Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit ('' née'' Swarup Nehru; 18 August 1900 – 1 December 1990) was an Indian diplomat and politician who was the 6th

Governor of Maharashtra The governor of Maharashtra is the ceremonial head of the state of Maharashtra. The Constitution of India confers the executive powers of the state to the governor, however the de facto executive powers lie with the Council of Ministers. Bhagat ...

from 1962 to 1964 and 8th President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1953 to 1954, the first woman appointed to either post. Hailing from a prominent political family, her brother

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 ...

was the first

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

independent India Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, her niece

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 ...

the first female Prime Minister of India and her grand-nephew Rajiv Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India. Despite her minimal education ( she was schooled entirely at home), Nehru showered her with diplomatic favours, sending Pandit to London as India's most important diplomat after serving as india's envoy to the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Nations. Her time in London offers insights into the wider context of changes in Indo–British relations. Her High-Commissionership was a microcosm of inter-governmental relations. Critics described her as a 'poisoned dwarf', both vicious and greedy, noting a voracious sexual appetite that extended to married Indian men.

Personal life

Vijaya Lakshmi's (born Swarup) father,

Motilal Nehru Motilal Nehru (6 May 1861 – 6 February 1931) was an Indian lawyer, activist and politician belonging to the Indian National Congress. He also served as the Congress President twice, 1919–1920 and 1928–1929. He was a patriarch of the Neh ...

(1861–1931), a wealthy barrister who belonged to the

Kashmiri Pandit The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region l ...

community, served twice as

President of the Indian National Congress The President of the Indian National Congress is the chief executive of the Indian National Congress (INC), one of the principal political parties in India. Constitutionally, the president is elected by an electoral college composed of members ...

during the Independence Struggle. Her mother, Swaruprani Thussu (1868–1938), who came from a well-known Kashmiri Pandit family settled in

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 ...

, was Motilal's second wife, the first having died in child birth. She was the second of three children; Jawaharlal was eleven years her senior (b. 1889), while her younger sister

Krishna Hutheesing Krishna Nehru Hutheesing (2 November 1907 – 9 November 1967) was an Indian writer, the youngest sister of Jawaharlal Nehru and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, and part of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Biography Born Krishna Nehru, in Mirganj, Allahaba ...

(b. 1907-1967) became a noted writer and authored several books on their brother. In 1919, she secretly married Syud Hossain, a Muslim journalist and later first Indian Ambassador to Cairo, but

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- ...

and, family members like Pandit Nehru, separated the couple. In 1921, she was married to

Ranjit Sitaram Pandit Ranjit Sitaram Pandit (1893 – 14 January 1944) was an Indian barrister, politician, author and scholar from Rajkot in the Kathiawar region of British India. He is known for his role in the Indian non-cooperation movement, and for translatin ...

(1921–1944), a successful barrister from

Kathiawar Kathiawar () is a peninsula, near the far north of India's west coast, of about bordering the Arabian Sea. It is bounded by the Gulf of Kutch in the northwest and by the Gulf of Khambhat (Gulf of Cambay) in the east. In the northeast, it is ...

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

and classical scholar who translated

Kalhana Kalhana ( sa, कल्हण, translit=kalhaṇa) was the author of ''Rajatarangini'' (''River of Kings''), an account of the history of Kashmir. He wrote the work in Sanskrit between 1148 and 1149. All information regarding his life has to be ...

's epic history

Rajatarangini ''Rajatarangini'' ("The River of Kings") is a metrical legendary and historical chronicle of the north-western part of India, particularly the kings of Kashmir. It was written in Sanskrit by Kashmiri historian Kalhana in the 12th century CE. Th ...

into English from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

. Her husband was a Maharashtrian Saraswat Brahmin, whose family hailed from village of Bambuli, on the Ratnagiri coast, in Maharashtra. He was arrested for his support of Indian independence and died in Lucknow prison in 1944, leaving behind his wife and their three daughters Chandralekha Mehta, Nayantara Sehgal and Rita Dar. She died in the year of 1990. Her daughter Chandralekha was married to Ashok Mehta and has three children- Arjun, Minakshi and Manjari. Her second daughter

Nayantara Sahgal Nayantara Sahgal (born 10 May 1927) is an Indian writer who writes in English. She is a member of the Nehru–Gandhi family, the second of the three daughters born to Jawaharlal Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. She was awarded the 1986 S ...

, is a well-known novelist. She was married to Gautam Sahgal and had three children - Nonika her eldest daughter, son Ranjit, and her youngest daughter Gita Sahgal. Nayantara married E. N. Mangat Rai in 1979. Her third daughter was Rita who was married to Avatar Krishna Dhar and has two children, son Gopal, and daughter Jyoti. She worked in Redcross.

Gita Sahgal Gita Sahgal (born 1956/1957) is an Indian writer, journalist, film director, and women's rights and human rights activist, whose work focusses on the issues of feminism, fundamentalism and racism. She has been a co-founder and active member of ...

, Nayantara's youngest child, is the writer and journalist on issues of feminism, fundamentalism, and racism, director of prize-winning documentary films, and

human rights activist A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing cam ...

, is one of her granddaughters.

Political career

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit at The Doon School

Pandit was the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet post in pre-independent India. In 1937, she was elected to the provincial legislature of the United Provinces and was designated minister of local self-government and public health. She held the latter post until 1938 and again from 1946 to 1947. In 1946, she was elected to the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

from the United Provinces. Following India's freedom from British occupation in 1947 she entered the diplomatic service and became India's ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1949, the United States and Mexico from 1949 to 1951, Ireland from 1955 to 1961 (during which time she was also the Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom), and Spain from 1956 to 1961. Between 1946 and 1968, she headed the Indian delegation to the United Nations. In 1953, she became the first woman

President of the United Nations General Assembly The president of the United Nations General Assembly is a position voted by representatives in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on a yearly basis. The president is the chair and presiding officer of the General Assembly. Election ...

(she was inducted as an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in 1978 for this accomplishment). Hon. Members that Shrimati Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit has resigned her seat in the House with effect from 17 December 1954. In India, she served as

from 1962 to 1964, after which she was elected to the Indian parliament's lower house,

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

, from Phulpur, her brother's former constituency from 1964 to 1968. Pandit was a harsh critic of

's years as Prime Minister especially after her niece had declared the

emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

. Pandit retired from active politics after relations between them soured. On retiring, she moved to

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

in the

Doon Valley The Doon Valley is an unusually wide, long valley within the Sivalik Hills and the Lesser Himalayas, in the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Within the valley lies the city of Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand st ...

in the Himalayan foothills. She came out of retirement in 1977 to campaign against Indira Gandhi and helped the

Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nati ...

win the 1977 election. She was reported to have considered running for the presidency, but

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (; 19 May 1913 – 1 June 1996) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth President of India, serving from 1977 to 1982. Beginning a long political career with the Indian National Congress Party in the independence ...

eventually ran and won the election unopposed. In 1979, she was appointed the Indian representative to the

UN Human Rights Commission The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of t ...

, after which she retired from public life. Her writings include ''The Evolution of India'' (1958) and ''The Scope of Happiness: A Personal Memoir'' (1979).Both were ghosted.

Academics

She was the member of Aligarh Muslim University Executive Council. She was an Honorary Fellow of

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

, where her niece studied Modern History. A portrait of her by Edward Halliday hangs in the

Somerville College Library Somerville College Library is the college library of Somerville College, one of the 38 colleges of the University of Oxford. The library is one of the largest college libraries at the University of Oxford and has achieved 100% student satisfacti ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi 1900 births 1990 deaths India MPs 1952–1957 20th-century Indian women politicians 20th-century Indian politicians India MPs 1962–1967 India MPs 1967–1970 Ambassadors of India to Ireland Ambassadors of India to Mexico Ambassadors of India to Spain Ambassadors of India to the Soviet Union Ambassadors of India to the United States Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Governors of Maharashtra High Commissioners of India to the United Kingdom Indian Hindus Indian women diplomats Kashmiri people Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh Nehru–Gandhi family People from Allahabad district Permanent Representatives of India to the United Nations Politicians from Allahabad Politicians from Dehradun Politicians from Lucknow Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly Prisoners and detainees of British India Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in civil service Women in Maharashtra politics Women in Uttar Pradesh politics Women members of the Lok Sabha Women state cabinet ministers of India Women state governors of India Indian women ambassadors

Personal life

Political career

Academics

See also

References

Further reading

External links