The women behind the Indian Constitution

Brut India

These 15 women made space for themselves on a table full of men and gave us the Indian Constitution.

Transcript

00:00389 people framed the Indian constitution, but only 15 of them were women.

00:13She not only fought for the freedom of India, but also for the right to marry whom she wanted.

00:17Sucheta was in love with freedom fighter JB Kriplani, who was 20 years older to her.

00:22He was important to Gandhi as a freedom worker.

00:25Gandhi advised Sucheta to marry someone else, but she said it would be dishonest and immoral.

00:30She said he'd get two freedom workers instead of one if this marriage happened.

00:34And it did.

00:35She taught constitutional history at the Banaras Hindu University.

00:39After independence, she became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963,

00:43the first Indian woman to be CM.

00:45She was the first and only Dalit woman to join the Constituent Assembly in 1946.

00:55Born in Mulavukkar, Kerala, Velayudhan belonged to the Pulaya community.

00:59Members of this oppressed community worked as agricultural labourers for upper caste landowners.

01:05They were known for making baskets as well.

01:07Pulayas weren't allowed to walk on public roads or drink from communal wells.

01:11The women of this community were not allowed to wear clothing on the upper parts of their bodies.

01:15Velayudhan was the first Dalit girl to wear that garment.

01:19In fact, Velayudhan was the first Dalit girl to have graduated in all of India.

01:23She was nominated to the Cochin Legislative Council in 1942.

01:27Four years later, she was elected to the Constituent Assembly.

01:35Ammu Swaminathan was from Kerala.

01:37Politics and the fight for women's rights attracted her.

01:39In 1917, she was one of the women who set up the Women's India Association in Madras.

01:44She also took part in the Quit India Movement in 1942, for which she was jailed as well.

01:49In 1946, she was elected to the Constituent Assembly.

01:52And after independence, she was elected to the Lok Sabha and then the Rajya Sabha too.

02:01Begum Ezaz Rasool came from an affluent Muslim family.

02:04She was the only Muslim woman in the Constituent Assembly.

02:07She joined the Muslim League with her husband in 1935

02:11and she was elected to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly two years after that.

02:15She believed religious differences would come in the way of progress.

02:18She was part of the Drafting Committee for Minority Rights

02:21and she opposed reservation for Muslims as minorities.

02:24She demanded equal rights for minorities.

02:27She was the one who suggested that the President's signature should be a must to pass any law.

02:36She was a lawyer, social worker, freedom fighter and politician.

02:39Even as a child, she was aware of politics

02:41as she left school in protest of compulsory English-medium education.

02:45Later, she set up a Hindi-medium school for girls.

02:48Between 1930 and 1933,

02:50she was arrested three times for participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement.

02:58She was born in Lucknow and completed her Hindi literature studies

03:02in spite of objections from her family.

03:04She was a member of the Congress Party and advocated strongly

03:07for the education of girls in villages and backward areas.

03:10She took part in the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930.

03:13In 1946, Kamala was elected to the Constituent Assembly.

03:17After independence, she also became a Lok Sabha MP.

03:24Leela Roy was born in Dhaka.

03:26She opposed gender discrimination and believed that

03:28women could do much more than just spin and weave khadi.

03:32She was the first girl in her MA class at Dhaka University.

03:35She'd secured that admission after putting up a fight

03:38because the college was not co-ed.

03:39She started a Bengali monthly periodical called Jayashree,

03:42which was fully run by women.

03:44Its contents were centered around social and political issues

03:48instead of household tips for stuff such as cooking and sewing.

03:51She also joined Subhash Chandra Bose's Forward Block Party.

03:55And in 1946, she became the only woman from West Bengal

03:58to be elected to the Constituent Assembly.

04:01She wrote poems, studied maths and science,

04:04completed her matriculation at age 12,

04:06got a scholarship to study at King's College, London,

04:08and then she studied at Girton College, Cambridge.

04:11Sarojini Naidu also advocated for women's right to vote.

04:14She joined the Freedom Struggle after finishing her studies

04:17and returning to India.

04:18She was arrested five times for participating in the Freedom Movement.

04:22In the Constituent Assembly,

04:23she stressed on the importance of adopting a national flag.

04:31Renuka Ray was a women's rights activist from Calcutta.

04:34She founded the All Bengals Women Union,

04:36which gave shelter to women and children.

04:38Mahatma Gandhi's ideas influenced her from a young age

04:41and she met him for the first time when she was 16.

04:44Ray also worked towards the prevention of trafficking of women

04:47and for the improvement of working conditions for women labourers.

04:51As a Constituent Assembly member,

04:53she spoke on women's and minority rights

04:55and on bicameral legislature.

05:01Vijayalakshmi Pandit was homeschooled,

05:04but she became an activist and later became the first woman

05:07to hold a cabinet portfolio in pre-independent India.

05:10She was born in the influential family of the Nehru's.

05:12Her father, Motilal, was a lawyer, freedom fighter, and political leader.

05:16Her brother was Jawaharlal, who became India's first Prime Minister.

05:20She was imprisoned three times for participating in the Freedom Struggle.

05:23In 1945, she attended a United Nations conference in San Francisco

05:28where she called India's representatives British stooges

05:31and highlighted India's independence movement

05:33in front of the international press.

05:35She joined the Constituent Assembly on a Congress party ticket.

05:38She later became India's ambassador to Moscow.

05:45Maskareen from Trivandrum was a double MA in History and Economics

05:49and became a lecturer in Sri Lanka.

05:51She later did LLB.

05:52Maskareen briefly served as Minister for Health and Power

05:55in the Traveller's Association.

05:57She was a strong orator and advocated for Travancore

06:01to become a state in independent India.

06:03As a Constituent Assembly member, she spoke on federalism.

06:10Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was born in a Punjabi royal family in Lucknow.

06:14But she was not out of touch with common women's struggles

06:18related to child marriage, the parda, and the devdasi systems.

06:21She wanted to join Gandhi's ashram,

06:23but he thought the princess was still a child.

06:26She was able to join the ashram later though

06:32and served as Gandhi's secretary for 16 years.

06:35She became India's first health minister after independence.

06:38She was also instrumental in setting up

06:40the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

06:47Malati Choudhury as a teenager was interested in the performing arts.

06:51She learned music and dance.

06:52But growing up, she was also passionate for the freedom movement.

06:56Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi's ideas inspired her.

06:59She convinced hundreds of women to join the Salt Satyagraha movement

07:03and protested against the sale of foreign goods.

07:05She was a Marxist and worked for the marginalized communities in Odisha.

07:09She joined the Constituent Assembly for only a brief period though

07:13because she wanted to be on the ground

07:15serving the tribals, Dalits, and children.

07:21Simha Jeevraj Mehta was a student of journalism and sociology.

07:25She was proud of her agency as a woman

07:27and stood for her desires by doing an inter-caste marriage.

07:30In 1937, she won a seat in the Bombay Legislative Council.

07:34She had fought from an unreserved seat.

07:36She was an advocate for gender equality and civil rights for women.

07:44Purnima Banerjee was a Marxist socialist.

07:46She joined the Congress party in 1934.

07:49She was arrested several times for participating in the freedom movements

07:52like the Dandi March and the Quit India Movement.

07:55She took her BA exams in prison.

07:57In the Constituent Assembly, she gave inputs on issues regarding

08:00the qualification of Rajya Sabha members,

08:02preventive detention, and the preamble.

08:05Her pictures weren't readily available on the internet.

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