Who was Sucheta Kripalani, India’s first woman Chief Minister?

The idea appealed to him (Gupta), and he, at an opportune moment, suggested to PM Nehru to consider replacing him with Sucheta as the new leader of the CLP, ignoring the likes of Kamalapati Tripathi. Sucheta Kripalani, while recounting the story, said that when J B Kripalani had had a heart attack and was being treated at the Willingdon Hospital (now Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital) in New Delhi, K C Pant (the son of G B Pant) had come to see J B Kripalani, and he had told Sucheta that her name was being considered as Gupta’s successor.

However, a final decision was taken after a meeting of the CLP was held in Lucknow, where party MLAs were given blank papers to write the name of the person they favoured as leader of the CLP. There were only two contenders — Sucheta Kripalani and Kamalapati Tripathi. When the counting was completed, it turned out that Sucheta won by a margin of 99 votes. That is how she was elected as the CLP leader. She was sworn in as the fourth CM of UP on 2 October 1963 and, thus, became the first female CM of not only UP, but of any Indian state.

A woman leader of many parts

The politics of Sucheta Kripalani cannot be understood in isolation; her contributions were multidimensional. She was associated with several relief activities, be it for the 1934 earthquake in Bihar; the pre-Partition riots in Noakhali in 1946; the rehabilitation of Tibetan refugees, including the Dalai Lama, in 1959; or providing help to the East Pakistan refugees during the Indo-Pak War of 1971.

Daughter of S N Majumdar, a government surgeon posted in Punjab, Sucheta was born in Ambala… [and] studied at the University of Delhi (Indraprastha College for Women and St. Stephen’s College). In April 1936, [she] married the former Congress president J B Kripalani, a Gandhian who later quit Congress to work with socialist leaders but left them after almost five years…

…In 1929, Sucheta had joined BHU to teach Constitutional History, and J B used to visit the campus in search of volunteers for the freedom movement. Their marriage was against the wishes of their families, as well as Mahatma Gandhi’s, as J B was 20 years older than Sucheta. Both husband and wife were social workers and freedom fighters, and were with the Congress, but in later years, they became members of different parties. Sucheta resigned from BHU in 1939, and the couple lived in Allahabad for some time.

Sucheta…participated in a satyagraha while living in Faizabad and was imprisoned for nearly a year in 1940. When she joined the Congress, she was put in charge of organizing the foreign affairs wing of the AICC, but when Dr Ram Manohar Lohia joined this wing, she was assigned to organize the party’s newly created women’s wing. Thus, she was the founder of the All India Mahila Congress. During the Quit India Movement, she worked underground to evade arrest but was finally taken into custody in Patna and spent several months in a jail in Lucknow…

Her many achievements as Chief Minister

Sucheta was known for her many qualities, including her strictness, straightforwardness and simplicity… As the CM, Sucheta waived school fees for all girls up to Class 10 from January 1965. Meerut University (now named after Chaudhary Charan Singh) and Kanpur University (now named after Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj) were established.

Concerned with the fact that 18 per cent reserved posts in government jobs for the SCs (called Harijans at that time) were not filled, her government decided to increase reservation of posts in Group C to 24 per cent and in Group D to 45 per cent until the 18 per cent target was achieved.

A Sainik School was established in Ghorakhal and a new medical college was started in Meerut. Many dacoits were neutralized in the Chambal Valley with the help of the Police Radio Unit. During her regime, the UP Awas Vikas Parishad was established and the post of the agriculture production commissioner as a coordinator for all departments related to agriculture production was created.

…Sucheta realized the curse of corruption; her government once underlined in the assembly, while welcoming the Union government’s initiative to appoint a vigilance commission, “Growing corruption in public services is an obstacle in the progress and growth of our people, and it needs to be dealt with strictly.”

…With regard to caste equations, she said, “Caste did play an important part, in the sense that ministers readily trusted men belonging to their own caste. In some way or the other, the caste link has a lot of weight.”

…Though Sucheta was among those leaders who were staunch supporters of Hindi, she faced criticism for being influenced by the English mindset of government officials. When a Socialist Party MLA, Kashi Nath Mishra (Bansdih East), alleged this, she responded, “I am ready to speak in Hindi despite being Bangla-speaking, but you are not… Only the CM cannot do this. You have to create an atmosphere [for Hindi].”

Edited excerpts from Shyamlal Yadav‘s new book, ‘At the Heart of Power: The Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh’ (Rupa Publications India, 2024)