Sarojini Naidu here in this poem seems to express that now is the time to arise and awake rather than lying in a dormant state. When will our long sleep break? When shall we awake and arise? Addressing the poem to the motherland, she tries to lay bare her heart, what is in store for it, how has it relapsed in maladministration, ill-governance, poverty, underdevelopment, superstition, medievalism, bad state and misery, what has nascent India to give and offer to mankind which has always taught a lesson of humanity? Now the time has come to infuse and instil a new feeling of hope. The poem is relevant from the perspective of the struggle for freedom as at that time it was a period of nationalist movements and political awakening.

We have had a very bad time when invaders looted and plundered India, the wealth and jewels of India. The dark corridors and terraces of history baffled and ruffled it spirit, but the spirit could not be subdued.

As a mother guides and shoulders responsibilities, similarly the poetess asks to lead us through her love, sympathy and affection and light. There are many nations still reeling under bondage, slavery and fetters. Now it is time to guide them in their attainment of freedom. How long can a mother be irresponsive and unmindful of if the sons and daughters give away to?

Just for her children, she should awake and arise. If the children are inactive and fatalistic, she should break their spell with her light. How can it be that she will keep silent seeing atrocities, how can her speechlessness be marked with long silence pervading the spirit? She should break her silence and lead and guide us, not only us, but the whole world.

The future calls her to guide and lead. How could it be that she would be forgetful of her glorious past when she was but a beacon light? The light has not extinguished. Still now that light keeps burning and the whole of human race needs it in whose absence lest they may grope in darkness.

To India

O YOUNG through all thy immemorial years!
Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom,
And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres,
Beget new glories from thine ageless womb!

The nations that in fettered darkness weep
Crave thee to lead them where great mornings break . . . .
Mother, O Mother, wherefore dost thou sleep?
Arise and answer for thy children's sake!

Thy Future calls thee with a manifold sound
To crescent honours, splendours, victories vast;
Waken, O slumbering Mother and be crowned,
Who once wert empress of the sovereign Past.

The Gift of India

"Is there ought you need that my hands withhold,
Rich gifts of raiment or grain or gold?
Lo ! I have flung to the East and the West
Priceless treasures torn from my breast,
And yielded the sons of my stricken womb
To the drum-beats of the duty, the sabers of doom….."

What Mother India had to give she gave that in plenitude. There was nothing as that deterred her from. With the open hands, she gave it out of her charity, nobility and goodness, showed her magnitude, the largeness of her heart, but the world could not feel it then what she stood for, what she lived by, and nothing could vanquish even though they came with dangling swords, clashing and smashing with the armies of might. Rich gifts of gems and jewels, she gave them to whoever came seeking for. The East and the West, without entertaining the division in between, she sought the welfare and goodness of all.