women in local government.

By the time she was forty, critics were calling her “Red Annie” and admirers were calling her one of the most remarkable women in nineteenth-century Britain.

By the time she had reached eighty, she had become one of the most remarkable women in twentieth-century India.

Producer: Martin Williams
Executive Producer: Martin Smith

Original music composed by Talvin Singh.