Women Who Shaped India's Democracy

Sarojini Naidu

The poet and
nationalist leader played

a major role in
the formation of India.

Hailing from an
orthodox Hindu family and raised in Islamic Hyderabad,

she understood both
sides.

Mahatma Gandhi
sought her help to ease tensions

with the Indian
Muslim League.

As the president
of the Indian National Congress in 1925,

Indian
Ambassador to South Africa,

and the first
governor of Uttar Pradesh

, she truly proved to
the world that women had a place in politics.

Indira
Gandhi

Her
charisma was well-chronicled right from

when she participated
in rallies and

protests alongside her
father, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Many believe it was only inevitable that she
became

the prime
minister in 1966.

The country saw the
impossible becoming possible in two major

instances during
her tenure.

India became nuclear
power in 1975, Gandhi

was convicted of an
infraction of the election laws.

She dismissed it as an
attempt to remove her from office and,

instead of
resigning, declared a national state of emergency on June 25, 1975.

She was shot
dead on October 31 by Sikh insurgents.

Jayalalithaa

J
Jayalalithaa is the former Chief Minister

of the state of Tamil
Nadu.

She is the present general secretary of AIADMK

and the Leader of the
Opposition in Tamil Nadu.

She was voted
out of power in the May 2006 elections.

She is popularly
called Amma and Puratchi Thalaivi by her followers.

She was reelected to
the legislative assembly and

became the first
elected woman chief minister of Tamil Nadu

serving the full
tenure (June 24, 1991 - May 12, 1996).

Pratibha
Patil

Her
name has been registered in the annals of India's history

as its first
woman President on July 20.

She is a lawyer by
profession.

In her political activities she joined Congress in the early
1960s.

In 2004, she
became the first woman governor of Rajasthan.

During her college
days she was a good player

of table tennis and
won many inter college tournaments.

India's
Icons

Mother Teresa

When
she made her journey from Macedonia,

she knew that her life
was dedicated to God

-- and her chosen
means to reach Him was the poor.

On October 7, 1950,
Mother Teresa set up

'The
Missionaries of Charity',

whose primary task was
to love and care for those persons

nobody was
prepared to look after.

Mother Teresa's
work has been recognised throughout the world.

Her Nobel prize for
peace was just a small recognition of her work.

Kiran Bedi

The
year 1972 was a significant one for both,

women and the police
service.

Kiran Bedi
became the first woman to join the Indian Police Service.

She was honoured
with the UN medal for outstanding

service as a
police advisor in the United Nations peacekeeping department.

During her
tenure at Tihar jail she implemented

ideas like
prison reforms, for which

she was accorded
with the Magsasay Award

She has also
established two organisations

-- Navajyoti and
India Vision Foundation --

to improve the
condition of drug addicts and poor people.

Kalpana
Chawla

She became the
first Indian woman to step in space.

Born in Karnal
in Haryana, Kalpana enjoyed flying

aerobatics and
tail-wheel air planes.

In 1988, Kalpana
Chawla started working at NASA.

STS-107 Columbia (January 16 to February
1, 2003),

The 16-day
flight was a dedicated science and research mission.

The STS-107
mission ended abruptly on February 1, 2003

when Space
Shuttle Columbia and her crew perished during entry,

16 minutes prior
to scheduled landing.

Litterateurs


Arundhati Roy

She is
a writer-activist.

Winning the Booker
Prize in 1997 for her first novel,

'The God of Small
Things' catapulted her to the annals of fame.

In 2002, she won
the Lannan Foundation's Cultural Freedom Award

for her work on
''civil societies that are adversely

affected by the
world's most powerful governments and corporations' '

and to recognise her
''ongoing work in the struggle for freedom,

justice and
cultural diversity''.

Her written work
on politics and social causes elucidates

her ideas on
anti-globalisation,

criticises
neo-imperialism and policies of the United States,

India's nuclear
weapons policies,

focus on
industrialisation, and the Narmada Dam project.

Kiran Desai

After
nearly another decade author Kiran Desai made a splash

in the international
literary scene when her book

'Inheritance of
Loss'

got the 2006 Man
Booker Prize and the

National Book Critics
Circle Fiction Award.

She is the daughter of the noted author Anita
Desai.

Her first novel,
'Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard'

received good reviews.
It went on to win the Betty Trask Award,

a prize given by
the Society of Authors for the

best new novels by
citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations under the age of 35.

Outstanding Sportswomen

P T Usha

P Ilavullakandi
Thekkeparambil Usha ran away from

difficult
financial circumstances and sprinted to fame.

Her prowess on the track
and field fetched her the nickname Payyoli Express.

Between 1983 and
1989, Usha garnered 13 golds at ATF meets.

Koneru
Humpy

Koneru Humpy is a
chess grandmaster from India.

Her April 2007 FIDE
rating is 2575,

placing her at number
two in the world for women

(behind Judit Polgar),

and almost equaling
the record of 2577 set by Susan Polgar

for the second-highest
ranked female player in Chess history.

Anju Bobby
George

I T was a
rare moment for Indian athletics when

Padma Shri Anju
Bobby George

won a bronze medal in
long jump at 2003 World Championship

in athletics in
Paris.

She became the
first Indian athlete to

win a medal in
the World Championships.

She also won the
silver medal at the

IAAF World
Athletics Final in 2005,

a performance
she considers her best.

Sania Mirza

N O
Indian female had ever made such startling records

in lawn tennis.
Sania Mirza by winning the titles in grand slams.

Born in Hyderabad
Sania Mirza started playing tennis at the age of 6.

Sania won the
Wimbledon Championships Girls' Doubles title in 2003.

She became the
first Indian woman to enter

the third round
of Australian Open.

On February 12,
2005, she became the

first Indian woman to
win a WTA singles title.

Voices that moved
India

M S Subbalakshmi

Madurai Shanmukhavadivu
Subbulakshmi,

popularly known as
M.S. Subbalakshmi was born on September 16, 1916.

She was born in a
musical family, in the temple town of Madurai,

situated in the
state of Tamil Nadu.

She started learning
Carnatic music from a very early age

and released her
first recording at the age of 10.

She then began her
Carnatic classical music training under

Semmangudi Srinivasa
Iyer and then Hindustani classical training

under Pandit Narayan
Rao Vyas.

She was the
first musician ever to be awarded the Bharat Ratna,

India's highest
civilian honour.

Kishori Amonkar

Kishori
Amonkar, widely considered the finest female

vocalist of her
generation, was born in 1931,

daughter of another
great artist Mogubai Kurdikar.

In her early
years, she absorbed the approach and repertoire

of her mother's
teacher Ustad Alladiya Khan.

But later on she
developed a style of her own.

Gangubhai Hangal


Gangubhai
Hangal was born in 1913, to a family of hereditary

courtesan musicians
from Hangal,

a small village
near Dharwad in North Karnataka.

Gangubhai learnt
Hindustani music from the

Kirana Gharana
master Sawai Gandharva,

rather than
Carnatic music like her mother.

Gangubhai has
been giving concerts for more than five decades now.

She sticks to
authentic traditional music

and does not dabble in
the light bhajans.

Lata Mangeshkar

She
is known as the nightingale of India because of her mellifluous
voice.

Lata Mangeshkar
is the undisputed number one

female playback
singer in Hindi cinema.

She has sung in
20 languages. She is the only other singer,

apart from M S
Subbalakshmi, to be honoured with Bharat Ratna.

Asha
Bhonsle

Her career started in
1943 and has spanned over six decades.

Asha Bhonsle has done playback
singing for over 950 Bollywood movies.

She is the
sister of the equally accomplished Lata Mangeshkar.

She has sung in over
14 languages.

Beauty queens

They conquered
the universe and world for India.

In 1994, two Indian beauties

Sushmita Sen and
Aishwarya Rai

zapped the world with
their beauty and brains and

won the Miss
Universe and Miss World titles respectively.

Thereafter, there was no
looking back for the Indian beauties

as they kept on
winning the beauty crown at

various international
beauty pageants.

Diana Hayden, Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra, Dia Mirza later
won titles for India.

Women in judiciary


Leila Seth

was the first woman
Chief Justice in India.

She graduated as
an IAS officer in 1958,

became chief
justice of Himachal Pradesh in 1991,

and served for 6
years. She chaired the Commonwealth Human

Rights Institute
(CHRI) for several years.

The first woman to be
appointed to the Supreme Court

was Fatima Beevi in
the year 1987.

Shameful Chapters


Phoolan Devi

In
the 1980s dacoit Phoolan Devi reigned in the jungles of Chambal
Valley.

A victim of rape
and social discrimination,

she became a dacoit at
young age with the motive of punishing

the upper caste
people in her village.

She later gave
up dacoit to enter politics

and was a Samajwadi
Party MP in Lok Sabha.

Dowry deaths

Thousands of women in India have been killed and burnt

alive for dowry by
their in laws. Sadly,

the
mother-in-law has been found to be the main culprit in most of the cases.


Doping

It was a sad day in history
of Indian sports

when Pratima Kumari

and Sanamacha
Chanu,

both
weightlifters tested positive at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Attack on Taslima

The
attack on author Taslima Nasreen in Hyderabad severely

dented India's image
as a democratic country practicing freedom of expression.

India is a
land of perpetual paradox.

Women have been
worshipped in the form

of goddess and
sacrificed in the name of sati and dowry for ages.

Despite all hurdles,
prejudices and lack of opportunities,

Indian women have made
remarkable

achievements in
various fields in the last 60 years.

profile some of
the outstanding women achievers

who have made a mark
for themselves and made the country proud.

The list is not exhaustive and I may have

inadvertently missed some of the names in our
list.