Sheila Kaul (7 February 1915 – 13 June 2015) was a social democratic leader of 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 E ...

, a politician, cabinet minister and

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

, and the oldest living former

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 o ...

in India at the time of her death. She was also an educator, social worker, and

social reformer A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary move ...

in the Indian state of

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 ...

, and an independence activist in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. She was

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

's sister-in-law and

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...

's maternal aunt.

Personal life

Sheila Kaul was born in 1915. She had a degree in arts from the

Lahore College for Women The Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) ( ur, ) Is a public university in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Founded in 1922 with a capacity of 60 students, it now has a full-time enrollment of about 15,000 students and admits students at Intermed ...

and a degree in teaching from the Sir Ganga Ram Training College,

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

. She was a state

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

champion in undivided

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

, British India. She was married to

Kailas Nath Kaul Kailas Nath Kaul (1905–1983) was an Indian botanist, naturalist, agricultural scientist, horticulturist, herbalist, plant collector and herpetologist, and a world authority on Arecaceae. He founded India's National Botanical Research Institut ...

, brother of

Kamala Nehru Kamala Nehru (''née'' Kaul; ; 1 August 1899 – 28 February 1936) was an Indian independence activist and the wife of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. Her daughter Indira Gandhi was the first female Prime Minister of India ...

and a renowned

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

who established the

National Botanical Research Institute The National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) is a research institute of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) located in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is engaged in the field of taxonomy and modern biology. History Ori ...

in Lucknow, India. Gautam Kaul, a former Director General of the

Indo-Tibetan Border Police The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is a border patrol organization of India deployed along its borders with Tibet Autonomous Region. It is one of the seven Central Armed Police Forces, established in 1962 in the aftermath of the Sino-Indian ...

and film critic, and Vikram Kaul, an international sports administrator, are their sons. Deepa Kaul, a social worker and former Congress minister, is their daughter. Jawaharlal Nehru was Sheila Kaul's brother-in-law,

was her niece, and

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to beco ...

was her grandnephew.

Prem Adib Prem Adib (10 August 1917 – 25 December 1959) was an Indian actor. He was acclaimed as one of the top Bollywood actors of the 1940s, along with the likes of Pahari Sanyal, Ashok Kumar, P. C. Barua and Master Vinayak. Adib is best remembered f ...

, a 1940s

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

superstar, was her brother-in-law.

Political career

Sheila Kaul was Corporator of the

Lucknow Municipal Corporation Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) is a local government for Lucknow, the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is responsible for the civic infrastructure and administration in the city of Lucknow, in short it ...

during 1959–65, and a member of the

Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council The Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council (Hindi: ''Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Parishad'') is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of Uttar Pradesh, a state in India. Uttar Pradesh is one of the six states in India, where the state legislature is ...

during 1968–71. She was elected as Member of Parliament five times – in 1971, 1980 and 1984 from Lucknow, and in 1989 and 1991 from

Rae Bareli Raebareli is a city in Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of Raebareli district and a part of Lucknow Division. The city is situated on the banks of the Sai river, southeast of Lucknow. It possesses many a ...

. She served as a Minister in the

Cabinet of India The Union Council of Ministers Article 58 of the ''Constitution of India'' is the principal executive organ of the Government of India, which is responsible for being the senior decision making body of the executive branch. It is chaired by t ...

during 1980–84 and 1991–95, and as the Governor of

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

during 1995–96. Kaul led the Indian delegations to the International Women's Congress, Berlin in 1975, the International Conference of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, Copenhagen in 1980, the International Conference on the Role of Culture for Development of Man and Society, Sofia in 1980, the Sessions of General Conference of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

, Paris in 1982 and 1983, the First Conference of Ministers of Education and Culture of the Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries, Pyongyang in 1983, the International Conference on Education, Geneva in 1984, the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

in 1985 and 1987, and the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

in 1990. She became General Secretary 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 ...

in 1988. Kaul introduced in the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameralism, bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the R ...

The Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Bill, 1991, which was enacted in 1992. She also moved in Parliament the AMU (Amendment) Bill, 1981, which was enacted in the same year. While in Parliament, she served as a member of the Committee on Public Undertakings (1980–84), Committee on Privileges (1980–84), Joint Committee on Taxation (Amendment) Bill (1980–84), Consultative Committee, Ministry of Civil Aviation (1990), and Subject Committee on Science and Technology (1990). A chargesheet based on a case of 1996 accused the former Union Urban Development Minister of entering into a conspiracy with her two personal staff members and over forty other individuals for ''allegedly'' renting out government shops for a consideration. The CBI, however, did not seize any assets disproportionate to her income, implying that there was no evidence of corruption. Without holding a trial or providing Kaul with an opportunity to defend herself, http://www.docstoc.com/docs/47549596/JUDICIAL-ACTIVISM-Justice-Mr-V-G-Palshikar-(Retd) the Supreme Court of India in 1996 imposed an exemplary fine of ₹ 6 million on Kaul for having nepotistically rented out 52 shops and kiosks under the discretionary quota. In 2002, the fine was quashed by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court of India in response to a review petition filed by Kaul. Kaul, the accused, had been deprived of her right to a trial in a Sessions Court, and also the right to file an appeal against a conviction order, if any, before the High Court and ultimately before the Supreme Court. In 2013, the 99-year-old Kaul moved the Supreme Court of India, challenging the 2012 order of a CBI Special Judge that asked her to appear in court in an ambulance to respond to the charges of out-of-turn allotments against her. Kaul's counsel contended that she was incapable of giving rational answers or making a personal appearance due to her old age and ailments. They argued that the High Court had earlier dismissed Kaul's relief plea despite a medical board of the

All India Institute of Medical Sciences The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a group of autonomous government public medical universities of higher education under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare , Government of India. These institutes ha ...

reporting in 2012 that she had an "impaired" understanding of day-to-day events. In 2016, a year after Kaul's death, a special court awarded a two-year prison sentence to her former additional private secretary Rajan Lala, a retired government official, for his role in an allotment scam during her ministerial tenure. Sheila Kaul died on 13 June 2015, aged 100, in

Ghaziabad, India Ghaziabad () is a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and a part of Delhi NCR. It is the administrative headquarters of Ghaziabad district and is the largest city in western Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 1,729,000. Ghaziabad Muni ...

. Her death was condoled by the

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murmu ...

, who remembered her for her distinguished service to the nation: "Smt. Kaul was a distinguished Parliamentarian and able administrator who served the nation in various capacities. A multi-faceted personality, Smt. Kaul worked with distinction as member of the Union Council of Ministers and Governor of Himachal Pradesh. The nation will always remember her valuable contributions and pursuit of excellence in public life." Her death was also condoled by the

Positions held

*1971-77:

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 ...

5th Lok Sabha List of Members of the 5th Lok Sabha, ( 15 March 1971 — 18 January 1977) elected February–March 1971.The term of the House was extended two times by one year at a time. However, the House was dissolved after having been in existence for a ...

(Lucknow) *1980-84:

7th Lok Sabha List of Members of the 7th Lok Sabha, (18 January 1980 – 31 December 1984) elected December 1979 – January 1980. The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the lower house in the Parliament of India nine sitting members from Rajya Sabha were el ...

(Lucknow) *1980–84: Minister of State for Culture, Education and Social Welfare (Independent Charge); President, Indian National Commission for Cooperation with the

*1984-89:

8th Lok Sabha The 8th Lok Sabha ran from 31 December 1984 to 27 November 1989. Politicians were elected in December 1984, taking office by the end of the month. The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the lower house in the bicameral Parliament of India. 9 s ...

(Lucknow) *1989-91:

9th Lok Sabha List of Members of the 9th Lok Sabha (2 December 1989 – 13 March 1991) elections in 22–26 November 1989. The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the lower house in the Parliament of India. Twelve sitting members from Rajya Sabha were electe ...

(Rae Bareli) *1991-95:

10th Lok Sabha List of Members of the 10th Lok Sabha, (20 June 1991 – 10 May 1996) elected during 1991 Indian general election held during May–June 1991. The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the lower house in the Parliament of India, four sitting memb ...

(Rae Bareli) * 1991–95: Union Minister for Housing and Urban Development * 1995: Union Minister for Urban Affairs and Employment * 1995–96: Governor of Himachal Pradesh

Personal life

Political career

Positions held

See also

References

Further reading