Durgabai Deshmukh

Durgābāi Deshmukh (15 July 1909 – 9 May 1981) was an Indian freedom fighter, lawyer, social worker and politician. She was a member of the Constituent Assembly of India and of the Planning Commission of India.

Bust of Durgabai Deshmukh in Rajahmundry

A public activist for women's emancipation, she founded the Andhra Mahila Sabha (Andhra Women's Conference) in 1937. She was also the founder chairperson of the Central Social Welfare Board. In 1953, she married C.D. Deshmukh, the first Indian governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Finance Minister in India's Central Cabinet during the years 1950-1956.

Career

From an early life Durgabai was associated with Indian politics. When the Indian National Congress had its conference in her hometown of Rajahmundry in 1923, she was a volunteer and placed in charge of the Khadi exhibition that was running side by side. Her responsibility was to ensure that visitors to were not allowed without tickets. She fulfilled the responsibility given to her honestly and even forbade Jawaharlal Nehru from entering.[1] When the organizers of the exhibition saw what she did and angrily chided her, she replied that she was only following instructions. She allowed Nehru in only after the organizers bought a ticket for him. Nehru praised the girl for the courage with which she did her duty.

She was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi in India's struggle for freedom from the British Raj and a prominent social reformer who participated in Gandhi-led Satyagraha activities. This led to British Raj authorities imprisoning her three times.

Durgabai was the president of the Blind Relief Association. In that capacity, she set up a school-hostel and a light engineering workshop for the blind.

Durgabai was a member of the Constituent Assembly of India. She was instrumental in the enactment of many social welfare laws. She was a member of the Planning Commission. In that role, she mustered support for a national policy on social welfare. The policy resulted in the establishment of a Central Social Welfare Board in 1953. As the Board's first chairperson, she mobilized a large number of voluntary organizations to carry out its programs, which were aimed at education, training, and rehabilitation of needy women, children, and the handicapped. She was the first chairperson of the National Council on Women's Education, established by the Government of India in 1958.[2] To commemorate her legacy Andhra University, Visakhapatnam has named its Department of Women Studies as Dr. Durgabai Deshmukh Centre for Women's Studies.[3]

Private life

Born in Rajahmundry,[4] Andhra Pradesh, British India, Durgabai was married at the age of 8[5] to a man she later quit to pursue her education.[6]

In 1953, she married the then Finance Minister of India Chintaman Deshmukh. According to her own account, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the three witnesses.[7] C. D. Deshmukh had a daughter from a previous marriage but the couple remained otherwise childless.

Durgabai Deshmukh authored a book called The Stone That Speaketh. Her autobiography Chintaman and I was published one year before her death in 1981.

Awards

Organizations established by Durgabai


Andhra Education Society (AES) was founded in 1948 by Dr. Durgabai Deshmukh to serve the educational needs of Telugu Children residing in Delhi.

References

  1. ↑ Dedicated to cause of women, The Hindu
  2. ↑ Government of India (1959). Report of the National Committee on Women's Education. New Delhi: Government of India.
  3. ↑ "Durgabai Deshmukh centennial inaugurated". The Hindu. 16 July 2009. Retrieved July 3, 2015.
  4. ↑ Deshmukh, Durgabai (1980). Chintaman and I. Allied. p. 1. I was born on 15 July 1909 in Rajahmundry in the coastal district of East Godavari in Andhra
  5. ↑ https://books.google.co.in/books?id=hjilIrVt9hUC&pg=PA127&dq=women+in+national+movement+one+that+day+alone+170+protesters+were+arrested&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XHslVZjwDNWeugTMt4DwBw&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=women%20in%20national%20movement%20one%20that%20day%20alone%20170%20protesters%20were%20arrested&f=false
  6. ↑ Sita Anantha Raman (2009). Women in India: A Social and Cultural History. Vol. 1. Praeger. pp. 165–166. ISBN 978-0-313-37710-5.
  7. ↑ Autobiography, 1980.
  8. ↑
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ http://www.andhramahilasabha.org.in/DDHRC_Hyd.htm

http://durgabaideshmukhhospitals.com/

External links

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