Hansa Mehta, India’s Pioneer Woman Vice Chancellor and Architect of Reform

Graphic representation of Hansa Mehta

Few people know that a woman from Gujarat played a decisive role in shaping one of the most important documents of the 20th century and was India’s Pioneer Woman Vice Chancellor. In 1947 and 1948, Hansa Mehta, an educator, freedom fighter, parliamentarian and fierce advocate of women’s rights, succeeded in persuading the United Nations to amend the opening line of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Because of her intervention, the phrase “All men are born free and equal” was changed to the inclusive wording we know today: “All human beings are born free and equal”. It was a small change in text, but a monumental shift in principle, and by no means her first achievement.

A Life of Many Roles

Hansa’s public life spanned education, politics, social reform, literature and diplomacy. She served on the UN Commission on Human Rights and was part of the committee that drafted the UDHR. At home, she was one of only fifteen women in India’s first Constituent Assembly, helping shape the Constitution that continues to guide the Republic.

Even before the Constitution was written, she had become a symbolic presence for the new nation. At the midnight session of 14 August 1947, as India awaited its freedom, she stood beside Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad. When the moment finally arrived and the pledge of independence was taken, Hansa stepped forward on behalf of India’s women and presented the national flag to the incoming President. “We have donned the saffron colour, we have fought, suffered and sacrificed,” she said, dedicating once again the services of Indian women to the country.

Roots of a Reformist

Hansa was born on 3 July 1897 into a privileged and intellectually vibrant household in Surat. Her father, Manubhai Mehta, taught philosophy at Baroda College and served as Dewan of Baroda and later Bikaner. Her grandfather, Nandshankar Mehta, authored the first Gujarati novel, Karan Ghelo.

Growing up in such an atmosphere, education was an expectation rather than an exception. After college, she travelled to England to study journalism at the London School of Economics. During an exchange stint in the United States, she worked on a personal mission to persuade American colleges to offer scholarships to Indian women and to study their educational institutions as models for India.

In London, she grew close to Sarojini Naidu and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, friendships that strengthened her nationalist convictions. Naidu introduced her to Gandhi, whom she met for the first time in 1922 when he was imprisoned in Sabarmati. The encounter moved her deeply, and her political engagement intensified soon after.

Into the Freedom Movement

By the late 1920s, Hansa was firmly embedded in public life. Her efforts to expand girls’ education earned her a place on the Bombay Municipality Schools Committee. In 1928, she married the distinguished physician Jivraj Mehta. Their inter-caste marriage caused a stir, but with the support of the progressive Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, her family eventually consented.

The country was then in the throes of the Civil Disobedience Movement. Hansa became one of its prominent women leaders. On 1 May 1930, she led the first batch of the Desh Sevika Sangh in picketing foreign cloth and liquor shops in Bombay. She soon earned enormous goodwill among Congress workers, many of whom fondly referred to her as the “Dictator of Bombay”, a testament to her organisational skill and moral authority. Her activism led to her arrest and a three month jail term, from which she was released following the Gandhi Irwin Pact.

In 1932, she became vice president of the Harijan Sewak Sangh, seeking to bridge the gulf between Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar over the pressing question of temple entry and equal rights for Dalits.

Architect of Educational Reform

Hansa entered legislative politics in 1937, winning a seat in the Bombay Legislative Council. As Parliamentary Secretary for Education and Health, she transformed the department into a vehicle of reform. She introduced vocational, technical and commercial schools and oversaw the creation of the Secondary School Certificate Examination Board, a system that has remained a cornerstone of school education in several states.

Her influence continued to grow. As president of the All India Women’s Conference in 1946, she drafted the Indian Woman’s Charter of Rights and Duties, demanding equal civil rights, equal pay, and parity in education and property laws. She insisted that women must be recognised by the state as independent individuals whose rights were not dependent on their husbands or families.

At the UN and in the Constituent Assembly

In 1947, India appointed Hansa to the UN Commission on Human Rights. It was here that she made her historic intervention to make the UDHR’s opening article gender neutral. At the same time, she served in the Constituent Assembly and was part of the Sub Committee on Fundamental Rights alongside B. R. Ambedkar, Amrit Kaur and Minoo Masani.

She strongly advocated a Uniform Civil Code, viewing it as essential to forging a shared national identity above religious divisions. When the proposal failed, she recorded her dissent, warning that religiously segmented personal laws kept India from “advancing to nationhood”.

During debates on the Hindu Code Bill, she argued for daughters to have equal inheritance rights and insisted that women must have the legal right to divorce, ideas that were radical for their time.

The First Woman to Head a Co Educational University

In 1949, Hansa became vice chancellor of the newly formed Baroda University, the first woman in India to head a university not restricted to women. She established new faculties such as Social Work, Home Science and Fine Arts, encouraged academic exchanges with institutions abroad, and supported a strong students’ union at a time when such initiatives were rare.

She also challenged the conservative assumptions of the University Education Commission of 1948 and 49, which suggested that men and women required different types of education. As president of the National Council for Women’s Education, she rejected such thinking, asserting that there was no inherent female aptitude that should shape educational policy.

A Writer, Translator and Cultural Figure

Despite her demanding public roles, Hansa wrote extensively, producing fifteen books on subjects ranging from religion to women’s rights. She authored The Woman Under Hindu Law of Marriage and Succession in 1944, The Indian Woman in 1981, and the Gujarati Ram Katha in 1993. She also translated Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the latter rendered in Gujarati as Golibar Ni Musafari in 1931.

Her standing in public life was acknowledged with the Padma Bhushan in 1959. A year later, Jivraj Mehta became the first Chief Minister of Gujarat, and in 1964 was appointed India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Nehru specifically asked that Hansa join him in London, where she worked to improve the conditions of Indian immigrants and served on the Racial Relations Committee.

A Lasting Legacy

Hansa Mehta remained active well into her later years, committed to widening the horizons available to Indian women. She passed away on 4 April 1995, leaving behind a legacy rooted in privilege but dedicated to the empowerment of those less fortunate.

Her life’s work, from altering the language of global human rights to reshaping Indian education, law and public policy, stands as a reminder that individual conviction can shift the course of institutions and nations. Through her actions, she helped build a more inclusive India and a more gender just world.