Sucheta Kripalani
Sucheta Kripalani | |
---|---|
File:Sucheta Kriplani.jpg | |
4th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh | |
In office 2 October 1963 – 13 March 1967 | |
Preceded by | Chandra Bhanu Gupta |
Succeeded by | Chandra Bhanu Gupta |
Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) | |
In office 1967–1971 | |
Preceded by | N. Dandekar |
Succeeded by | Anand Singh |
Constituency | Gonda |
MLA in Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh | |
In office 1962–1967 | |
Succeeded by | Chandra Sekhar Singh |
Constituency | Menhdawal |
Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) | |
In office 1951–1961 | |
Preceded by | constituency established |
Succeeded by | Balraj Madhok |
Constituency | New Delhi |
Member of Constituent Assembly of India | |
In office 9 December 1946 – 24 January 1950 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Ambala, Punjab, British India (present-day Haryana, India) | 25 June 1908
Died | 1 December 1974 New Delhi, India | (aged 66)
Political party | INC |
Spouse | J. B. Kripalani[1] |
Alma mater | University of Delhi |
Sucheta Kripalani (née Majumdar; 25 June 1908[2] – 1 December 1974[3][4]) was an Indian freedom fighter and politician. She was India's first female Chief Minister, serving as the head of the Uttar Pradesh government from 1963 to 1967.
Early life
She was born in Ambala, Punjab (now in Haryana) into a Bengali Brahmo family.[citation needed] Her father Surendranath Majumdar, worked as a medical officer, a job that required many transfers. As a result, she attended a number of schools, her final degree is a Master’s in History from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.[citation needed]
This was a time when the country’s atmosphere was charged with nationalist sentiments and the freedom struggle was gaining momentum.[citation needed]
She was a shy child, self-conscious about her appearance and intellect, as she points out in her book, An Unfinished Autobiography. It was the age she grew up in and the situations she faced that shaped her personality.[citation needed] Sucheta recounts how, as a 10-year-old, she and her siblings had heard their father and his friends talk about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. It left them so outraged that they vented their anger on some of the Anglo-Indian children they played with, by calling them names.[citation needed]
Both Sucheta and her sister Sulekha were desperate to join India’s burgeoning Independence movement. There is one particularly fascinating incident which Sucheta narrates in her book. After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the Prince of Wales had visited Delhi. Girls from her school were taken to stand near the Kudsia Garden to honour the Prince of Wales. Despite wanting to refuse, both the sisters couldn't, and that left them bitterly outraged at their apparent cowardice.
“This did not absolve our conscience from feeling shame. We both felt very small of our cowardice,” she writes.[5]
Later, while a student of Kinnaird College in Lahore, her Bible class teacher had said some disparaging things about Hinduism. Furious, Sucheta and her sister went home and asked their father to help them out. He coached them on some religious teachings and, the next day, the girls confronted their teacher with quotes from the Bhagavad Gita. The teacher never referred to Hinduism in class ever again! [6]
She studied at Indraprastha College[7] and Punjab University before becoming a Professor of Constitutional History at Banaras Hindu University.[8] In 1936, she married J. B. Kripalani, a prominent figure of the Indian National Congress, who was twenty years her senior. The marriage was opposed by both families, as well as by Gandhi himself, although he eventually relented.[9]
Freedom movement and independence
Like her contemporaries Aruna Asaf Ali and Usha Mehta, she came to the forefront during the Quit India Movement and was arrested by British . She later worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi during the Partition riots. She accompanied him to Noakhali in 1946.[citation needed]
She was one of the few women who were elected to the Constituent Assembly of India. She was elected as the first woman CM of state of Uttar Pradesh from the Kanpur constituency and was part of the subcommittee that drafted the Indian Constitution. She became a part of the subcommittee that laid down the charter for the constitution of India.[citation needed] On 14 August 1947, she sang Vande Mataram in the Independence Session of the Constituent Assembly a few minutes before Nehru delivered his famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech.[10] She was also the founder of the All India Mahilla Congress, established in 1940.
Post-independence
After independence, she remained involved with politics.[citation needed] For the first Lok Sabha elections in 1952, she contested from New Delhi on a KMPP ticket: she had joined the short-lived party founded by her husband the year before. She defeated the Congress candidate Manmohini Sahgal. Five years later, she was reelected from the same constituency, but this time as the Congress candidate.[11] She was elected one last time to the Lok Sabha in 1967, from Gonda constituency in Uttar Pradesh.[8]
Meanwhile, she had also become a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. From 1960 to 1963, she served as Minister of Labour, Community Development and Industry in the UP government.[8] In October 1963, she became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the first woman to hold that position in any Indian state. The highlight of her tenure was the firm handling of a state employees strike. This first-ever strike by the state employees continued for 62 days. She relented only when the employees' leaders agreed to compromise. Kripalani kept her reputation as a firm administrator by refusing their demand for a pay hike.
When Congress split in 1969, she left the party with Morarji Desai faction to form NCO.[citation needed] She lost 1971 election as NCO candidate from Faizabad (Lok Sabha constituency). She retired from politics in 1971 and remained in seclusion till her death in 1974.
References
- ^ "Sucheta Kripalani: Biography: Sucheta Mazumdar: Famous Sindhi Woman: Politician: Acharya Kripalani | The Sindhu World". thesindhuworld.com. Archived from the original on 1 March 2018. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
- ^ S K Sharma (2004), Eminent Indian Freedom Fighters, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD., p. 560, ISBN 978-81-261-1890-8
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2008.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Indian Coast Guard". Archived from the original on 2 May 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
- ^ "Meet India's First Woman CM". The Better India. 18 April 2018.
- ^ "Sucheta Kriplani & the Fight for Freedom". Live History India. Archived from the original on 3 December 2019. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
- ^ "Vital statistics of colleges that figure among India's top rankers". India Today. 21 May 2001. Archived from the original on 7 August 2016. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
- ^ a b c "Kripalani, Shrimati Sucheta". Lok Sabha. Archived from the original on 25 December 2018. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
- ^ Usha Thakkar, Jayshree Mehta (2011). Understanding Gandhi: Gandhians in Conversation with Fred J Blum. SAGE Publications. pp. 409–410. ISBN 978-81-321-0557-2.
- ^ "Constituent Assembly of India - Volume-V". Parliament of India. 14 August 1947. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
- ^ David Gilmartin (2014). "Chapter 5: The paradox of patronage and the people's sovereignty". In Anastasia Pivliavsky (ed.). Patronage as Politics in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-1-107-05608-4.
- 1908 births
- 1974 deaths
- Indian independence activists
- Quit India Movement
- Brahmos
- Bengali politicians
- People from Ambala
- People from Kanpur
- Indian National Congress politicians from Uttar Pradesh
- Indraprastha College for Women alumni
- Delhi University alumni
- Women chief ministers of Indian states
- Indian rebels
- Indian women in war
- Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh
- Members of the Constituent Assembly of India
- 1st Lok Sabha members
- 2nd Lok Sabha members
- 4th Lok Sabha members
- Uttar Pradesh MLAs 1962–1967
- Gandhians
- Women in Delhi politics
- Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
- Lok Sabha members from Delhi
- Women in war 1900–1945
- Women in Uttar Pradesh politics
- Chief ministers from Indian National Congress
- Indian people of World War II
- Indian women of World War II
- Women in Haryana politics
- 20th-century Indian women politicians
- 20th-century Indian politicians
- Women Indian independence activists
- Women members of the Lok Sabha
- People from Gonda district
- Women members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly
- Prisoners and detainees of British India
- Indian National Congress (Organisation) politicians
- Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party politicians