Durga Puja Special: Stree Shakti: Sucheta Kriplani
Today is Maha Saptami. Bathing of the navapatrika with holy water is done today to begin the Durga Puja rituals.
As we pay our respects to Maa Durga (symbol of Stree Shakti) – I pay my homage to another Bengali braveheart as part of my Stree Shakti series.
Today I am going to talk about Sucheta Kriplani (born Sucheta Majumdar).
Sucheta Kriplani (nee Majumdar)
Sucheta was born on 25th June 1908 in a Bengali Brahmo Family in Ambala. As a kid, she was highly influenced by hearing the stories of British atrocities. The incident that moved her the most was the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre.
As a student, her Bible class teacher once said some disparaging things about Hinduism. Furious, Sucheta and her sister went home and asked their father to help them out. He coached them on some religious teachings and, the next day, the girls confronted their teacher with quotes from the Bhagavad Gita. The teacher never referred to Hinduism in the class ever again!
She was a bright student and received her Master’s degree in History from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. She joined Benaras Hindu University as a history professor thereafter.
Her patriotic feelings got her to join the Indian Freedom movement soon. She married Acharya Kriplani who was the then General Secretary of the Indian National Congress. Sucheta worked very closely with Mahatma Gandhi and he wrote on her as well – “a person of rare courage and character who brought credit to Indian womanhood“.
She was at the forefront of the Quit India Movement and also accompanied Gandhi Ji to Noakhali during the partition-infused riots.
She was part of the subcommittee that laid down the charter for the Constitution of India.
But Sucheta’s crowning moment came on 14th August 1947, not because freedom was finally here but because she played a significant role in delivering it to the people of India. She opened the independence session of parliament by singing Vande Mataram (our National Song) and concluded it by reciting Saare Jahan Se Accha and the Jana Gana Mana (Our National Anthem).
After independence, she played her part in politics and was the first woman Chief Minister in India when she led the Uttar Pradesh Government from 1963-67.
She quit politics in 1971 and started writing her autobiography which unfortunately remained unfinished due to her health and she finally passed away in 1974.
Let’s salute another Great Lady who chartered her own course from teaching history to making history.
Stay Safe Everyone.
May Maa Durga bless us all.
The 6th Part of this Seven Part Series will release tomorrow where we will discuss another firebrand Bengali lady who left an indelible mark in Indian history.
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Very Well written! I was reading all your “Stree Shakti” series & realized one thing once again. They set the examples more than 100 years back. However, even in 2020, we comes to hear sometimes that Women can’t be good leader. I think, this is high time people should come out of that kind of misconception & understand that Gender can’t be a deciding factor in leadership role.