Shero - Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
The lady who built India’s Premier Medical Institution, AIIMS
It is true that AIIMS came to be under the Nehru government. However, the real driving force behind it was Rajkumari Amrit Kaur.
In 1936, as Gandhi sought to include more women in the nationalist movement, he wrote to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the woman who would go on to become independent India’s first health minister (Surprised?) “I am now in search of a woman who would realize her mission. Are you that woman?”
And she was. After Kaur’s return from Oxford in 1918, she decided her life’s mission was to transform India — breaking not only the colonial chains that bound it but also the oppressive social norms that limited it.
She was born on 2nd February 1889, to the royal family of Kapurthala. Kaur spent her early years in Kapurthala, Punjab, and then moved to Sherborne School in Dorset, UK. She spent her undergraduate years at Oxford and returned to India at the age of 20.
She was fascinated by the Mahatma and regularly wrote to him. Her parents were opposed to her joining the freedom struggle, but when her father passed away in 1930 she took the plunge formally.
However, even without formally joining Gandhi, Kaur had already begun to wage her battle against social evils like the purdah system, child marriage, and the devadasi system. In 1927, Kaur helped found the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC).
Two years later, she dedicated herself to the civil disobedience movement and moved to Sevagram in Wardha. Around the same time, she was asked by Gandhi to become his secretary, a post she would retain for 17 long years.
In 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru called upon Kaur to join his cabinet as the first health minister of independent India. Kaur was also among the few women who were part of the Constituent Assembly.
As Kaur took over the health portfolio, a post she would retain for 10 years, she helped lay the foundation of AIIMS. The creation of a major central institute for post-graduate medical education and research had been recommended by the Health survey of the government of India.
Though the idea was highly appreciated, money was a concern. It took another 10 years for Kaur to collect adequate funds, and lay the foundation of India’s number one medical institute and hospital.
On 10 Feb 1956, she introduced the bill to form a central medical institute in the Lok Sabha. She had no speech prepared. But she spoke from her heart. Her speech sparked a vigorous debate in the house over the need of such an institute but it got passed.
And this is how the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was born. “I want this to be something wonderful, of which India can be proud, and I want India to be proud of it,” said Kaur, as the bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha.
As health minister, Kaur was the pivotal force in ensuring the unique status enjoyed by AIIMS. Yet, it is worth noting, that she was in fact not the first choice of Nehru to be part of the cabinet.
“In August 1947, for the woman member of the cabinet, Nehru thought of Hansa Mehta, but took Rajkumari Amrit Kaur at Gandhi’s insistence,” writes author Sankar Ghose, in his book, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru — A Biography’.
Writing about why Kaur was not preferred, he explains, “she was sometimes indiscreet and intemperate in her criticism of Congressmen.”Nonetheless, she went on to became the Health Minister and was instrumental in acquiring a huge amount from the New Zealand govt to fund AIIMS.
Apart from passionately laying the foundation of AIIMS, she also founded the Indian Council of Child Welfare and became its first president. She was president of the Indian Leprosy Association, the Tuberculosis Association, & vice-president of the International Red Cross Society.
Her largest campaign as health minister though was against Malaria. “At the height of the campaign, in 1955, it was estimated that 400,000 Indians who otherwise would have died had been saved by mitigation of malaria in their districts,” says the NYT obituary.
Earlier this year, Kaur was listed by TIME magazine as the woman of the year 1947. The magazine writes, “In leaving her life of luxury, Kaur not only helped build lasting democratic institutions, but she also inspired generations to fight for the marginalized.”
Rajkumari Amrit Kaur died in New Delhi on 6 February 1964.
References:
1. India After Gandhi by Ramchandra Guha
2. “Explained” Editorial from Indian Express
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