A Feminist Beyond Time

Sucheta kriplani needs no introduction but in todays time when women safety and gender ratio is a national concern, women like her have become a necessity to be cited for her fearlessness and courage in a patriarchal world of that period. 

Born at Ambala to a Bengali family, she lived lived her life on her own terms, worked with values and for greater purpose in her personal and public life. She worked along side gandhi and she married out of choice going against her family, two things a regular girl even today is not free or liberated enough to do.

She studied at Indrprashath College and Punjab University before becoming a Professor of Constitutional History at Banaras Hindu University. 

Like Aruna Asaf Ali and Usha Mehata, who were her contemporaries, she came to the forefront during the August Kranti- The Quit India Movement. Later she got opportunity to work closely with Mahatma Gandhi during the Partion riots. She accompanied him to Naakhali in 1946. She was one of the few women who were elected for constituent assembly and further became member of the subcommittee of the drafting body of the indian constitution, therefore as a natural outcome, she continued with her politics even after independence and went on become the first lady chief minister of the indian state of uttar pradesh in 1963.

Her life is full of instances this prove that her strength of character and conviction about her beliefs were exemplary. One particular incident that she mentions in her biographical account is not as much about independence, anti british agitation or politics but its about her honesty and clarity in dealing with human emotions. She mentions of her relief work in bihar earth quake where she was invited to join Mahila Ashram in Wardha and Vinobha bhave was to apporve of her name. She eventually ended up not joining the Ashram based on vinobha bhave's stand and punishment meted out to himself and young adults who had fallen in love. “Vinoba Bhave was, I think, the Chairman of the Board and had to approve of me. When I was taken to see him, he was fasting to expiate for the sin of two young people living in the ashram complex who had fallen in love with each other! These two were going about the ashram with hurt faces. The whole thing appeared to me rather atrocious. Vinoba’s rigid attitude and extreme self-mortification somehow put me off from joining the Mahila Ashram,” she writes. 

Post-Independence, she faced a complex and indifferent situation in Indian politics. When because of personal and political difference, her husband broke away from Nehru and formed his own party, but she remained with congress (except short period of time when she joined her husband's party but later she returned to the congress). "Both husband and wife had different political loyalties and never questioned each other, exemplifying democracy of a different kind."

Ms. Kriplani has been called a firm administrator and but never an able leader or a prominant politician in the books. Politics has not always been fair to women on paper despite the fact that few managed to beat the cliche and rise above the regular passing references. Ms. Kriplani on the other hand awaits a deeper scrutiny and nuanced reading of her career. She was a feminist in theory and in practice, she broke many sterotypes with as little aggression as possible.

About the writer:

Dr Chayanika Uniyal Panda is Faculty in University of Delhi, Research Fellow Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (2009-11), Author.