• WOMEN'S RIGHTS & ANTICOLONIAL ACTIVIST
• Adding "bai" to women's names was a common custom throughout India at the time, so although she was named "Durga" at birth, she became known as "Durgabai"
• Forced into an arranged marriage at eight years old, she left her husband a few years later and became active in the anticolonial movement while still a child
• In support of the nationalist boycott of the English language, she quit school when she was twelve years old and started her own Hindi-speaking school
• In 1930 she led her district's participation in the Salt Satyagraha, a country-wide civil disobedience campaign that was initiated by Mahatma Gandhi to protest the salt tax
• Arrested multiple times for her activism
• Founded the Andhra Mahila Sabha (Andhra Women's Conference), which established educational and job training centers for women, and is now India's largest charitable organization that serves women and children
• Earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in political science, followed by her law degree in 1942
• Worked as an Advocate at the Madras High Court
• ONLY woman on the panel that drafted a constitution for newly independent India
• After a failed run for Parliament in 1952, she joined the Planning Commission and was one of the key architects of the country's social welfare policies
• Founded the Central Social Welfare Board, a governmental body that supports local development and women's education
• Represented her country in several capacities, including as chairperson of the National Committee on Girls' and Women's Education, delegate to the Second Commonwealth Education Conference, and delegate to the 1963 World Food Congress in Washington, D.C.
• Awarded one of India's highest civilian honors, the Padma Vibushan, for her public service

So. Very. Gracious.

After her first husband died, Deshmukh, who by then was remarried, helped his widow get job training -- and even let her live with them.

Bibliography: Deshpande, Prachi. "Deshmukh, Durgabai." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, 2008, 42.

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