Besant Theosophical Higher Secondary School founded in 1939 by the visionary educationist and educator Dr. Annie Besant and nurtured and strengthened by Besant Education Fellowship (B.E.F) of the Theosophical society, Indian section. The school is a pioneering institution transforming and revolutionizing education in India. In the series of many famous philosophers, Dr. Annie Wood Besant who assimilated and accommodated the Indian culture totally in herself was one of them. She was greatly influenced by the Indian culture and religion and she acquired it thereby sharing the common problems which the Indians faced. She took an oath to preserve India's spirituality, religion, philosophy and culture. Keeping this oath in mind, she initiated the establishment of many educational institution in Varanasi and all over India.
Her vision was to make the religion a unifying force not a separative, to make religion a builder of morality.
Mrs. Besant, like a true Indian, wanted to redress the problem of the Indians by inculcating patriotic feelings and esteem among the masses for their country.
“All religions are, but the branches of the same one tree. They are like different gems of one necklace, and the more the variety of jewels richer is the necklace.” She held that religion alone teaches man to feel unity with his fellows and encourages him to sacrifice the smaller to the larger self. This spirit of self-sacrifice among masses would bind them into a nation and eventually into universal brotherhood.
In this frame of reference, she placed India in a very special role as it is here where all great religions exist side by side.
Therefore, she emphasised the reviving of the lost traditions of Vedas, Puranas and of other religious spirits of India. She also very rightly put up, that unless the people developed the right qualities and temperament required for nation building, it would be difficult to serve the coming independence to India.
Dr. Besant wanted Indians to be proud of India, to realize their rich heritage and the glorious past. She did not wanted Indians to underestimate themselves and their sentiments. Perhaps It, was her ideal of Indo-British harmony that raised doubts against her unceasing love and respect for India. Her enormous labour towards India's freedom was undermined because of the mis-representation, that afterall she was a foreigner and spokesman of the British Empire.
It is indeed a difficult task to delimit Dr. Besant's role in stirring up the political consciousness in India because her's was a multifaceted contribution in preparing the ground which set the ball rolling for political freedom of India through constitutional means. However, her role in helping the Indians acquire self-knowledge, self-respect and self-government cannot be undermined.
Very judiciously Mrs. Sarojini Naidu assessed her services "... if Annie Besant had not been Gandhiji couldn't be."