• Capt. Praveen Davar

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, which fell on March 8, of this month, it is appropriate to recall the role of women in the freedom struggle and in the building of modern India. In this essay, we revisit the contributions made by women Presidents of the Indian National Congress (INC) - Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu, Nellie Sen Gupta, Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.

There were many other women too who rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress with their selfless services and innumerable sacrifices during the independence movement, and we remember them with reverence and gratitude. Some of the outstanding names, besides the women Congress Presidents, are Bhikaji Cama, Kasturba Gandhi, Kamala Nehru, Vijaylakshmi Pandit, Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya, Aruna Asaf Ali, Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, Sucheta Kripalani and Dr. Sushila Nayyar.

Annie Besant: Dr. Annie Besant, the first woman President of INC, was born in London on October 1, 1847. Influenced by the Theosophical Society of Helena Blavatsky, founded in Adyar, Chennai (then Madras), she came to India on November 16, 1893. Actively associating with the Society which stood for universal brotherhood of humanity, she found India a ripe ground for propagating its ideals of peace and harmony without distinction of race, caste, creed, gender or colour. In 1913, she spoke at a public meeting recommending that the British Parliament should set up a Standing Committee to discuss how India could attain freedom. The following year, in 1914, she attended the session of INC which was held at Madras. By this time she had also founded two newspapers - The Commonweal and New India - and made them her organs to propagate for India’s freedom. But her biggest contribution in the independence movement, prior to the beginning of the Gandhi era, was the founding of Home Rule League. Though Lokmanya Tilak also started his own Home Rule League within a few months, his organisation was confined largely to the Bombay Presidency. The intensive propagation of Home Rule for India led to her internment in Ooty which caused wide protests all over India, and even abroad. Due to the public uproar, the internment order was withdrawn but it raised the political stature of Annie Besant and the INC elected her to preside over its Calcutta session in 1917. She thus became the first woman President of the Congress. In her presidential address at Calcutta, she blamed the East India company for destroying the Panchayati Raj in India. However, she had reservations about the Non-Cooperation Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi and she gradually distanced herself from the Congress but remained active in social activities. She started a Women’s Indian Association which by 1924 had 51 branches in the country and led to the formation of All-India Women’s Conference in 1927 which became a powerful and permanent body and even today is rendering a yeoman’s for the cause of women. In the educational field, her biggest contribution was the establishment of a Central Hindu College in Varanasi which ultimately became the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in 1916 with the help of Madan Mohan Malaviya, one of the tallest stalwarts of the freedom struggle. Annie Besant died on September 20, 1933, a few days before her 86th birthday, in Adyar, Chennai where she had spent most of her forty five years in India.

Sarojini Naidu: Sarojini Naidu, the second woman President of INC, was born in Hyderabad on February 13, 1879. A child prodigy, she passed her matriculation examination at the age of 12 coming first in the Madras Presidency. She also became interested in poetry while at school and many of her poems were published which gave her popularity as a poetess. But by 1917 when she plunged into politics, she wrote no poetry and devoted full time in the long battle for freedom for the next three decades.

Before Mahatma Gandhi emerged on the scene, Sarojini Naidu had already made contacts with the stalwarts of the era - Gokhale, Tilak, Annie Besant, CP Rama swami Aiyar and others. In 1916, she met Pt Jawaharlal Nehru for the first time at the Lucknow session of the INC. When Gandhiji launched the Non-Cooperation Movement, Sarojini Naidu became his Chief Lieutenant and strongly advocated Hindu - Muslim unity in all her campaigns during the Khilafat issue and later. In 1925, Sarojini Naidu was elected Congress President and presided over the Kanpur session of INC. In her soul stirring address to the delegates, she stated that in the struggle for freedom ‘No sacrifice is too heavy, no suffering too great, no martyrdom too terrible’ and warned: In the battle for liberty, fear is the one unforgivable treachery and despair, the one unforgivable sin.

As in the Salt Satyagraha of 1930, Sarojini Naidu was incarcerated during the Quit India Movement in 1942 when she shared the jail with Mahatma Gandhi at Aga Khan Palace, Pune. With independence came partition which shattered her dream of Hindu - Muslim unity which she had made her life’s mission. Sarojini Naidu was appointed the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, the first woman to hold the post. She died on March 2, 1949, after she had turned 70 the previous month. In his tribute the Prime Minister, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru said: ‘Here was a person of great brilliance - vital and vivid...She infused artistry and poetry into our national struggle.’

Nellie Sen Gupta: Nellie Sen Gupta was chosen President, INC in place of the elected Congress President, Madan Mohan Malaviya for the 1933 Calcutta session as the latter, alongwith other top leaders of the INC, was in jail. Nellie was born in1886 at Cambridge, England and married an Indian, Jatinder Mohan Gupta who was a student in England. In 1909, she accompanied Jatinder Mohan to India after he had finished his studies. Jatinder Mohan, who belonged to Chittagong (now in Bangladesh) died early in 1921 having suffered great hardships during the Non-Cooperation Movement, including long stints in jail. Nellie Sen Gupta forsook a cosy family life to keep alive the legacy of her husband. She addressed mass meetings and courted arrested, defying the law by hawking Khadi. In 1931, she suffered four months imprisonment for addressing an unlawful assembly. The Calcutta Corporation elected her an Aldermen twice, in 1933 and 1936. She was also elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly twice, in 1940 and 1946.

After the partition of India in 1947, Nellie Sen Gupta chose to live in Chittagong and was returned unopposed to the East Pakistan Legislature in 1954. Despite suffering ill- health and failing eyesight, she continued working for social causes and during natural calamities like cyclones and floods. At the instance of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, she came to India for medical treatment but succumbed to her illness at Calcutta.

Indira Gandhi: Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the Congress President in 1959 and from 1978 till her death in 1984. She was the longest serving Prime Minister of India second only to her father, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru who was the country’s Prime Minister for 17 years from 1947 to 1964. Indira Gandhi was the PM for nearly 16 years - from January 1966 to March1977, and again from January 1980 to October 1984.

She was born on 17 November 1917 at Allahabad, the only offspring of Jawaharlal and Kamala Nehru. But the adolescent Indira, unlike her father, did not enjoy the material comforts of the palatial Anand Bhavan. For over two decades after 1889, when Jawaharlal was born, Motilal Nehru was amongst the richest lawyers of the country and didn’t spare any effort to give his only son a ‘princely’ life, including education abroad. But by 1920 when Indira was only three, the Nehru household had completely changed. All the luxury and comforts were given up for a simple and austere life in the Gandhi inspired Non-Cooperation Movement. With her father and grandfather often in jail, and mother suffering from tuberculosis, the adolescent Indira grew up in an environment which was far from congenial. Her marriage with Feroze Gandhi led to imprisonment for the newly married couple in the Quit India Movement of 1942.

Though Indira Gandhi was first elected as President in 1959, she could not preside over the next Congress session as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy stepped down to take over as the new Congress President. It was only two decades later, in 1978 when the Congress split for the second time since 1969, that Smt. Indira Gandhi became President of what came to be known as the Congress(I) – the suffix ‘I’ standing for Indira. She continued to be the Congress President till her death on October 31, 1984. The last session of the Congress she presided over was the plenary session in 1983 which was the curtain raiser for the Congress Centenary Session in 1985 at Mumbai. Who knew two years earlier what destiny had in store. As her successor, Prime Minister and Congress President Rajiv Gandhi spoke in his inaugural address at the Centenary Session: ‘Indiraji should have been here today, speaking to you in her gentle, impassioned voice. One with Bharatmata’s immortal spirit, she now shines as the load star not only for us but for all humanity.’ She was rightly voted by the BBC as the ‘ Woman of the Millennium’.

This brief essay does not cover the gigantic contribution of Smt. Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister and hence I quote from an article I wrote for Asian Age in 2017, and which is part of my book Freedom Struggle and Beyond: Though her bold and courageous leadership leading to India’s grand victory in the 1971 war and the creation of Bangladesh is now part of contemporary history, Indira Gandhi’s other monumental achievements like ushering in the Green Revolution, lifting millions above the poverty line, strengthening secularism, enhancing India’s global prestige and, above all, her martyrdom to preserve the nation’s unity and integrity, will never be forgotten by a grateful nation.

Smt. Sonia Gandhi: Smt. Sonia Gandhi was the fifth woman President of the INC and the Party’s longest serving President in its glorious history of 140 years. Born on December 9, 1946in Italy, she moved to Cambridge, England for studying English. It was here that she met Rajiv Gandhi who was pursuing his higher studies in Trinity College, Cambridge. They married in 1968 and Sonia Gandhi moved to India where she did not long to embrace Indian culture and traditions. Her mother-in-law, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a tremendous source of inspiration that helped her to adapt to the new environment in her life.

The tragic assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991, preceeded seven years earlier by that of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was a turning point in the life of Smt. Sonia Gandhi. Though she declined the offer of CWC to succeed her husband as the Congress President, she gave her tacit consent to facilitate the election of Shri Narasimha Rao as Congress President and Prime Minister.

Following the resignation of Congress President Shri Sitaram Kesri in 1998, Smt. Sonia Gandhi reluctantly accepted the offer of CWC, voicing the demand of lakhs Congress workers, to be elected as the Congress President. She assumed office in March 1998 and immediately swung into action to rejuvenate and revitalize the Party. Within a little over five years, the Congress returned to power after almost eight years. Smt. Sonia Gandhi declined the offer of the Congress and coalition parties to become the Prime Minister. Her refusal to do so came as a big blow to the Party’s rank and file who had been anxiously waiting for their beloved leader to take over the reigns of the nation. However, her sacrifice, unprecedented in history, elevated her national and international stature to such an extent that she became one of the most powerful leaders of the world. It was again under her leadership that the Congress-headed UPA won again in 2009, this time with a bigger margin when the Congress alone won 206 seats.

As Chairperson of the UPA-1 and UPA-2, Smt. Sonia Gandhi was also the Chairperson of National Advisory Council (NAC) that worked in close cooperation with the govt. headed by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. It was to the credit of both the PM and Congress President, in her capacity as Chairperson, NAC, that the UPA govts. took path-breaking decisions like MGNREGA, Right to Information Act, Right to Education Act, National Food Security Act, Reservation for Women (passed in Rajya Sabha) and many more measures aimed at poverty alleviation, reducing disparities and welfare of the marginalized sections of society. Last, but not the least, Smt. Sonia Gandhi’s tenure of 22 years as Congress President saw the building and consolidation of secular alliances which now stand as the bulwark against the forces of majoritarianism and narrow nationalism.

(The writer is an ex-Secretary AICC, columnist and Editor, The Secular Saviour)