Key Points
Of the 389 members of the Constituent Assembly who were indirectly elected by members of provincial assemblies, 15 were women...
Of these women, one was a committed advocate against reservation for women in the legislature, another favoured a Common Civil Code and a third, the only Muslim woman part of the Constituent Assembly, argued against quotas for minorities, while a fourth, a Dalit woman, predicted the decline of the Congress party...
On an unrelated note, she suggested on 3 January 1949 that Parliament be named Indian National Congress.She argued that the word Parliament be substituted by a name which would convey to the people of India and to the world the name of the party that instituted the struggle for the freedom of the country...
The first Indian woman to serve as president of the Congress party, she worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi and was a central figure in several of the movements mounted against the British.She took charge as the first Governor of Uttar Pradesh on 15 August 1947 and served in that role until her death on 3 March 1949...
An Independent India would no doubt assume leadership not only of Asia but of the world, and so when we meet here in this Assembly to draw up the future Constitution of our country, we must not forget that it is not only to ourselves we owe a duty but also to the world which looks to us, she had said in January of 1947, predicting a key role for India in the global world order...
