Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
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| Rajkumari Amrit Kaur | |
|---|---|
| February 2, 1889–October 2, 1964 | |
 File photo of Rajkumari Amrit Kaur |
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| Place of birth: | Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Movement: | Indian Independence movement |
| Major organizations: | Indian National Congress, St. John’s Ambulance Corps , Tuberculosis Association, Indian Red Cross, All India Institute of Medical Sciences |
Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (2nd February 1889, Lucknow – 2nd October 1964) was the first female Indian Cabinet Minister. She was born into the princely family of Kapurthala of undivided India and became an eminent Gandhian, social activist and freedom fighter. Lakshmi N. Menon had described her, as "the master craft of Gandhi is conspicuously visible in the case of Amrit Kaur who gave up her princely ways and habits in favour of service for the nation." For many years she remained close to the select group of leaders fighting for the freedom of India, and after India’s independence she became the health minister of India. She also remained active in many social activities.
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[edit] Early life
Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was born on 2nd February 1889 in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh, India), and belonged to a princely family. She was the only daughter of her parents, Raja Harnam Singh and Rani Harnam Singh. Her mother was a Bengali Presbyterian Christian. She had seven brothers, and the environment in her home was generally strict and disciplined one. Rajkumari inherited Christianity as her religion, and her early education was in England in a school at Sherborne, Dorsetshire, and later studies at the Oxford. She was also a good player of tennis and won several prizes. With her family and educational background, she could have led a life of affluence and luxury. However, when she returned to India, She got attracted towards the freedom movement and became a social worker.
Her father Raja Sir Harnam Singh was reputed as a “pious and pure” Christian. Harman Singh was the last ruling prince of Kapurthala in the Punjab region, and enjoyed the goodwill and confidence of many leaders of the Indian National Congress party, including Gopal Krishna Gokhale, one of the most prominent leaders of his time. Many other political leaders also visited the Raja, and Amrit Kaur became interested in the freedom struggle and learnt about the activities of the freedom fighters and about Mahatma Gandhi. She saw Mahatma Gandhi for the first time in Bombay (now called Mumbai), and was immensely influenced by his words. The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919 resulted into killing of unarmed civilians by the troops of the British Raj, and this incidence convinced her about necessity for India to become a free nation. Although her parents were against her joining Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram due to a life of austerities there, she remained convinced to be part of the struggle for the freedom of India. She started spinning khadi, and participated in social work in Jallandhar and later among the Harijans of Simla.
Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, she joined the Indian National Congress party, and became socially and politically active. She participated in a number of movements initiated by Mahatma Gandhi for the freedom of India, including a 240 mile march led by Gandhi in March 1930, known as the Dandi march. During the march, Rajkumari was arrested and imprisoned by the authorities of the British Raj.
[edit] As a Gandhian
After her father’s death, she left her home and came to live in Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram in 1934. She started wearing clothes made of khadi, and became an active disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. Sometime, visitors from Europe and the USA would be amazed to learn an Indian princesses living in the ashram in an environment of austerities.
She was assigned the role of Mahatma Gandhi’s English language secretary, and it was a challenging assignment. Mahatma Gandhi received and enormous quantity of mails, and he himself used to write more than 160 notes in own hands, and his other secretaries (namely, Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal) handled thousands of mails every week. Beside these, the secretaries were also required to manage innumerable editorials, essays, and public statements. Generally Mahatma Gandhi was tender to her in the early days, but was a strict disciplinarian. She once recalled that she delivered a note written by Mahatma Gandhi to a wrong person, and this made the Mahatma very unhappy. However, at the same time Mahatma Gandhi used to care for all the people around her, and on her birthday she received a hand written note from Mahatma Gandhi which read: "an ideal secretary keeps her chief straight when he is going astray. She hovers over him, watches all movements about him ... picks up his papers, even those torn ... lest he might have torn something important, by mistake. She leaves after him and seeks what he left behind ... and if not owned by anyone else, collects it. Follow the spirit of this note and you will be the ideal secretary. This is my birthday present, which goes loaded with all the good wishes that I am capable of conveying ... Love, Bapu." She continued to serve Mahatma Gandhi as one of his secretaries for sixteen years.
As a representative of the Indian National Congress, she was sent on a mission of goodwill to Bannu, Northwest Frontier Province. The British government of the Raj arrested her, charging her with sedition, and she was convicted and imprisoned on 16th July 1937. In 1942, she again became active in the Quit India Movement; led many protest rallies, and in one of such rallies in Kalka (Punjab) suffered injuries when the troops charged the protesters. She was arrested and imprisoned again.
She was a co-founder of the All India Women’s Conference in 1927, and became its secretary in 1930. During 1931-33 she served as the president of the Women’s Association. She also championed the cause of universal suffrage, and espoused and testified before the Lothian Committee on Indian franchise and constitutional reforms, and before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on Indian constitutional reforms.
In 1938 she was elected as the president of All India Women’s Conference. She had also served as the Chairperson of the All India Women’s Education Fund Association and as a member of the Executive Committee of Lady Irwin College, New Delhi. She was an appointed as a member (the first women to be so appointed) by the British Raj to the Advisory Board of Education, a position which she resigned in the wake of the Quit India Movement. She was sent as a member of the Indian delegation to participate in UNESCO’s conferences in London (1945), and in Paris (1946). She also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the All India Spinners’ Association.
She was committed to Mahatma Gandhi’s objective of making India a free nation, and at the same time continued to be active in elimination of several bad practices of the Indian society, and such practices included early or child marriage, system of purdah both among the Muslim and Hindu women, illiteracy. She articulated her views on these issues in these words: "the abolition of earl marriage and purdah, therefore, will not only improve the health of millions of women but will remove two of the main obstacles in the way of the spread of female education. Needless to say that the position of the widows in Hindu homes, marriage laws and the laws relating to the inheritance of property by women need radical alteration."
She also actively espoused the cause of female education, and believed in reforms in the education of Indian women. In one of the women’s conferences, she had presented her views as follows: "in the realm of educational reform, we have urged ever since our inception that there should be free and compulsory education. Again, as far as proper facilities for the female education are concerned until such time as universal, free and compulsory primary education as well as an adequate supply of infant and girl’s schools equipped with trained women teachers are introduced, we must continue to do our utmost to have the system of education in our exiting institutions changed."
[edit] Post-independence
After India’s independence, Amrit Kaur became part of Jawaharlal Nehru's first Cabinet; she was the first woman to hold Cabinet rank. She was assigned the Ministry of Health, and was the only Indian Christian in the Cabinet. She was also elected the president of World Health Assembly in 1950, a position held by only two women in the first 25 years of the WHO’s history.
She was also the moving force behind the conceptualization and building of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, and for establishing this institute she secured aid from New Zealand, funds form the West Germany for books, equipments form the Sweden, and assistance for a rehabilitation centre from the Vocational Rehabilitation Centre of US to establish a rehabilitation centre. She also secured aid from the Rockefeller Foundation and Punjab Government for the medical Community Block. She and her brother even donated their ancestral property and house named Manorville (Simla, Himachal Pradesh, India) to serve as a holiday home for the staff and nurses of the institute. She functioned as the Chairperson of the Indian Red Cross society for fourteen years, and during her leadership, the Indian Red Cross did a number of pioneering works in the tribal belts and hinterland of India.
She continued to be the Health Minister of India until 1957, after which she retired from ministerial activity but remained a member of the Rajya Sabha until her death on 2nd October, 1964. However, until her death, she continued to hold charge of the Presidentship of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and the Tuberculosis Association and the Chairperson of the Indian Red Cross and St. John’s Ambulance Corps. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur remained a spinster all her life.
[edit] Quotes
- About Harijans
"It is a crying shame that the people who cater for our services are relegated in most towns to live in the most abominable dwellings—if, indeed we can call their hovels by this name."
- About Child marriage
"Child marriage is eating as a canker into the vitality of our national life. Girls become mothers while they are children themselves, and bring into the world off—springs, who are, in the very nature of things, the victims of disease and ill health."
[edit] Further reading
- India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women (ISBN 81-88086-19-3) by Indra Gupta
[edit] External links
| First Indian Cabinet |
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Nehru, Prime Minister and Extl Affrs • Patel, Home • Baldev Singh, Defence • Chetty, Finance • Maulana Azad, Education • Jagjivan Ram, Labour • Babasaheb Ambedkar, Law • Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Communications • S.P. Mookerjee, Industry • Amrit Kaur, Health • Mathai, Railways |
