Happy 168th Birthday to Annie Besant

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It's not often I pay much attention to the subject of the daily Google 'doodles' but today's caught my eye. Why would an old white haired lady in a rocking chair be wearing a sari? Curiosity piqued, I hovered over the image and learned that Annie Besant was born 168 years ago today. This woman fascinates me but it's not easy to find out much about here. Believe me, I've tried. The only books I could track down were very 'heavy'. What I wanted was a more accessible, lighter read about her incredible life. So far I didn't find one. Why is she SO remarkable? She was a woman who never let anyone tell her what to believe or let anyone stand in her way. She was a woman who never let her gender stop her ambitions at a time when most of her kind were seen and not heard. She campaigned for women's rights, what we'd now call 'human rights', and most famously for Indian and Irish independence. She was British, but she's not someone our history makers and reporters have ever really championed. Everybody knows about Gandhi, those who take an interest (such as myself) will add Jawahalal Nehru, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Subhas Chandra Bose and the likes of Bhagat Singh but Wikipedia's entry on the Indian Independence Movement doesn't even mention poor old Annie. Sadly Annie Besant was dead long before the much awaited Indian Independence actually happened but she was undoubtedly a mover and shaker not just in India but also back in Europe where she seems to have been involved in pretty much every major rebellion that was going. In India Besant co-launched the Home Rule League with Jinnah and in 1917 became the President of the Indian National Congress. Just imagine what it took for a woman, not just a woman but a WHITE British woman, to lead the campaign for Indian independence. History if full of fascinating people, many of them not much marked with the passing of time. Would I have wanted to meet Annie Besant? Too right I would. But for today, I'll just be glad to know that Google marked her life with a doodle.