1938: Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah Born Shaista Akhtar Banu Suhrawardy in Calcutta, British India as the only daughter of Lt. Col. Dr. Hassan Suhrawardy, OBE. She was educated at Loreto House of the University of Calcutta with a BA Hons. After her marriage she left to study at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where she had the honor of being the first Muslim and Indian woman to receive a PhD, from the University of London. Her doctorate thesis Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story was a critical survey of Urdu literature. The Suhrawardy family had always been involved in politics. Her cousin Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was the Premier of Bengal, and she herself had addressed her first public gathering in 1931. During her husbands posting in Delhi, she came in contact with Muhammad Ali Jinnah and joined the All-India Muslim League|Muslim League]. Along with Fatima Jinnah, she set up the Muslim Women Students Federation and drew girls into Muslim League Activities. In 1945, Begum Ikramullah was asked by the Government of India to attend the Pacific Relations Conference. Jinnah convinced her not to accept the offer, as he wanted her to go as the representative of the Muslim League and to speak on its behalf. She was an active defender of fundamental rights in the assembly and conscious of the lack of balance between the two halves of Pakistan. Her first speech was to support a resolution that the Assembly should meet in Dhaka, capital of the more populous East Pakistan, as well as Karachi. She was one of the two female representatives of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (1947). She was Pakistans Ambassador to Morocco (1964 to 1967). She was a delegate to the United Nations on several occasions, and was a member of the Committee that worked on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Convention Against Genocide. She scored a notable victory over the redoubtable Krishna Menon on the issue of Kashmir at the United Nations.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 16:26:25 +0000
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