INDIA: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

John Gehl sends us this bio of the Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900-90), who was one of India's most famous women, known worldwide for her work in government and for her interest in the women's movement. Pandit was the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister after the nation gained its independence from the British. During the years 1921 to 1947 she worked alongside her brother in the Indian independence movement, both of them suffering several jail terms under the British. At the close of World War II she was made chief of the Indian delegations to the UN. She was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1947, and ambassador to the United States in 1949. In 1953 she became the first woman president of the UN General Assembly. After that she served a long term (1954-61) as the Indian high commissioner in the United Kingdom, simultaneously holding ambassadorships to Ireland and Spain. From 1962 to 1964 she was governor of the Indian state of Maharashtra, after which she served in India's Parliament from 1964 to 1967, retiring from public life in 1968.

Pandit was born in Allahabad, Western India, the daughter of Motilal Nehru, a wealthy and aristocratic nationalist leader. She was educated at private schools in India and abroad. In 1921 she married a fellow Congress party worker, Ranjit Sitaram Pandit. He died in 1944 and did not live to witness his wife's distinguished diplomatic career. After her retirement from the political scene, Pandit remained out of the public eye except for one occasion in 1977, when she felt compelled to come out in opposition to the Congress party which at the time was headed by her niece, Indira P. Gandhi, the daughter of her brother, Jawaharlal Nehru. In Pandit's view, her niece's political party had overly restricted freedom in India. In protest Pandit left the Congress Party and joined the opposition party, the Congress for Democracy. This led to her being appointed a year later as the Indian representative to the UN Human Rights Commission. In 1979 Pandit published her personal memoir, The Scope of Happiness. [See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/8172233981/newsscancom/ref=nosim for Pandit's memoir The Scope of Happiness