Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul (1908–2001) was an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n politician and the only Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 woman to be a member of the Constituent Assembly of India

Constituent Assembly of India

The Constituent Assembly of India was elected to write the Constitution of India, and following independence served as the nation's first Parliament.-Nature of the Assembly:...

.

Family

Born into the princely family of Malerkotla

Malerkotla

Malerkotla is a city and a municipal council in Sangrur district in the Indian state of Punjab. It was the seat of the eponymous princely state during the British Raj...

, she was married at a young age to Nawaab Aizaz Rasul, a taluqdar

Taluqdar

A taluqdar or talukdar , is a term used for Indian land holders in Mughal and British times, responsible for collecting taxes from a district...

(landowner) of the former princely state of Oudh.

Political career

With the enactment of the Government of India Act 1935

Government of India Act 1935

The Government of India Act 1935 was originally passed in August 1935 , and is said to have been the longest Act of Parliament ever enacted by that time. Because of its length, the Act was retroactively split by the Government of India Act 1935 into two separate Acts:# The Government of India...

, the couple joined the Muslim League and entered electoral politics. In the 1937 elections, she was one of the few women who successfully contested from a non-reserved seat and was elected to the U.P legislative assembly. Begum Aizaz Rasul remained a member till 1952. She held the office of the Deputy President of the Council from 1937 to 1940 and acted as the Leader of Opposition in the Council from 1950 to 1952. She was the first woman in India and the first Muslim woman in the world to reach this position. Despite her family background, she was known for her strong support for zamindar

Zamindar

A Zamindar or zemindar , was an aristocrat, typically hereditary, who held enormous tracts of land and ruled over and taxed the bhikaaris who lived on batavaslam. Over time, they took princely and royal titles such as Maharaja , Raja , Nawab , and Mirza , Chowdhury , among others...

i abolition.

In 1946, she was elected to the Constituent Assembly of India and was one of 28 Muslim League members who finally joined. She was the only Muslim woman in the Assembly. In 1950, the Muslim League in India dissolved and Begum Aizaz Rasul joined the Congress. She was elected to the Rajya Sabha

Rajya Sabha

The Rajya Sabha or Council of States is the upper house of the Parliament of India. Rajya means "state," and Sabha means "assembly hall" in Sanskrit. Membership is limited to 250 members, 12 of whom are chosen by the President of India for their expertise in specific fields of art, literature,...

 in 1952 and was a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from 1969 to 1990.

Between, 1969 and 1971, she was the Minister for Social Welfare and Minorities. In 2000, she was awarded a Padma Shree for her contribution to social work.

Role in the Constituent Assembly

With the partition of India

Partition of India

The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...

, only a handful of Muslim League members joined the Constituent Assembly of India. Begum Aizaz Rasul was elected the Deputy Leader of the Delegation and the Deputy leader of Opposition in the Constituent Legislative Assembly. When Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman, the party leader left for Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Begum Aizaz succeeded him as the leader of the Muslim League and became a member of the Minority Rights Drafting Subcommittee.

Begum Aizaz Rasul was instrumental in creating consensus amongst the Muslim leadership to voluntarily give up the demand for reserved seats for religious minorities.

Sports patronage

She held the office of President of the Indian Women Hockey Federation for 20 years and was also President of the Asian Women’s Hockey Federation. The Indian Women's Hockey Cup is named after her. Maintaining a keen interest in sport, she even donned men's whites to bat for the Presidents XI vs. the Prime Minister's XI, goodwill match in 1952.

Writings

A widely traveled person, Begum Rasul was a member of Prime Minister’s Goodwill Delegation to Japan in 1953 and Indian Parliamentary Delegation to Turkey in 1955. She also took keen interest in literature and authored the book Three Weeks in Japan and contributed to various newspapers and magazines. Her autobiography is titled From Purdah to Parliament: A Muslim Woman in Indian Politics.