PRINCESS OF HEARTS
RAJKUMARI AMRIT KAUR (1889—1964) India’s first health minister and ceaseless advocate of the women’s cause
When she died in 1964, a few months before her friend Jawaharlal Nehru, The New York Times called her “a princess in her nation’s service”. Indeed, daughter of Harnam Singh, son of the erstwhile Maharaja of Kapurthala who lost his claim to the throne because he married a Presbyterian, she was educated at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset, England, but gave it all up to become Mahatma Gandhi’s secretary for 16 years. Her list of accomplishments is a tribute to her skills at building institutions and collaborations. Founder of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which she argued should remain autonomous; leading campaigner for women’s right to vote; sports enthusiast; she was one of the great women thrown up by the freedom movement.
She was a firm believer in women’s education, their participation in sport (she was a tennis enthusiast who had to negotiate with Gandhi for an hour of spinning in exchange for an hour of tennis) and their healthcare. She set up the Tuberculosis Association of India, the Central Leprosy and Research Institute, was vice chair of the board of governors of the League of Red Cross Societies and chair of executive committee of St John’s Ambulance Society. India’s first health minister was also founding member of All India Women’s Conference and instrumental in setting up the National Institute of Sports in Patiala. She was a team leader, able to raise money from countries as diverse as New Zealand and Sweden for AIIMS.
Many of the wars fought by western women with bruised knees and scuffed elbows on the streets of London and New York were argued forcefully and peaceably by women like Amrit Kaur, whether it is birth control or the right to vote. Amrit Kaur’s causes were many but her devotion to them was not superficial. As much at ease on the world stage representing India as at Gandhi’s ashram taking copious notes, she was one among Independent India’s early powerhouses on whose elegant shoulders we now stand.