Essay on Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit for Students & Children’s | Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit Biography

Essay on Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was an Indian diplomat and politician, the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, the aunty of Indira Nehru Gandhi and therefore the grand-aunt of Rajiv Gandhi, every of whom served as Prime Minister of the Republic of India.

Pandit was sent to London, as India’s most significant diplomat, when serving as Nehru’s envoy to Russia, the USA and therefore the international organization. Her time in London offers insights into the broader context of changes in Indo–British relations. Her High-Commissionership was a model of inter-governmental relations. 

Early life of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit:

Vijaya Lakshmi’s father, Motilal Nehru, a rich lawyer who belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community, served doubly as President of the Indian National Congress throughout the Independence Struggle. Her mother, Swaruprani Thussu, who came from a widely known Kashmiri Brahmin family settled in Lahore, was Motilal’s second married woman, the primary having died in kid birth. She was the second of 3 children; Jawaharlal was eleven years her senior whereas her younger sister Krishna became a noted author and authored many books on their brother.

In 1921 she was married to Ranjit Sitaram Pandit a booming Maharashtrian lawyer from Kathiawad and classicist who translated Kalhana’s epic history Rajatarangini into English from Sanskrit by Motilal Nehru. He was inactive for his support of Indian independence and died in Lucknow jail in 1944, abandoning his married woman and their 3 daughters Chandralekha Mehta, Nayantara Sehgal, and Rita Dar.

She died within the year 1990. Her daughter Chandralekha was married to Ashok Mehta and have 3 youngsters. Her second female offspring Nayantara Sahgal, later settled in her mother’s house in Dehradun, maybe a well-known author. She was married to Gautam Sahgal and includes a daughter, Gita Sahgal.

Nayantara married E.N Mangat Rai when the death of Gautam. Her third daughter was Rita who was married to Avatar Krishna Dhar and has 2 sons together with Gopaldhar. She worked in Redcross. 

Contribution in the Politics of India:

Pandit was the primary Indian lady to carry a cabinet post in pre-independent India. In 1937, she was elective to the provincial assembly of the United Provinces and was selected minister of native autonomy and public health. She controls the latter post till 1939 and once more from 1946 to 1947. In 1946, she was elective to the Constituent Assembly from the United Provinces.

Following India’s freedom from British occupation in 1947 she entered the corps and have become India’s ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1947 to 1949, the united states and United Mexican States from 1949 to 1951, Ireland from 1955 to 1961 (during which period she was conjointly the Indian diplomat to the United Kingdom), and Kingdom of Spain from 1958 to 1961. Between 1946 and 1968, she headed the Indian delegation to the UN. In 1953, she became the primary lady President of the United Nations General Assembly.

In India, she served as Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964, when that she was elective to the Indian parliament’s lower house, Lok Sabha, from Phulpur, her brother’s former body from 1964 to 1968. Pandit was a harsh critic of her niece, Indira Gandhi’s Prime Minister years especially when Indira had declared the emergency.

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Pandit retired from active politics when relations between them sour. On retiring, she moved to Dehradun within the Doon vale within the Himalayan foothills. She came out of retirement in 1977 to campaign against the national leader and helped the Janata dal win the 1977 election. She was according to her own thought of running for the presidency, however, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy eventually ran and won the election unopposed.