Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was born in 1900 and lived a long, full life until her death in 1990. Her story is therefore intricately intertwined with that of her country, and through it, we also tell the story of India and the world in the twentieth century. She was born into an aristocratic family and grew up in Downton Abbeyesque surroundings, her ‘upstairs-downstairs’ run home in the city of Allahabad called Anand Bhawan, the Abode of Happiness. Sarup Nehru, her name given at birth, was the daughter of a powerful, gregarious, and extremely wealthy lawyer named Motilal, the second of three children. She was closest to her elder brother, Jawaharlal. Nan, as she was commonly known, was a precocious child who was schooled by private tutors, only up to an intermediate level. But her real education stemmed from her love of reading, facilitated by Anand Bhawan’s magnificent library, and through her intellectually stimulating environment. Luminaries of all kinds filtered in and out of the house, and she began travelling the globe from the age of five.
The family grew close to Mohandas Gandhi soon after his return to India from South Africa in 1914, and through the bond they developed, grew ever more involved in politics. While Nan found such matters interesting, the early years of her life were devoted to family affairs and romance. This caused a fair amount of heartburn, and she was steered towards more traditional choices by her relatives.
She married at the age of twenty and changed her name to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, taking her husband Ranjit’s patronym as her own. The association with Gandhi dramatically altered her family’s lifestyle—jewels, silks, delicately woven tapestries and the finest China, gave way to rough handwoven clothes and social upliftment work, especially for those from marginalized caste communities. By 1930, she entered prison for the first of three times, and through that fiery experience emerged tempered and steely, ready to do battle.
A truly extraordinary, indeed cinematic life followed as she became one of the most celebrated women of the twentieth century with her rise as one of the world’s most recognized and respected diplomats. Several moments of her life really stand out. When she was still but a child, she and the rest of her family were accorded a special honour by King George and Queen Mary. Later, when she was touring Europe for the first time, she was picked up by the police for the attempted assassination of Mussolini. Back in India, as tensions mounted, she faced down angry, violent mobs, forcing them to disperse merely with the force of her personality and the power of her words. She also battled famine and disease to the point of personal collapse. In the late 1930s, she not only found herself in Czechoslovakia during the Sudeten Crisis but also squarely in the middle of things, with Lord Runciman staying right next to her. Shortly thereafter, she stood outside 10 Downing Street as Chamberlain declared peace for our time.
She served as a key, intellectual founding force of the United Nations (UN) and later was instrumental in resolving the Korean War. She became so beloved and so famous that ordinary folks like taxi drivers in the United States sang her praises. Even the incorrigible Winston Churchill was won over in the end.
She worked with the likes of Bertrand Russell and Robert Oppenheimer to prevent a nuclear disaster. Towards the end of her international career, she told US President John F. Kennedy not to go to Dallas.
And then, she resisted, fought against and helped defeat her niece, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to end the authoritarian Emergency in India and restore democracy.
Eloquent. Glamorous. Brilliant. ‘The most remarkable woman’ that Eleanor Roosevelt ever met.
She was the first woman cabinet minister in India, and also the first woman of that rank in the British Empire to wield substantial power in matters of self-government and public health. She was elected the president of the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), where she tried to push its agendas from elite concerns to more people-oriented ones. And from there, she held a host of breakthrough positions that included: member of the Constituent Assembly of India, India’s first ambassador to the UN, and to Moscow, and the first woman ambassador to the United States, with additional appointments to Mexico, Ireland and Spain. She also became the first woman president of the UN General Assembly, a member of the Indian Parliament, the high commissioner to the United Kingdom, the governor of Maharashtra and a representative to the UN Human Rights Commission.
She truly lived an extraordinary life. But this synopsis should not give the impression of hagiography. While her career was remarkable, she faced many challenges, had many ups and downs, and did not always make the right decisions—as befitting for someone charting a new course. She battled depression and fatigue and suffered several breakdowns, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately. She was loving but had a sometimes-rocky relationship with members of her own family, particularly with her sister Betty and her sister-in-law Kamala. And while she was lauded for her prowess in the West, she was nonetheless eventually iced out as her brother’s closest counsel and confidant on international matters by her long-standing rival and nemesis, V.K. Krishna Menon.
This book attempts to present Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit in all her complexity, balancing a focus on her professional struggles and achievements with concern for her personal trials and triumphs. It is in the fullness of this picture, where we can see her affection, courage, and talent sharpened by ambition and temper, that we can better understand what it was for this pioneering woman of substance to sometimes be dismissed for being all wit and charm. We can see more clearly what it meant for someone who lost access to all her wealth when she was widowed to be criticized for her expensive tastes. And through such insights, we can better appreciate her contributions not only to India and its foreign policy, but also to the making of the post-war world order itself.
This excerpt from Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit: A Biography by Manu Baghavan has been published with permission from Penguin India.