The unique women of the Constituent Assembly

Hidden Figures, a Hollywood film released in 2016 was about the lives of three Black women mathematicians whose contribution to the launch of the American space capsule, Friendship 7, was seminal. The film describes their day-to-day struggles against discrimination, prejudice and other barriers that they overcame to become role models for many.

- ADITI PHADNIS

Angellica Aribam and Akash Satyawali have embarked on a similar project about the 15 women who were among the 299 people in the Indian Constituent Assembly who drafted the constitution of India as members of the Assembly. This book is much more than a bald recounting of the inputs by these women. It locates their lives in the socio-political context of the 1930s and 1940s with all the attendant prejudices, and describes their disparate backgrounds but unity of purpose: To give free India, a document to govern itself that was informed by their own struggles.