Rukmini Devi Arundale :

Rukmini Devi Arundale

  • Birth : 29th February 1904 in Madurai, Tamilnadu
  • Death : 24 February 1986 (aged 81) in Chennai, Tamilnadu
  • Spouse : George Arundale ​(m. 1920)​
  • Awards : Padma Bhushan (1956)
    Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (1967)
  • Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) :
    In-office period -> 3 April 1952 – 2 April 1962

“Women have everything to do with bringing culture into everyday life, with the expression of it, with the helping and influencing of a nation, not only because they are mothers but also because they themselves are an example as individuals. The modern world needs a new force for the revitalizing of its ideals. India’s art has always been unconscious, unconscious of its own beauty, unconscious of others’ admiration, unconscious of the physical though expressed in Form. India is now beginning to be conscious and we do not know how to express ourselves consciously. A great dancer’s art must depend first on the life he or she expresses, secondly upon the beauty of technique and lastly only, upon its arrangement, costume, and presentation…. Though form, technique and skill are essential, great Art must have the impetus of genius, and inspiration. Then there is permanency.”

- Rukmini Devi Arundale

Biography

Early Life

  1. Rukmini Devi was born into a Brahmin Household on February 29, 1904, in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.
  2. She was born to South Indian Sanskrit scholar and historian, working for the Public Works Department, Neelakanta Shastri and music lover, Seshammal.
  3. Rukmini Devi was exposed to theosophical thought, new ideas on culture, theatre, music, and dance at the Theosophical Society in Adyar,Chennai where her family settled after her father's retirement.
  4. Rukmini Devi meeting with the prominent British theosophist Dr George Arundale—a close associate of Dr.Annie Besant and later the principal of the Central Hindu College in Varanasi—led to her building a lasting bond with him

Marriage

  1. Rukmini Devi married Dr.George Arundale in 1920 when she was 16 and he was 42, making George 26 years her senior.
  2. After marriage, she traveled around the world, meeting fellow theosophists and also forging friendships with the educator Maria Montessori, and the poet James Cousins.
  3. In 1923, she became the President of the All-India Federation of Young Theosophists, and the President of the World Federation of Young Theosophists in 1925.
  4. In 1928, the Arundale couple went to watch the performance of the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in Bombay. Intrigued by artform, Rukmini Devi started learning the dance from one of Anna's lead dancers, Cleo Nordi.
  5. It was later, at the behest of Anna, that Rukmini Devi turned her attention to discovering traditional Indian dance forms which had fallen to disrepute, and dedicated the rest of her life to their revival.

Revivalism

  1. In 1933, at the Annual Conference of Madras Music Academy, Rukmini Devi saw for the first time, a performance of the dance form called Sadhir.
  2. In 1935, Rukmini Devi gave her first public performance at the 'Diamond Jubilee Convention of the Theosophical Society, after learning the dance from Mylapore Gowri Amma and E. Krishna Iyer.
  3. In January 1936, she along with her husband, established Kalakshetra, an academy of dance and music, built around the ancient Indian Gurukul system, at Adyar, at Chennai.
  4. Major Refinements in this artform :
    • Sadhir was renamed to Bharatanatyam
    • Modified mainly the Pandanallur style of Bharatanatyam and brought it to the global attention
    • Removed the extraneous sringaar and erotic elemnts from the dance.
    • Introduced musical instruments like violin, set and lighting design elements, and innovative costumes, and jewellery inspired by the temple sculptures.
    • Rukmini Devi approached noted scholars for inspiration and classical musicians and artists, for collaboration, the result was the creation some of pioneering dance dramas-based on Indian epics like the Valmiki's Ramayana and Jayadeva's Gita Govinda.

Later Years

  1. Rukmini Devi was the first Indian woman to be nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha in April 1952 and re-nominated in 1956. Keenly interested in animal welfare, she was associated with various humanitarian organisations, and was instrumental for the legislation for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and for later setting up of the Animal Welfare Board of India, under her chairmanship in 1962. She remained on the board until her demise in 1986.
  2. She did much work to promote vegetarianism in the country. She was vice-president of International Vegetarian Union for 31 years from 1955, until her death.
  3. In 1977, Morarji Desai offered to nominate her for the post of President of India, which she turned down.
  4. In 1978, 'Kalamkari Centre' (pencraft) was set up at Kalakshetra to revitalise the ancient Indian craft of textile printing. On encouragement from Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, she encouraged natural dyeing and weaving at Kalakshetra. She died on 24 February 1986 in Chennai.

Legacy

In January 1994, an Act of the Indian Parliament recognised the Kalakshetra Foundation as an 'Institute of National Importance'.

Year-long celebrations, including lectures, seminars and festivals marked her 100th birth anniversary, on 29 February, in 2004 at Kalakshetra and elsewhere in many parts of the world, At the campus the day was marked by special function in which old students gathered from across India and the world, in a day of songs and recitals. Also on 29 February, a photo exhibition on her life opened at the Lalit Kala Gallery in New Delhi, and on the same day, then President APJ Abdul Kalam released a photo-biography, written and compiled by Dr Sunil Kothari with a foreword by former president R Venkataraman.

She was the first woman in Indian history to be nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India. The most important revivalist of Bharatanatyam from its original 'sadhir' style prevalent amongst the temple dancers, the Devadasis, she also worked for the re-establishment of traditional Indian arts and crafts.

She espoused the cause of Bharata Natyam which was considered a vulgar art. She 'sanitised' and removed the inherent eroticism of Sadhir to make it palatable to Indian upper-caste elites and the British morality of the era.

Rukmini Devi features in India Today's list of '100 People Who Shaped India'. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1956, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1967.

In 2016, Google honored Rukmini Devi on her 112th birthday with a doodle, and later in the month marking the 80th year of the Kalakshetra Foundation held, 'Remembering Rukmini Devi’ festival of music and dance. Google also featured her in the 2017 Google Doodle for International Women's Day.

Awards and Honours

Padma Bhushan (1956)

Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1957)

Desikothama (1972), Viswa Bharati University

1967 Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship

Prani Mitra (1968), Friend of All Animals, (Animal Welfare Board of India)

Kalidas Samman (1984), Govt of Madhya Pradesh

D. Lit. (Honoris Causa), Indira Kala Sangit Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh, Chhattisgarh

Queen Victoria Silver Medal, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, London

Honorary Doctorate, Wayne State University, United States

Scrolls of Honour, County and City of Los Angeles

Addition to the roll of honour by The World Federation for the Protection of animals, The Hague

To find out more about Rukmini Devi, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rukmini_Devi_Arundale

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