Sucheta Kripalani (''
née
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
'' Majumdar; 25 June 1908 – 1 December 1974) was an Indian
freedom fighter
A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...
and politician. She was India's first female
Chief Minister
A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...
, serving as the head 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 ...
government from 1963 to 1967.
Early life
She was born in
Ambala
Ambala () is a city and a municipal corporation in Ambala district in the state of Haryana, India, located on the border with the Indian state of Punjab and in proximity to both states capital Chandigarh. Politically, Ambala has two sub-are ...
,
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 ...
(now in
Haryana
Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...
) into a Bengali
Brahmo
Bengali Brahmos are those who adhere to Brahmoism, the philosophy of Brahmo Samaj which was founded by Raja Rammohan Roy. A recent publication describes the disproportionate influence of Brahmos on India's development post-19th Century as unpa ...
family. Her father Surendranath Majumdar, worked as a
medical officer
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
, a job that required many transfers. As a result, she attended a number of
schools
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsor ...
, her final
degree
Degree may refer to:
As a unit of measurement
* Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement
** Degree of geographical latitude
** Degree of geographical longitude
* Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathematics
...
is a Master’s in
History
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
from
St. Stephen’s College,
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
.
This was a time when the country’s
atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
was charged with
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
sentiments and the
freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
struggle was gaining momentum.
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. Sucheta recounts how, as a 10-year-old, she and her siblings had heard their father and his friends talk about the
Jallianwala Bagh
Jallianwala Bagh is a historic Bāgh (garden), garden and ‘memorial of national importance’ close to the Harmandir Sahib, Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab, India, Punjab, India, preserved in the memory of those wounded and killed in ...
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.
Both Sucheta and her
sister
A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a family, familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...
Sulekha were desperate to join India’s burgeoning
Independence movement
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
. There is one particularly fascinating incident which Sucheta narrates in her book. After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
had visited Delhi.
Girl
A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a ''woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary.c ...
s 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.
Later, while a student of
Kinnaird College
The Kinnaird College for Women (KCW) is a university located in Lahore, Pakistan. It is a women's liberal arts university.
Kinnaird was established in 1913 by the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. In 1919, Presbyterian Mission Church and the C ...
in Lahore, her
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
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 Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...
. The teacher never referred to Hinduism in class ever again!
She studied at
Indraprastha College
Indraprastha College for Women, also known as Indraprastha College or IP College ( hi, इंद्रप्रस्थ महिला महाविद्यालय), is the oldest women's college in Delhi. Established in 1924, it is a con ...
and
Punjab University before becoming a Professor of Constitutional History at
Banaras Hindu University
Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a collegiate, central, and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and founded in 1916 ...
.
In 1936, she married
J. B. Kripalani, a prominent figure 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 Em ...
, who was twenty years her senior. The marriage was opposed by both families, as well as by
Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
himself, although he eventually relented.
Freedom movement and independence
Like her contemporaries
Aruna Asaf Ali and
Usha Mehta
Usha Mehta (25 March 1920 – 11 August 2000) was a Gandhian and freedom fighter of India. She is also remembered for organizing the Congress Radio, also called the ''Secret Congress Radio'', an underground radio station, which functioned for f ...
, she came to the forefront during the
Quit India Movement
The Quit India Movement, also known as the August Kranti Movement, was a movement launched at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee by Mahatma Gandhi on 8th August 1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British rule in ...
and was arrested by British . She later worked closely with
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
during the
Partition
Partition may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive
* Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job
Software
* Partition (database), the division of a ...
riots. She accompanied him to
Noakhali
Noakhali ( bn, নোয়াখালী, , New canal), historically known as Bhulua ( bn, ভুলুয়া), is a district in southeastern Bangladesh, located in the Chittagong Division. It was established as district in 1821, and officia ...
in 1946.
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
The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...
. She became a part of the subcommittee that laid down the charter for the constitution of India. On 14 August 1947, she sang ''
Vande Mataram
''Vande Mataram'' (Sanskrit: वन्दे मातरम् IAST: , also spelt ''Bande Mataram''; বন্দে মাতরম্, ''Bônde Mātôrôm''; ) is a poem written in sanskritised Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in th ...
'' in the Independence Session of the Constituent Assembly a few minutes before
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 ...
delivered his famous "
Tryst with Destiny" speech. She was also the founder of the All India Mahilla Congress, established in 1940.
After independence
![Ulla Lindstrom, Sucheta Kripalani, Barbara Castle, Cairine Wilson, Eleanor Roosevelt (1949)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Ulla_Lindstrom%2C_Sucheta_Kripalani%2C_Barbara_Castle%2C_Cairine_Wilson%2C_Eleanor_Roosevelt_%281949%29.jpg)
After independence, she remained involved with politics. For the
first Lok Sabha
The First Lok Sabha was constituted on 17 April 1952 after India's first general election. The 1st Lok Sabha lasted its full tenure of five years and was dissolved on 4 April 1957. The First Session of this Lok Sabha commenced on 13 May 1952.
...
elections in 1952, she contested from
New Delhi
New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
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
Manmohini Sahgal (née Zutshi, 1909–1994) was an Indian freedom fighter and politician. She was a member of the Nehru–Gandhi family.
Biography
Her father was a nephew to Motilal Nehru, and she was therefore Jawaharlal Nehru's first cousin ...
. Five years later, she was reelected from the same constituency, but this time as the Congress candidate.
She was elected one last time to the Lok Sabha in 1967, from
Gonda constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
[
Meanwhile, she had also become a member of the ]Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly
The Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly (Hindi: ''Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha'') is the lower house of the bicameral legislature of Uttar Pradesh. There are 403 seats in the house filled by direct election using a single-member first-past-the- ...
. From 1960 to 1963, she served as Minister of Labour, Community Development and Industry in the UP government.[ In October 1963, she became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the ]first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
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. 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
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kripalani, Sucheta
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
India MPs 1952–1957
India MPs 1957–1962
India MPs 1967–1970
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