Bharathi is known prominently in Tamil Nadu not only for his patriotic songs but also for his fearless expressions on issues of jati and women’s liberation. Again, his inspiration here came from the Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda lineage. He had met Sister Nivedita, the Irish disciple of Swami Vivekananda at Calcutta when he was returning from the Indian National Congress session of 1905. This meeting was a profound and life-changing experience for him. His wife, Chellamma, felt this change in Bharathi firsthand and had described it in detail in her biography of her husband. The granddaughter of Bharathi writes about this transformation:

“Sister Nivedita asked Bharati why he had not brought his wife to the Congress and he apparently answered, “We do not usually bring our wives to meetings; moreover, of what use would it have been to bring her to the Indian Congress”? Nivedita explained to Bharati the greatness of women and the importance of recognizing that women are free beings, like men, and that woman should be treated as the equal of man. At that very moment, Bharati’s vision of a “New Woman” (pudumai penn) was born in his poet’s heart. And who else could this new woman be, but his own wife, the embodiment and personification of his pudumai penn? In this sense, Chellamma became Bharati’s goddess. Chellamma was immediately aware of the profound change that had happened in Bharati. (Source)“

Interestingly prior to this life-changing event, Bharathi, who is today the face of women’s liberation in Tamil Nadu, had even castigated women who were advocating women suffrage in Western countries, points out eminent Tamil writer Dr Lakshmi Subramaniam (Ambai). To this day, it is the imagery of Bharathi’s pudumai penn or new woman which every Tamil-learning child internalises as the self-image for a liberated life journey. Traditional social stagnation and patriarchy had made as feminine virtues an innate fear and shyness. Bharathi sang:

Dogs need to be shy and ever docile;

Intelligence, virtue, Independence so brave

are the virtues women of class nurture.