Kamla Chaudhry (1908–1970) was an Indian short story writer in

Hindi language Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

and Jagadeesh Kumar a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

from

Hapur Hapur is a city in, as well as the headquarters of, Hapur district, in Uttar Pradesh, India. Located about east of New Delhi, the city is part of the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR). National Highway 9 passes through the city, connecting i ...

in the

3rd Lok Sabha List of Members of the 3rd Lok Sabha, (2 April 1962 – 3 March 1967) elected February–March 1962. The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the lower house in the Parliament of India. The election was held for 494 seats out of which Indian nati ...

Early life

Kamla Chaudhry was born on 22 February 1908 in

Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...

. Her father Rai Manmohan Dayal was a deputy collector. Her maternal great grandfather was the commander of Independent Awadh forces at Lucknow in 1857 First War of Independence.

Career

During the 1930

Civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...

movement, Chaudhry joined the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

. Since then she was actively involved in the

Indian Independence Movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

and was imprisoned by the British authorities multiple times. She acted as the Senior Vice-chairperson during the 54th session of the

All India Congress Committee The All India Congress Committee (AICC) is the presidium or the central decision-making assembly of the Indian National Congress. It is composed of members elected from state-level Pradesh Congress Committees and can have as many as a thousan ...

. She was an elected member of the

Constituent Assembly of India The Constituent Assembly of India was elected to frame the Constitution of India. It was elected by the 'Provincial Assembly'. Following India's independence from the British rule in 1947, its members served as the nation's first Parliament as ...

and after the constitution was adopted she served as a member of the Provincial Government of India till 1952. She was also a member of the

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

State Social Welfare Advisory Board. In 1962, Chaudhry became a member of the

after winning the

1962 Indian general election General elections were held in India between 19 and 25 February 1962 to elect members of the 3rd Lok Sabha. Unlike the previous two elections, each constituency elected a single member. Jawaharlal Nehru won another landslide victory in his th ...

from

as an official candidate of the INC. She defeated her nearest rival by a margin of 28,633 votes. Four collections of her stories; ''Unmaad'' (1934), ''Picnic'' (1936), ''Yatra'' (1947) and ''Bel Patra'' were published. Gender discrimination, exploitation of peasants and poor condition of widows were main themes in her works.

Personal life

She married J.M. Chaudhry in February 1922. Her father in law was one of founders of Swarajya Party. She had several children including Writer and Author Dr. Ira Saxena as well as Late Madhavendra Mohan and Dr. Hemendra Mohan Chaudhry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chaudhry, Kamla 1908 births India MPs 1962–1967 Women members of the Lok Sabha Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh Writers from Lucknow Indian National Congress politicians from Uttar Pradesh Women writers from Uttar Pradesh Writers in British India 20th-century Indian short story writers Hindi-language writers Indian independence activists from Uttar Pradesh Members of the Constituent Assembly of India Year of death missing People from Hapur district Politicians from Lucknow 20th-century Indian women writers Indian women short story writers