"First in India" — Women

Why This Chapter Matters

Almost every SSC CGL, CHSL, MTS, RRB NTPC and police constable paper carries at least one question from this exact category, and in a good year you will see two or three. Women's firsts are a favourite because they combine three things exam-setters love: a clean fact, a memorable name, and a date that can be cross-checked. Skip this chapter and you are leaving free marks on the table.

The single biggest mistake aspirants make here is mixing up "first Indian woman" with "first woman in independent India" or "first woman elected" with "first woman appointed." Kalpana Chawla was the first woman of Indian origin in space, but she was a US citizen when she flew — that nuance alone has been the twist in more than one paper. Read every entry below with the exact wording in mind: the exam rewards precision, not general awareness.

Government, Politics and Administration

India's political firsts for women start early and run deep, because the Constitution gave women equal voting and contesting rights from day one, unlike many older democracies.

Sarojini Naidu was the first woman President of the Indian National Congress (1925, Kanpur session) and later became the first woman Governor of an Indian state — she took charge of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) in 1947.

Sucheta Kripalani became the first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state when she took office in Uttar Pradesh in 1963.

Pratibha Patil was the first woman President of India, elected in 2007. She had earlier been the first woman Governor of Rajasthan.

Indira Gandhi was the first woman Prime Minister of India, taking office in 1966.

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly (1953) and also India's first woman ambassador, having served in Moscow and Washington.

Meira Kumar became the first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 2009.

Nirmala Sitharaman was the first full-time woman Defence Minister of India (2017) and later became the first full-time woman Finance Minister (2019); Indira Gandhi had earlier held the Finance portfolio too, but only in addition to being Prime Minister.

Exam trap: Do not confuse "first woman Finance Minister" with "first full-time woman Finance Minister." Indira Gandhi briefly held Finance in 1970 while serving as PM; Nirmala Sitharaman is the first woman to hold it as her dedicated, standalone portfolio.

Droupadi Murmu became the first tribal woman President of India in 2022, and only the second woman President after Pratibha Patil.

Memory hook: think of the chain "S-S-P-I-M" for the top constitutional firsts in order of role, not date — Sarojini (party chief), Sucheta (CM), Pratibha (President), Indira (PM), Meira (Speaker). Say it as a name-chain and the roles lock together.

Judiciary and Legal Firsts

Fathima Beevi was the first woman judge of the Supreme Court of India, appointed in 1989. Before that, Anna Chandy had already become the first woman judge of a High Court in India (Kerala High Court, 1959).

Leila Seth was the first woman Chief Justice of a state High Court (Himachal Pradesh, 1991).

Indu Malhotra became the first woman lawyer to be directly appointed as a Supreme Court judge from the Bar, in 2018 (earlier woman judges had risen through the High Courts first).

Civil Services, Police and Defence

Anna Rajam Malhotra was the first woman IAS officer of independent India, joining the service in 1951.

Kiran Bedi was the first woman IPS officer, joining in 1972. She later became the first woman to head Tihar Jail as Inspector General of Prisons, and pioneered several prison-reform programmes there.

Punita Arora rose to become the first woman Lieutenant General in the Indian Army (and earlier a Vice Admiral in the Navy — she is one of the very few officers to hold flag rank in two different services).

Priya Jhingan was the first woman cadet to be commissioned into the Indian Army, in 1993.

Avani Chaturvedi, along with Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh, became one of the first three women fighter pilots inducted into the Indian Air Force in 2016; Avani Chaturvedi went on to become the first Indian woman to fly a fighter jet solo.

Exam trap: Papers often ask for "the first woman fighter pilot" as a single name — the correct exam-safe answer links Avani Chaturvedi to the "first solo sortie" achievement, while all three names share the "first batch inducted" credit. Read the question stem carefully before picking one name.

Harita Kaur Deol was the first woman pilot of the Indian Air Force to fly solo, back in 1994, well before the fighter-pilot batch of 2016 — do not merge these two facts.

Science, Space and Technology

Think of Indian science's glass ceiling like a train that women boarded late but rode fast once the doors opened.

Kadambini Ganguly, along with Anandi Gopal Joshi, are jointly remembered as among the first Indian women to qualify as physicians using Western medical training in the 1880s. Kadambini Ganguly is usually credited as the first to practise, since Anandi Gopal Joshi passed away shortly after qualifying and never practised in India.

Kamala Sohonie was the first Indian woman to earn a PhD in a scientific subject, completing her doctorate in biochemistry in 1939 after initially being denied direct admission to the Indian Institute of Science by C.V. Raman purely for being a woman — she fought that decision and won.

Kalpana Chawla was the first woman of Indian origin to go to space, flying with NASA in 1997. She died in the Columbia shuttle disaster in 2003.

Bachendri Pal was the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest, in 1984.

Exam trap: Kalpana Chawla is "first Indian-origin woman in space," not "first Indian woman in space" — she held US citizenship at the time of her flight. If a question insists on an Indian citizen specifically, the settled exam answer is that no Indian woman citizen has yet flown to space as of the current syllabus cut-off; treat any claim otherwise with suspicion.

Anna Mani was a pioneering meteorologist and among the first Indian women to lead major scientific instrumentation work, becoming Deputy Director General of the India Meteorological Department.

Sports

Sport is where "first woman" questions multiply fastest, because every discipline and every Games generates its own first.

Karnam Malleswari was the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in weightlifting at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

P.T. Usha narrowly missed an Olympic medal in 1984 but remains the first Indian woman to reach an Olympic track final, and she still holds legendary status as the "Payyoli Express."

Mary Kom was the first Indian woman boxer to win an Olympic medal (bronze, London 2012) and is a six-time World Amateur Boxing Champion.

Saina Nehwal was the first Indian woman badminton player to win an Olympic medal (bronze, London 2012) and the first Indian to reach the World No. 1 ranking in badminton.

PV Sindhu was the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal (Rio 2016, badminton), later adding a bronze at Tokyo 2020 — making her the first Indian woman with two individual Olympic medals.

Mithali Raj became the first Indian woman cricketer to score a double century in Test cricket and went on to captain India in both Tests and ODIs, retiring as the leading run-scorer in women's ODI cricket history.

Shantha Rangaswamy was the first captain to lead the Indian women's cricket team when it played its first official Test in 1976, against the West Indies at Bengaluru; Diana Edulji captained India in later series and is regarded as one of the other founding figures of Indian women's cricket administration.

Reena Kaushik-style trivia aside, the cleaner exam fact is this: Shanti Mishra was the first Indian woman to complete a marathon at the Olympics (1980 Moscow Games).

Deepa Malik was the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Paralympics, a silver in shot put at Rio 2016.

Memory hook: for Olympic-medal firsts by sport, remember "WABT" — Weightlifting (Malleswari, bronze 2000), Boxing (Mary Kom, bronze 2012), Badminton (Saina, bronze 2012, then Sindhu silver 2016), Track final without a medal (Usha, 1984). Say "WABT, always before Tokyo" to lock the pre-2016 sequence in place.

Table: Olympic and Paralympic Medal Firsts (Women)

Athlete	Sport	Medal & Year	First Achieved
Karnam Malleswari	Weightlifting	Bronze, 2000 Sydney	First Indian woman with any Olympic medal
Mary Kom	Boxing	Bronze, 2012 London	First Indian woman boxer with Olympic medal
Saina Nehwal	Badminton	Bronze, 2012 London	First Indian woman badminton Olympic medallist
PV Sindhu	Badminton	Silver, 2016 Rio	First Indian woman Olympic silver medallist
Deepa Malik	Athletics (shot put)	Silver, 2016 Rio Paralympics	First Indian woman Paralympic medallist

Arts, Literature and Culture

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was the first Indian woman to contest an election (a legislative council seat, 1926) and later became a towering figure in reviving Indian handicrafts and theatre after independence.

Amrita Sher-Gil is remembered as one of India's pioneering modern woman painters, often called one of the greatest avant-garde women artists of her generation in Asia.

MS Subbulakshmi was the first musician, and the first woman, to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 1998.

Ismat Chughtai stood out as one of the first prominent Urdu women writers to write boldly on women's sexuality and social hypocrisy, most famously in her short story "Lihaaf."

Aviation and Exploration

Commercial aviation in India opened to women earlier than most people assume, and the pattern repeats across decades: one woman breaks in, then a wave follows within a generation.

Durba Banerjee was the first woman pilot to be commanded by Indian Airlines, joining as a commercial pilot in 1966, decades before the IAF opened combat flying to women.

Sarla Thakral is widely cited as the first Indian woman to fly an aircraft, earning her pilot's licence in 1936, well before independence — a genuinely early first that predates almost every entry in this chapter.

Captain Saudamini Deshmukh led the first all-women crew to fly a Boeing aircraft on a domestic Indian route in the mid-1980s, and Air India later flew the first all-women-crewed round-the-world flight in 2021, a modern echo of that same first.

Bula Choudhury became the first Indian woman to swim across the English Channel both ways (in 1989 and again later), an achievement usually paired in exam questions with the men's-firsts equivalent from the previous chapter — know both, because papers sometimes ask you to match swimmer to gender and channel in the same question.

Exam trap: "first Indian woman pilot" and "first Indian woman commercial/commanded pilot" are not the same fact. Sarla Thakral earned a licence in 1936 as a private aviator; Durba Banerjee is the one tied to commercial airline command three decades later. Exam-setters exploit exactly this gap.

Media, Journalism and Public Communication

Homai Vyarawalla became India's first woman photojournalist, working under the pen name "Dalda 13" and photographing major events from the final years of British rule through the early republic, including Mahatma Gandhi's funeral and the first Independence Day flag hoisting.

Think of this whole section like a photograph developing in a darkroom: the image was always there, but it took the right woman, at the right moment, holding the camera, for it to become visible to the rest of the country. That is a useful lens for the whole chapter — none of these firsts happened because opportunity suddenly appeared. Each one happened because a specific woman pushed through a door that was technically open on paper but shut in practice.

Business and Public Life

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is widely cited as one of the first Indian women to build a biotechnology company (Biocon) from scratch into a globally recognised enterprise, starting in a garage in 1978.

Naina Lal Kidwai became the first woman to head the operations of a foreign bank in India (HSBC India) and the first woman president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Chanda Kochhar became the first woman to lead a major private sector bank in India as CEO and Managing Director of ICICI Bank.

Arundhati Bhattacharya was the first woman Chairperson of the State Bank of India, India's largest bank, appointed in 2013.

Table: One Woman, One First — Quick Cross-Check

Field	First Woman	Year / Note
Prime Minister of India	Indira Gandhi	1966
President of India	Pratibha Patil	2007
Chief Minister of a state	Sucheta Kripalani	1963, Uttar Pradesh
Governor of a state	Sarojini Naidu	1947, United Provinces
Supreme Court judge	Fathima Beevi	1989
High Court judge	Anna Chandy	1959, Kerala
IAS officer (independent India)	Anna Rajam Malhotra	1951
IPS officer	Kiran Bedi	1972
Olympic medallist	Karnam Malleswari	2000, weightlifting bronze
Everest summiteer	Bachendri Pal	1984
Space traveller of Indian origin	Kalpana Chawla	1997
Bharat Ratna recipient	Indira Gandhi	1971 (Indira Gandhi was the first woman to receive it; MS Subbulakshmi was the first musician to receive it)

Exam trap: the Bharat Ratna row above is the most misquoted fact in this whole chapter. Indira Gandhi was the first woman to receive the Bharat Ratna, in 1971, for her role during the Bangladesh Liberation War year. MS Subbulakshmi received it later, in 1998, as the first musician, and separately gets cited as the first woman classical musician to receive it. Two different "firsts," same award — read the question stem to see which qualifier it wants.

Education

Education firsts sit underneath almost every other category in this chapter, because none of the later achievements were possible without women first winning the right to sit in a classroom and earn a degree.

Chandramukhi Basu and Kadambini Ganguly are jointly credited as the first women graduates of British India, both earning their degrees from the University of Calcutta in 1883, decades before most Indian universities admitted women as a matter of course.

Cornelia Sorabji became the first woman to study law at Oxford University and the first woman to practise law in India, though she was initially barred from formally enrolling as a barrister in British India purely on account of her gender and had to work around that restriction for years before Indian courts recognised her standing.

Exam trap: aspirants often write "Cornelia Sorabji: first woman lawyer in India" without qualification. The safer, exam-accurate phrasing is "first woman to practise law in India," since formal enrolment as an advocate came only later, after rules changed to permit women to be enrolled as barristers and pleaders.

Anandibai Joshi, whose surname is sometimes spelled Anandi Gopal Joshi, is remembered specifically as the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree from a Western institution, having travelled to the United States to study at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in the 1880s.

How to Revise This Chapter in the Last Week

Do not try to memorise this chapter as one long list the night before your exam. Split it by category — government, judiciary, defence, science, sports, arts, business — and test yourself one category at a time. Cover the "First Woman" column in the tables and try to recall it from the field name alone; then flip it and recall the field from the name. This two-way testing is what actually holds under exam pressure, unlike passive rereading, which feels productive but rarely survives contact with a 25-second-per-question timer.

When two names sit close together in the same field (Anna Chandy and Fathima Beevi, or Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu), drill that pair specifically until you can answer either direction without hesitation. That pairing confusion, not lack of knowledge, is what costs most aspirants the mark.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Sarojini Naidu: first woman Governor of an Indian state (United Provinces, 1947) and first woman President of the Indian National Congress (1925).
• Sucheta Kripalani: first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state (Uttar Pradesh, 1963).
• Indira Gandhi: first woman Prime Minister of India (1966) and first woman recipient of the Bharat Ratna (1971).
• Pratibha Patil: first woman President of India (2007); earlier first woman Governor of Rajasthan.
• Droupadi Murmu: first tribal woman President of India (2022).
• Meira Kumar: first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha (2009).
• Nirmala Sitharaman: first full-time woman Defence Minister (2017) and first full-time woman Finance Minister (2019).
• Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit: first woman President of the UN General Assembly (1953).
• Fathima Beevi: first woman judge of the Supreme Court of India (1989).
• Anna Chandy: first woman judge of a High Court in India (Kerala, 1959).
• Leila Seth: first woman Chief Justice of a state High Court (Himachal Pradesh, 1991).
• Indu Malhotra: first woman lawyer directly elevated to the Supreme Court from the Bar (2018).
• Anna Rajam Malhotra: first woman IAS officer of independent India (1951).
• Kiran Bedi: first woman IPS officer (1972).
• Punita Arora: first woman Lieutenant General in the Indian Army.
• Priya Jhingan: first woman cadet commissioned into the Indian Army (1993).
• Harita Kaur Deol: first woman IAF pilot to fly solo (1994).
• Avani Chaturvedi: first Indian woman to fly a fighter jet solo.
• Kadambini Ganguly: among the first Indian women to practise Western medicine (1880s).
• Kamala Sohonie: first Indian woman to earn a PhD in science (1939, biochemistry).
• Kalpana Chawla: first woman of Indian origin in space (1997).
• Bachendri Pal: first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest (1984).
• Karnam Malleswari: first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal (bronze, weightlifting, 2000).
• Mary Kom: first Indian woman boxer with an Olympic medal (bronze, 2012).
• Saina Nehwal: first Indian woman badminton player with an Olympic medal (bronze, 2012).
• PV Sindhu: first Indian woman with an Olympic silver medal (2016).
• Deepa Malik: first Indian woman to win a Paralympic medal (silver, 2016).
• Shantha Rangaswamy: captained India in its first official women's Test match (1976).
• Mithali Raj: first Indian woman cricketer to score a Test double century.
• MS Subbulakshmi: first musician, and first woman classical musician, to receive the Bharat Ratna (1998).
• Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: first Indian woman to contest an election (1926).
• Arundhati Bhattacharya: first woman Chairperson of the State Bank of India (2013).

Memory Tables

Table 1: Constitutional and Administrative Firsts

Post	First Woman	Year
Prime Minister	Indira Gandhi	1966
President	Pratibha Patil	2007
Chief Minister	Sucheta Kripalani	1963
State Governor	Sarojini Naidu	1947
Lok Sabha Speaker	Meira Kumar	2009
Supreme Court judge	Fathima Beevi	1989
IAS officer	Anna Rajam Malhotra	1951
IPS officer	Kiran Bedi	1972

Table 2: Science, Sports and Culture Firsts

Field	First Woman	Year / Note
PhD in science	Kamala Sohonie	1939
Space traveller (Indian origin)	Kalpana Chawla	1997
Everest summit	Bachendri Pal	1984
Olympic medal	Karnam Malleswari	2000
Olympic silver medal	PV Sindhu	2016
Paralympic medal	Deepa Malik	2016
Bharat Ratna	Indira Gandhi	1971
Bharat Ratna (musician)	MS Subbulakshmi	1998

Practice MCQs

Q1. Who was the first woman Prime Minister of India? (a) Sonia Gandhi (b) Indira Gandhi (c) Pratibha Patil (d) Sucheta Kripalani

Q2. Who became the first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state? (a) Sarojini Naidu (b) Sucheta Kripalani (c) Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (d) Meira Kumar

Q3. Who was the first woman President of India? (a) Droupadi Murmu (b) Pratibha Patil (c) Sarojini Naidu (d) Meira Kumar

Q4. Who was the first tribal woman to become President of India? (a) Pratibha Patil (b) Droupadi Murmu (c) Sucheta Kripalani (d) Sarojini Naidu

Q5. Which Indian woman was the first to win an Olympic medal? (a) PT Usha (b) Karnam Malleswari (c) Mary Kom (d) Saina Nehwal

Q6. Who was the first woman IPS officer of India? (a) Kiran Bedi (b) Anna Rajam Malhotra (c) Punita Arora (d) Priya Jhingan

Q7. Sarojini Naidu became the first woman Governor of which former state? (a) Bombay (b) Madras (c) United Provinces (d) Bengal

Q8. Who was the first woman judge of the Supreme Court of India? (a) Anna Chandy (b) Leila Seth (c) Fathima Beevi (d) Indu Malhotra

Q9. Who was the first woman to receive the Bharat Ratna? (a) MS Subbulakshmi (b) Indira Gandhi (c) Mother Teresa (d) Sarojini Naidu

Q10. Which Indian woman was the first to climb Mount Everest? (a) Santosh Yadav (b) Bachendri Pal (c) Arunima Sinha (d) Premlata Agarwal

Q11. Who was the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal? (a) Saina Nehwal (b) Mary Kom (c) PV Sindhu (d) Mithali Raj

Q12. Kamala Sohonie is remembered as the first Indian woman to achieve which distinction? (a) First woman IAS officer (b) First woman to earn a PhD in a scientific subject (c) First woman airline pilot (d) First woman Supreme Court judge

Q13. Who was the first woman to fly solo as a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force? (a) Bhawana Kanth (b) Mohana Singh (c) Avani Chaturvedi (d) Harita Kaur Deol

Q14. Anna Chandy holds which distinction in Indian legal history? (a) First woman Supreme Court judge (b) First woman High Court judge (c) First woman Attorney General (d) First woman Chief Justice of a High Court

Q15. Who captained the Indian women's cricket team in its first official Test match in 1976? (a) Mithali Raj (b) Shantha Rangaswamy (c) Diana Edulji (d) Anjum Chopra

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
1	(b)	Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966, the first woman to hold the post; Sucheta Kripalani was a Chief Minister, not PM.
2	(b)	Sucheta Kripalani became UP Chief Minister in 1963, India's first woman CM; Sarojini Naidu was a Governor, a different post.
3	(b)	Pratibha Patil was elected President in 2007; Droupadi Murmu came later, in 2022, as the second woman President.
4	(b)	Droupadi Murmu, elected in 2022, is the first tribal woman President; Pratibha Patil was the first woman President overall but not tribal.
5	(b)	Karnam Malleswari won bronze in weightlifting at Sydney 2000, India's first Olympic medal by a woman; PT Usha reached a final in 1984 but did not medal.
6	(a)	Kiran Bedi joined the IPS in 1972, the first woman to do so; Anna Rajam Malhotra was the first woman IAS officer, a separate service.
7	(c)	Sarojini Naidu was appointed Governor of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) in 1947, independent India's first woman Governor.
8	(c)	Fathima Beevi was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1989; Anna Chandy's first was at the High Court level, thirty years earlier.
9	(b)	Indira Gandhi received the Bharat Ratna in 1971, the first woman to get it; MS Subbulakshmi's 1998 award made her the first musician to receive it.
10	(b)	Bachendri Pal summited Everest in 1984, India's first woman to do so; the other names climbed later, in different record categories.
11	(c)	PV Sindhu won silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics, India's first Olympic silver by a woman; Saina Nehwal and Mary Kom won bronze medals in 2012.
12	(b)	Kamala Sohonie completed her PhD in biochemistry in 1939 after fighting for admission to the Indian Institute of Science, a frequently tested exam fact.
13	(c)	Avani Chaturvedi became the first Indian woman to fly a fighter jet solo; she, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh were inducted together as the first batch in 2016.
14	(b)	Anna Chandy became a Kerala High Court judge in 1959, the first woman High Court judge in India, distinct from Fathima Beevi's later Supreme Court first.
15	(b)	Shantha Rangaswamy captained India in its first official women's Test match, against the West Indies in 1976; Diana Edulji captained India in later series.