“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
Courage is something that defines a person in terms of what they have achieved. The courage they have showed to achieve their dreams is what makes them admirable and an inspiration for others. Here a few Indian women who are an example of exceptional courage and their journey is an inspiration for each one of us.
1. Neerja Bhanot
Neerja Bhanot, was a purser for Pan Am, based in Mumbai. She was shot and killed while saving passengers from terrorists on board the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 on 5 September 1986. Posthumously, she became the youngest recipient of India’s highest peacetime military award for bravery, the Ashok Chakra. The Neerja Bhanot Award, an award in brave heart’s name, is an award to a woman of subjected to social injustice, who faces the situation with grit and determination and extends help to other women in similar distress.
2. Kiran Bedi
Kiran Bedi is an Indian politician, social activist, former tennis player and a retired police officer. Bedi joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1972, becoming its first woman officer. She is a recipient of Ramon Magsaysay Award for the reforms brought in the society.
3. MC Mary Kom
Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom, also known as MC Mary Kom, or simply Mary Kom, is a boxer from Manipur. She is a five-time World Amateur Boxing champion, and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships. Nicknamed “Magnificent Mary”, she is the only Indian woman boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics and winning the bronze medal. She became the first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal in the Asian Games in 2014 in Incheon, South Korea.
4. Kunjarani Devi
Nameirakpam Kunjarani Devi is the most decorated Indian sportswoman in weightlifting. She was a recipient of the Arjuna Award in 1990 and shared the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award with Leander Paes for the year 1996-1997. The Government of India awarded her the civilian honour of Padma Shri in 2011. She has more than fifty international medals to her credit including a gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne.
5. Durga Shakti Nagpal
Durga Shakti Nagpal is an Indian bureaucrat, civil servant and officer in the Uttar Pradesh cadre of the IAS. She came into public view after launching a massive drive against corruption and illegal sand mining within her jurisdiction of Gautam Budh Nagar.
6. Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu
Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu is the first Indian woman to ski to the South Pole. On December 29, 2009, Reena made the historic ski-run as part of an eight-woman Commonwealth team which crossed a 900 kilometer Antarctic ice trek to reach the South Pole.
7. Kalpana Chawla
Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American astronaut and the first Indian woman in space. She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997. In 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members in the Space Shuttle Columbia. Just 16 minutes before landing, the space shuttle disintegrated and the first Indian woman astronaut passed away.
8. Arundhati Bhattacharya
Arundhati Bhattacharya is an Indian banker. She is the first woman to be the Chairperson of State Bank of India. In 2015, she was listed as the 30th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.
9. Asha Roy
Asha Roy,the daughter of a vegetable seller, is the fastest woman in India today, having clocked 11.85 seconds at the 51st National Open Athletics Championships in Kolkata.
10. Sapper Shanti Tigga
Shanti Tigga is the first female jawan in the Indian Army. She joined when she was 35 and has had two children. Tigga was awarded the title of best trainee.
11. Chanda Kochhar
Chanda Kochhar is the managing director(MD) and chief executive officer(CEO) of ICICI Bank, India’s largest private bank and overall second largest bank.
12. Chhavi Rajawat
Rajawat left her corporate job and city life to help develop rural India. She became the Sarpanch of Soda, a village sixty kilometers from Jaipur. She is the first woman sarpanch in India with an MBA degree.
13. Sania Mirza
Sania Mirza is an Indian professional tennis player who is currently ranked No. 1 in the women’s doubles rankings. From 2003 until her retirement from singles in 2013, she was ranked by the Women’s Tennis Association as India’s No. 1 player, both in singles and doubles.
14. Kangana Ranaut
Kangana Ranaut has established a career in Bollywood and is one of the highest-paid actresses in India. She is particularly known in the media for expressing her honest opinions in public. She is the recipient of two National Film Awards. Ranaut struggled with her meager earnings, refusing her father’s financial assistance while she was struggling in the industry.
15. Irom Chanu Sharmila
Irom Chanu Sharmila, also known as the “Iron Lady of Manipur” is a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur. She began her fast in Malom on 5 November, and vowed not to eat, drink, comb her hair or look in a mirror until AFSPA was repealed, which is still ongoing. Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she has been called “the world’s longest hunger striker”.
16. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is the chairman and managing director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore and the current chairperson of IIM-Bangalore.
17. Chitra Ramakrishna
Chitra Ramkrishna is the first woman managing director and chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), an institution founded in the early 1990s to reform the capital market in India. As the MD and CEO, Ms. Ramkrishna has not only maintained the rich legacy of this great institution, but her tireless endeavour has ensured it has scaled new heights.
18. Shakuntala Devi
Shakuntala Devi was an Indian writer and mental calculator, popularly known as the “human computer”. She holds Guinness Book record for her fast mental calculations. She wrote the book, “The World of Homosexuals”, which is considered the first study of homosexuality in India.
19. Puja Thakur
Puja Thakur is the first woman to command a joint services guard of honour that was inspected by US President Barack Obama.
20. Tessy Thomas
Tessy Thomas is the Project Director for Agni-IV missile in Defence Research and Development Organisation. She is the first woman scientist to head a missile project in India. She is known as the ‘Missile Woman’ of India.
21. Mithali Raj
Mithali Raj took up the game of cricket when she was just 10 and is the captain of the Indian Women’s cricket team. Raj is the second person to achieve 5000 runs in ODI women cricket. She is also the first female cricketer to win the Wisden India Cricketers of the Year recognition.