| C. B. Muthamma | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 24, 1924 |
| Died | October 14, 2009 (aged 85) |
Chonira Belliappa Muthamma (Kannada:ಚೋನಿರ ಬೆಳ್ಯಪ್ಪ ಮುತ್ತಮ್ಮ) (January 24, 1924-October 14, 2009) was the first woman to sit the Indian Civil Services examinations in 1948 and to join the Indian Foreign Service in 1949. She is also the first Indian woman diplomat. Later she became the first Indian woman Ambassador/High Commissioner as well.
Ms. Muthamma is known for her successful crusade for equality for women in the male-dominated Indian civil services of her time. She brought a petition against the government of India on the ground that she had been overlooked for promotion, arguing that the rules governing the employment of women in the service were discriminatory. Her case was upheld in 1979 in a landmark judgment by a three-member Bench headed by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer. The court impressed upon the government of India “the need to overhaul all service rules to remove the stains of sex discrimination, without waiting for ad-hoc inspiration from writ petitions or gender charity.”
Born in Virajpet in Coorg in 1924, Ms. Muthamma completed her schooling in St.Joseph’s Girl School in Madikeri, and graduated from the Women’s Christian College in Chennai (then Madras) with a triple gold medal. She did her post-graduation in English Literature from Presidency College, Chennai. She retired from the IFS in 1982 after 32 years of service. Following this, she was nominated as the Indian member of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues set up by the then Swedish Prime Minister, Olaf Palme.
Her last major published work was a collection of essays titled Slain by the System published in 2003. She died at Bangalore in 2009.
|
|||||||||||||||||