New Delhi: Woodrow Wilson, the 28th US president, was in the news last month after an Ivy league university dropped his name from its public policy school.
Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs had dropped the name as part of efforts to address racism given that Wilson was a segregationist.
Wilson’s racism was significant and consequential, even by the standards of his own time, noted Princeton president Christopher L. Eisgruber in a statement.
The late president, who was born before the Civil War, incidentally has a little known Indian connect — his daughter Margaret Wilson.
Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh, who Thursday tweeted about Princeton’s decision, also talked about Margaret and her ties to India.
“…Margaret became Aurobindo’s devotee in 1938 & was named Nistha. She died in Puducherry in 1944 & is buried there,” Ramesh wrote on Twitter.
Princeton decides to remove US President Woodrow Wilson's name from its school of public & international affairs as he was a segregationist. Incidentally, his daughter Margaret became Aurobindo's devotee in 1938 & was named Nistha. She died in Puducherry in 1944 & is buried there
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 16, 2020
Margaret Wilson becomes ‘Nishtha’
Margaret had served her father as the White House social hostess following her mother’s death in 1914, according to Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum. Woodrow had served as the US president from 1913-1921.
For a long while, Margaret attempted to build a professional career in music, which were her chief interests, according to the obituary published in The New York Times.
Then in 1932, about eight years after Wilson’s death, Margaret discovered Sri Aurobindo’s essays on the Gita while browsing through the New York Public library. Sri Aurobindo was a spiritual guru who set up an ashram in Puducherry that attracts followers even to this day.
She began corresponding with Sri Aurobindo, and in 1938, finally sought his permission to join his ashram. She was 52 at the time. Sri Aurobindo had renamed her Nishtha.
“Your Essays on the Gita have been a source of help and inspiration to me ever since the summer of I932, when I first discovered them. Now I am writing to you to ask you humbly for direct help and inspiration,” she had written.
Margaret had two younger siblings, Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre and Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, with whom she maintained correspondence with after moving to India.
She died in February 1944 and was buried in a cemetery at Puducherry. Her tombstone bore both her names — Nishtha and Margaret Woodrow Wilson.
A spiritual journey in India
Margaret arrived in Puducherry in April 1938. But for years before, she had already begun learning the teachings of Sri Aurobindo.
“I have heard that when the pupil is ready, the Master is there. I do not know whether or not I am ready or whether I am capable of following your directions but I implore you dear Master to show me the way, and I shall try to follow it without fear because I know that you are only the representative of my own higher Consciousness of which I am now unaware. If my longing for liberation is not as deep and since as I think it is please make it deeper, dear Master, for even though it tortures me at times I do not want to lose it until it. I am told that you have disciples who do not live in your sasram. Do you take disciples in America? If at any time you bid me to leave all and come to your sasram to live I shall do so God helping me,” one of her letters read.
The letters are available at The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum.
Margaret would later ask her nephew Francis B. Sayre Jr to help her get a passport made for as long a time as “they ever make them”.
Once in Puducherry, Margaret started writing letters to her family about her spiritual growth through yoga.
“I have started on what is called here the Path- that is the practise of certain mental disciplines called Yogic whose object is Yoga or Union with the Divine or God,” she wrote in her letter to her nephew Francis.
In another letter to her sister Eleanor, Margaret wrote, “I want to tell you my name here now that you will not mind my not being called by the name you love. My name is Nishtha- it was given to me by the beloved Teacher and Seer whom we adore here- In his words it means- One-pointed fixed and steady concentration, devotion and faith in the single aim- The Divine and the Divine Realisation.”
Margaret developed kidney problems but refused to return to the US for treatment. She died on 12 February 1944, suffering from uremia.