Sucheta Kripalani | |
|---|---|
 Kriplani in 1960 | |
| 4th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh | |
| In office 2 October 1963 – 13 March 1967 | |
| Preceded by | Chandra Bhanu Gupta |
| Succeeded by | Chandra Bhanu Gupta |
| Member of Parliament,Lok Sabha | |
| In office 1967–1971 | |
| Preceded by | N. Dandekar |
| Succeeded by | Anand Singh |
| Constituency | Gonda, Uttar Pradesh |
| In office 1951–1961 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Balraj Madhok |
| Constituency | New Delhi, Delhi |
| Member ofUttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly | |
| In office 1962–1967 | |
| Member ofConstituent Assembly of India | |
| In office 9 December 1946 – 24 January 1950 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1908-06-25)25 June 1908 |
| Died | 1 December 1974(1974-12-01) (aged 66) New Delhi, India |
| Party | Indian National Congress |
| Spouse | [1] |
| Alma mater | St. Stephen's College, Delhi |
Sucheta Kripalani (néeMajumdar) (Bengali pronunciation:[ʃut͡ʃeta];[2] 25 June 1908[3] – 1 December 1974[4][5]) was an Indian politician andindependence activist. She was India's first femaleChief Minister, serving as the head of theUttar Pradesh government from 1963 to 1967.
She was born inAmbala,Punjab (modern dayHaryana) in aBengaliBrahman family.[6] Her father Surendranath Majumdar, worked as amedical officer, a job that entailed many transfers. As a result, she attended a number ofschools, her finaldegree is a Master’s inHistory fromSt. Stephen’s College,Delhi.[citation needed]
This was a time when the country’satmosphere was charged withnationalist sentiments and thefreedom struggle was gaining momentum.[citation needed]
She was a shy child, self-conscious about her appearance and intellect, as she points out in her book,Sucheta : An Unfinished Autobiography. It was the age she grew up in and the situations she faced that shaped her personality.[citation needed] Sucheta recounts how, as a 10-year-old, she and her siblings had heard their father and his friends talk about theJallianwala Bagh massacre. It left them so outraged that they vented their anger on some of theAnglo-Indian children they played with, by calling them names.[citation needed]
She studied atIndraprastha College[7] andPunjab University before becoming a professor of Constitutional History atBanaras Hindu University.[8] In 1936, she marriedJ. B. Kripalani, a prominent figure of theIndian National Congress, who was twenty years her senior. The marriage was opposed by both families, as well as byGandhi himself, although he eventually relented.[9]
Like her contemporariesAruna Asaf Ali andUsha Mehta, she participated in theQuit India Movement and was arrested by the British. She later worked closely withMahatma Gandhi during thePartition riots. She accompanied him toNoakhali in 1946.[citation needed]
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 theIndian Constitution. She became a part of the subcommittee that laid down the charter for the constitution of India.[citation needed] On 14 August 1947, she sangVande Mataram in the Independence Session of the Constituent Assembly a few minutes beforeNehru delivered his famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech.[10] She was also the founder of theAll India Mahila Congress, established in 1940.
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After independence, she remained involved with politics. For thefirst Lok Sabha elections in 1952, she contested fromNew Delhi on aKMPP ticket: she had joined the short-lived party founded by her husband the year before. She defeated the Congress candidateManmohini Sahgal. Five years later, she was reelected from the same constituency, but this time as the Congress candidate.[11] She was elected one last time to the Lok Sabha in 1967, fromGonda constituency in Uttar Pradesh.[8]
Meanwhile, she had also become a member of theUttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. From 1960 to 1963, she served as Minister of Labour, Community Development and Industry in the UP government.[8] In October 1963, she became theChief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, thefirst 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. She was supported in administrative decisions and party organisation by the veteran leader Nirmal Chandra Chaturvedi, MLC.
When Congress split in 1969, she left the party with Morarji Desai faction to form NCO.[citation needed] She lost 1971 election as NCO candidate fromFaizabad (Lok Sabha constituency). She retired from politics in 1971 and remained in seclusion till her death in 1974.[citation needed]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh 2 October 1963 – 13 March 1967 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
