MOST OF OUR WOMEN POLITICIANS ARE SECOND OR THIRDGENERATION LEADERS. BUT THERE ARE SOME WHO BLAZED A TRAIL AND SHOWED WHAT WAS POSSIBLE WHEN COURAGE AND AMBITION MET DEMOCRACY.
She was referred to as the ‘first woman in a man’s world’.
The first woman
Prime Minister of
India (1966 – 77; 1980 –
84), Indira Gandhi, was a bundle of contradictions. Elegant and graceful, she was rumoured to never forget or forgive a grudge. The only PM of India to have used the Emergency to retain absolute power. She went from being compared to the Goddess Durga during the war for the freedom of Bangladesh, to being vilified during the Emergency.
She was 12 when she began her service for the nation, forming a Vanar Sena, inspired by the Ramayana, to participate in the freedom struggle, helping the Congress party make flags, convey messages and put up notices. From there to a legacy of once having been the greatest threat to Indian democracy, she truly was a riddle wrapped in an enigma.
Most of our women politicians are second- or third-generation leaders. But there have been some who have blazed a trail and shown what’s possible when courage and ambition meet democracy. Sarojini Naidu, a freedom fighter and poet, was the first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1953, and the first woman governor of an Indian state. She also, in 1929, presided over the East-african Indian Congress in South Africa and was awarded the Kaisar-i-hind Medal by the British government for her work during the plague epidemic in India.
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, a diplomat and the sister of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet post in pre-independence India. Pandit was 16 when she attended her first political gathering, one arranged by her cousin, Rameshwari Nehru, to protest the inhumane treatment of Indian labourers in South Africa.
Sucheta Kripalani, India’s first woman chief minister, served as the head of the Uttar Pradesh government from 1963 to 1967. She was founder of the Congress’ women’s wing in 1940 and is remembered as a fearless leader with nerves of steel. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, a Gandhian and freedom fighter, was the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet rank after 1947 and was India’s first health minister. She helped frame our Constitution and when she passed away in 1964, the New York Times called her “a princess in her nation’s service”. She was Mahatma Gandhi’s secretary for 16 years, helped found the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, which she argued should remain autonomous), and a leading campaigner for women’s right to vote.
Our first woman president, Pratibha Patil, served between 2007 and 2012. She started as a lawyer, before moving on to a successful political career.
Meira Kumar, the first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha, may have lost the 2017 presidential election to Ram Nath Kovind. But she still ended up setting a record for obtaining the most number of electoral votes by a losing candidate (3,67,314).