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