Who among the following was India's first Woman Chief Minister?

Q: What is the answer to CDS (II) 2025 GK Q14?

B. Correct — B, Sucheta Kripalani. Sucheta Kripalani became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 2 October 1963 and held the office until 13 March 1967, which made her the first woman to head a State government anywhere in India. She had come into public life through the freedom movement, worked in the relief effort during the Partition riots, sat in the Constituent Assembly — where she sang Vande Mataram at the session of 14-15 August 1947 — and served in the Lok Sabha before taking the office in Lucknow. The other three names are all genuinely distinguished women of the same generation, and each is attached to a different first, which is what makes the question a memory test rather than a guess. Sarojini Naidu was the first woman to be Governor of an Indian State, taking charge of the United Provinces in 1947, and she was the first Indian woman to preside over the Indian National Congress, at Kanpur in 1925 — though not the first woman, since Annie Besant had presided in 1917. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first woman elected President of the United Nations General Assembly, in 1953, and earlier the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet portfolio in a provincial government. Hansa Mehta sat in the Constituent Assembly and represented India on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, where she is credited with changing the opening line of the Universal Declaration from 'all men are born free and equal' to 'all human beings'. None of the three was ever a Chief Minister. (Provisional — pending the official UPSC key.)

(a)Sarojini Naidu
(b)Sucheta Kripalani
(c)Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
(d)Hansa Mehta

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Sucheta Kripalani. Sucheta Kripalani became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 2 October 1963 and held the office until 13 March 1967, which made her the first woman to head a State government anywhere in India. She had come into public life through the freedom movement, worked in the relief effort during the Partition riots, sat in the Constituent Assembly — where she sang Vande Mataram at the session of 14-15 August 1947 — and served in the Lok Sabha before taking the office in Lucknow. The other three names are all genuinely distinguished women of the same generation, and each is attached to a different first, which is what makes the question a memory test rather than a guess. Sarojini Naidu was the first woman to be Governor of an Indian State, taking charge of the United Provinces in 1947, and she was the first Indian woman to preside over the Indian National Congress, at Kanpur in 1925 — though not the first woman, since Annie Besant had presided in 1917. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first woman elected President of the United Nations General Assembly, in 1953, and earlier the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet portfolio in a provincial government. Hansa Mehta sat in the Constituent Assembly and represented India on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, where she is credited with changing the opening line of the Universal Declaration from 'all men are born free and equal' to 'all human beings'. None of the three was ever a Chief Minister.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Sarojini Naidu — Her first is a governorship, not a chief ministership — she became Governor of the United Provinces in 1947, the first woman to hold such an office in India.
(c)Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit — Her landmark is the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly in 1953, the first woman to hold it. She was a minister and an ambassador, and later Governor of Maharashtra, but never a Chief Minister.
(d)Hansa Mehta — A member of the Constituent Assembly and of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and a leading educationist; she held no State executive office.

Concept

Sucheta Kripalani, born in 1908, joined the freedom movement in the 1930s, took part in the underground work of the Quit India period alongside Aruna Asaf Ali and Ram Manohar Lohia, and founded the All India Mahila Congress. She was elected to the Constituent Assembly, served in the first Lok Sabhas, and was a minister in Uttar Pradesh before becoming its Chief Minister in 1963. Her term coincided with a long State employees' strike, which she settled, and with the food shortages of the mid-1960s. She was married to J. B. Kripalani, himself a Congress president.

Questions of the who-was-the-first-woman type are easiest to hold if each name is filed with the specific office it belongs to, because papers rotate the same four or five names across different offices. The useful set here is Sucheta Kripalani for the first woman Chief Minister in 1963, Sarojini Naidu for the first woman Governor in 1947, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit for the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1953, Indira Gandhi for the first woman Prime Minister in 1966, and Pratibha Patil for the first woman President of India in 2007. Note also the standing trap in Naidu's entry, which examiners exploit constantly: she was the first Indian woman to preside over the Congress, but the first woman to do so was Annie Besant, eight years earlier.

Key facts

Sucheta Kripalani was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 2 October 1963 to 13 March 1967 and was India's first woman Chief Minister.
She was a member of the Constituent Assembly and sang Vande Mataram at its session of 14-15 August 1947.
Sarojini Naidu became Governor of the United Provinces in 1947, the first woman Governor in India, and presided over the Congress at Kanpur in 1925.
Annie Besant, not Sarojini Naidu, was the first woman President of the Indian National Congress, at Calcutta in 1917.
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first woman elected President of the United Nations General Assembly, in 1953.
Hansa Mehta served on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and is credited with the change from 'all men' to 'all human beings' in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Study next

Women in the Constituent Assembly — Hansa Mehta, Durgabai Deshmukh, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Sucheta KripalaniSarojini Naidu's career from the Congress presidency of 1925 to the governorship of 1947Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit at the United Nations and as an ambassadorFirsts in Indian public office — first woman Prime Minister, President, Speaker, Chief Justice of a High CourtThe Quit India underground and the women who ran it

Common traps

Calling Sarojini Naidu the first woman President of the Congress; she was the first Indian woman, after Annie Besant.
Reading 'first woman Governor' as 'first woman Chief Minister'; the two belong to different people and different offices.
Confusing Sucheta Kripalani with Indira Gandhi, who became Prime Minister three years later in 1966.

As a straight who-was-first item, or as a match between four women and four different offices or achievements.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2015_GS1_Q482015Open & attempt →

Consider the following statements : 1. The first woman President of the Indian National Congress was Sarojini Naidu. 2. The first Muslim President of the Indian National Congress was Badruddin Tyabji. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer(b) 2 only

The same set of firsts, and it turns on the very name this question offers as a distractor. Sarojini Naidu presided over the Congress in 1925 but Annie Besant had done so in 1917, so Naidu is the first Indian woman rather than the first woman.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Who among the following was the first woman Governor of a State in India?
- (a)Sucheta Kripalani
- (b)Sarojini Naidu
- (c)Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
- (d)Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
Answer(b) Sarojini Naidu — appointed Governor of the United Provinces in 1947. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit became Governor of Maharashtra much later.
practice — not a real PYQ
Sucheta Kripalani was the Chief Minister of which one of the following States?
- (a)Bihar
- (b)Uttar Pradesh
- (c)Madhya Pradesh
- (d)West Bengal
Answer(b) Uttar Pradesh — she held the office at Lucknow from October 1963 to March 1967.