The Women Leaders Of India

–Chinmoyee Deka 

Feminism and inspirational quotes are taking over the internet after Kamala Harris became the first colored, Asian-origin woman Vice President of the United States of America.

Let us take a few minutes to look back at the various women achievers of India, in the political arena. Here is a list of the various women who made themselves and all the women of the country proud by achieving heights that could only be dreamt of in many countries at the time. In some countries, it is still deemed impossible.

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi

Prime Minister is the highest position of power in India and Indira Gandhi was the first and till date the only female Prime Minister of the country. She held office from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984.

Born into a Kasmiri Pandit family in Allahabad, she was the only child and is said to have led a lonely childhood as her mother died young and her father stayed away. She could not complete her studies in the University of Oxford due to illness and was later conferred an honorary degree.

She began her political journey as an assistant to her father and was elected as the President of Indian National Congress in 1959. Following her father’s death in 1964 she became the Minister of Information and Broadcasting in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet. She won the election defeating Morarji Desai in 1966 because many political leaders thought she was a woman and hence, would be easier to control, a belief that was proved to be wrong pretty soon after.

By the end of 1977, she became such a powerful figure in Indian politics that Congress party president D. K. Barooah had coined the phrase “India is Indira and Indira is India.” She was so firm with her decisions that when not everyone in the party agreed with  her she just decided to move out of the party with her supporters by her side and also managed to retain power.

As the Prime Minister, she was known for her adamant nature and unprecedented centralisation of power. She went to war with Pakistan and East Pakistan, both of which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh. Then from 1975 to 1977, she instituted a state of emergency citing separatist tendencies as reasons. Basic civil rights were taken away and the press was censored during these years. In 1980, she returned to power. Gandhi ordered military action in the Golden Temple in Operation Blue Star because of which her own bodyguards and Sikh nationalists assassinated her on 31 October 1984.

In 1999, Indira Gandhi was named “Woman of the Millennium” in an online poll organised by the BBC and in 2020 she was among the world’s 100 most powerful women who defined the last century, announced by the Time magazine

Pratibha Devi Singh Patil served as the first female President of India from 2007 to 2012. Born in Jalgaon, Maharashtra she went on to pursue her Masters degree in Political Science and Economics from Pune University. She later acquired a degree in Law as well and practiced in Jalgaon District Court. She held many other positions, such as the Director of the National Federation of Urban Co-operative Banks and Credit Societies and Member of the Governing Council of the National Cooperative Union of India. In 2004, she was appointed as the 24th Governor of Rajasthan.

Usually, the selection of a presidential candidate is always by consensus and the candidate runs unopposed but Patil faced a challenge in Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the vice-president and a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran. Shekhawat stood as an independent candidate and was supported by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Patil won the election held on 19 July 2007 and garnered nearly two-thirds of the votes.

Apart from politics, Patil was also interested in businesses. She had set up Vidya Bharati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, that includes a chain of schools and colleges in Amravati, Jalgaon, Pune and Mumbai. Shram Sadhana Trust, which runs hostels for working women in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune; and an engineering college for rural students in Jalgaon district are also set up by her. She also co-founded a cooperative sugar factory known as Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana at Muktainagar and a cooperative bank named Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank that ceased trading in February 2003 when its licence was cancelled by the Reserve Bank of India.

India has had 16 female Chief Ministers so far, with the earliest dating way back to 1963.

1. Sucheta Kripalini, a member of INC, held office from 1963 to 1967 as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

With a Master’s degree in History from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi she later on became one of the frontrunners of the Quit India Movement. Born in Ambala, Punjab she had closely witnessed the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and was devoted to the Nationalist Movement. She worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi who described her as ” a person of rare courage and character who brought credit to Indian womanhood”.

She was also a part of the subcommittee which was involved in the drafting of the Constitution. She continued her political journey even after independence until 1971.

2. Nandini Satpathy, also a member of INC, commenced office as the Chief Minister of Odisha from 1972 to 1976.

She exhibited great courage as a child. At the age of eight in the year 1939 she had been mercilessly beaten up by British Police for pulling down the Union Jack as well as for pasting handwritten anti British Raj posters on the walls of Cuttack. While pursuing her Masters in Odia at Ravenshaw College, she became a part of the Communist Party’s student wing, the Student Federation. In 1951, a student protest movement began in Odisha against rising college education costs which later turned into a national youth movement. She led this movement where police lathi charged the protestors and Satpathy was severely injured and jailed, along with many others. In the jail she met Devendra Satpathy, another Student Federation member, the man whom she later married.

She was also a writer in the Odia language and her work has been translated and published in a number of other languages. She received the 1998 Sahitya Bharati Samman Award for her contributions to Oriya literature and her last major literary work was translating Taslima Nasreen‘s Lajja to Oriya.

3. Shashikala Kakodkar, a member of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party served as the Chief Minister of Goa from 1973 to 1979. She was engaged in social work after completing her Masters from Mumbai’s Elphinstone College, and was a member of the Youth Red Cross Society, All India Women’s Conference and the Central Social Welfare Board.

In 2006, she participated in the Marathi Bachao Aandolan movement during the tenure of Luizinho Faleiro as Goa’s Education Minister against making English a compulsory language at the primary level. Kakodkar was also the convener of the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch which subsequently became the Goa Suraksha Manch.

4. Anwara Taimur from INC served as the CM of Assam from 6 December 1980 to 30 June 1981. A graduate in Economics from the Aligarh Muslim University she went on to work as a lecturer in Economics in Debicharan Barua Girls College, Jorhat in 1956. She only served for 206 days because appointing her was a strategic move by the INC to ensure that the Muslim immmigrant vote bank in the state was satisfied. Her term came right after the end of the President’s Rule in the state which was imposed due to the then active agitations. This move did not work in favour of the INC and Anwara had to step down soon. She also served as the State Education Minister, State PWD MInister and State Agriculture MInister.
5. N. Janaki Ramachandran from All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 7 January 1988 – 30 January 1988. This 24 day government is the shortest in Tamil Nadu till date.

She was an actress who went on to become the CM against her wish, after her husband Ramachandran died during his tenure as the CM. She also took the lead of AIADMK but under her, the party broke into three factions.

6. Jayalalithaa of AIADMK held office in Tamil Nadu for 5238 days from 1991 to 2006, sporadically.

She was a talented actress with over 140 films under her belt and trained in multiple dance forms and music. Apart from these qualities what made her a star in the political arena was her incredible diction. Her speeches were lauded by all and her command over English made her stand out. After Ramachandran’s death, the majority of AIADMK wanted her as the political heir. Throughout her career she went through many controversies but she kept getting elected right until her 6th term as the CM of Tamil  Nadu.

7. Mayawati served as the second woman CM of Uttar Pradesh from 1995 to 2012 in irregular intervals, as a member of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Apart from being looked down upon because of her gender, she had the additional disadvantage of belonging to a scheduled caste. But this acted in her favour beacuse dalit women around the state began seeing themselves in her her and referred to her as Behenji.

She completed her Bachelor’s from Delhi University and later obtained her LLB from the same. She also obtained a B.Ed. from Meerut University‘s VMLG College, Ghaziabad and went on to work as a teacher while preparing for Indian Administrative Services exams. This was when Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other backward castes politician Kanshi Ram visited her family home in 1977 to convince her to join his party, Bahujan Samaj Party.

From then on she never looked back. She had a career filled with controversies as well but the dalits praised her for her and her parties’ successful efforts to raise funds for the backward. Her rise from humble beginnings has been called a “miracle of democracy” by P. V. Narasimha Rao, the former Prime Minister of India.

8. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal from INC became the CM of Punjab for a short term of 83 days from 21 November 1996 to 12 February 1997 following the resignation of Harcharan Singh Brar. She was the State Education Minister too.

9. Rabri Devi from Rashtriya Janata Dal took charge as the Bihar CM from 1997 to 2005. She served three terms.

A Chief Minister by accident, she had to commence office because her husband and then CM, Lalu Prasad Yadav had to resign from his position as he was accused of corruption. Her appointment was severely criticised because not only did she not have any interest in politics but she was also illiterate.

10. Sushma Swaraj, the first woman CM from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) commenced office in Delhi from 13 October 1998, but she later resigned just after 51 days.

She served as the Minister of Health, Family Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs from January 2003 until May 2004. As Union Health Minister, she set up six All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Bhopal, Bhubaneshwa, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh. She became the Minister of External Affairs in the union cabinet on 26 May 2014 and was called India’s “best-loved politician” by the US daily Wall Street Journal. As External Affairs Minister, she played a pivotal role in bringing back the then 23-year-old hearing and speech-impaired Indian girl named Gita who was stranded in Pakistan for 15 years.

11. Sheila Dikshit of INC is the longest-serving Chief Minister of Delhi and the longest-serving female chief minister of India. She served for a period of 15 years from 1998. She had a Masters degree in History from Miranda House, New Delhi.
12. Uma Bharti from the BJP was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh between 2003 and 2004 and later had to resign because of her involvement with the 1994 Hubli riot case. Apart from this, her name has been involved in the Ram Janmabhoomi movements of 1980s and 1990s, and the demolition of Babri Masjid.
13. Vasundhara Raje, the two time Chief Minister of Rajasthan also belongs to BJP. She is the daughter of the Scindia royal Maratha family and later became the acting queen of Dholpur after marrying Maharaja Rana Hemant Singh.

She graduated in Economics and Political Science from the Mumbai University. In 2007, she received the “Women Together Award” by the UNO for services rendered towards self-empowerment of women. She too could not escape from charges of corruption when Rajasthan MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari (BJP) accused Vasundhara Raje’s government of corruption and BJP‘s central leadership of shielding her in 2018. Later that year Tiwari resigned in protest. In December 2018, the Supreme Court of India issued notice to Raje and her son Dushyant Singh in an alleged fraud land sale case.

14. Mamata Banerjee founded the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 1998 after separating from INC. She entered politics at the young age of 15 and has a Masters degree in Islamic History, a Law degree and a honorary Doctorate of Literature. Before she became the first woman to hold office as the CM of West Bengal in 2011 and the term after, she was also the first female Minister of Railways for two terms.
15. Anandiben Patel from the BJP was the CM of Gujarat between 2014 and 2016. She earned a Masters degree in Science and worked as a teacher.

Her entry into politics was dramatic. She was awarded the Bravery Award by the President for saving two girls from drowning in the Sardar Sarovar reservoir during a school picnic, after which she was persuaded to join BJP as the Gujarat Pradesh Mahila Morcha President in 1987.

She is noted for her contribution to limit the spread of bird flu in the Viramgam district, where she spent weeks helping locals and appealing to government officials to take stronger action. She resigned from the CM position because she was turning 75 and is currently serving as the Governor of Madhya Pradesh.

16. Mehbooba Mufti, the President of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) served as the last Chief MInister of J&K as a state. She formed a coalition government with BJP in 2016 and resigned in 2018 after BJP withdrew from the coalition.

All these women came from unconventional and challenging backgrounds and irrespective of how many days they served in office or why they were appointed, they went through a tougher journey as compared to most men in the same situation. Indira Gandhi, being the daughter of a former Prime MInister was undermined for being a woman.

Politics will always have ulterior motives and hidden agendas but the fact that these women made themselves capable of being chosen is commendable. In a country where women are still marginalised and discriminated at many levels, these women stand as examples that change will happen if desired and fought for. Also, having a woman in a higher position of power must be seen as an opportunity and such a government and leader must try to bring in permanent changes into the workings of the country so that the status of women could be uplifted and they could be brought on to the same pedestal alongside the men.

Kamala Harris being elected as the Vice President is a big deal because the entire world is impacted by what happens in the United States and such positive news from a powerful nation brings hope for the women of the entire world. A lot is expected from her and hopefully, many of these will be met.

Headline Pic: www.unwomen.org