Nandini Satpathy

Nandini Satpathy (9 June 1931 – 4 August 2006) was an Indian politician and author.

Nandini Satpathy nee Panigrahi was born on 9 June 1931 to Kalindi Charan Panigrahi and Ratnamani Panigrahi in a Brahmin Family of Coastal Puri but grew up in Pithapur, Cuttack, India.

Satpathy's uncle Bhagavati Charan Panigrahi founded the Odisha branch of the Communist Party of India.

He was a close associate of Netaji SC Bose.

In 1939, at the age of eight, she was mercilessly beaten up by British Police for pulling down the Union Jack and for pasting hand written anti-British Raj posters on the walls of Cuttack.

The same was widely discussed at that time and it had worked as pouring fuel on fire for the struggle of Freedom of India from British Raj.

While at Ravenshaw College pursuing her Master of Arts in Odia, she got involved with the Communist Party's student wing, the Student Federation.

In 1951, a student protest movement began in Odisha against rising college education costs, it later turned into a national youth movement.

Nandini was a leader of this movement.

The police force attacked the protestors and Nandini Satpathy was severely injured in the same.

She was jailed, along with many others.

In the jail she met Devendra Satpathy, another Student Federation member and the man who she later married.

In 1962, the Congress party was dominant in Orissa; the Orissa State Legislative Assembly of 140 members had over 80 from the Congress party.

At a national level, there was a movement to have more women representatives in the Indian Parliament.

The Assembly elected Nandini Satpathy (then president of the Women's Forum) to the upper house of India's Parliament, where she served two terms.

After Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister of India in 1966, Satpathy became a Minister attached to the Prime Minister, with her specific portfolio being the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

She was the Chief Minister of Odisha from June 1972 to December 1976.

Satpathy returned to Odisha in 1972, due to vacancies caused by Biju Patnaik and others departing from the Congress party, and became the Chief Minister of Odisha.

During the Emergency of 25 June 1975 – 21 March 1977, she imprisoned a number of notable individuals, including Nabakrusna Choudhuri and Rama Devi; however, Odisha had the fewest prominent individuals jailed during the Emergency, and Satpathy otherwise attempted to resist Indira Gandhi's policies during the Emergency.

Satpathy left office in December 1976.

During the general election in 1977, she was part of a group of protesters led by Jagjivan Ram, which became the Congress for Democracy (CFD) party.

CFD merged with Janata Party in May 1977.

Nandini Satpathy was elected to Orissa Vidhan Sabha from Dhenkanal in June 1977.

In 1977, Satpathy was accused of corruption and a police investigation started into possible violations of the Prevention of Corruption Act in force at that time.

During the investigation, she was interrogated on a number of questions in written form.

She refused to answer any questions; her attorney argued that Article 20 (3) of the Indian Constitution protected her against forced self-incrimination.

The court agreed, strengthening the rights of the accused with a recognition of the right to a lawyer and the right against self-incrimination; it moreover held that women have the right to be questioned at their homes in the presence of male relatives, have the right to be brought to the police station only after a formal arrest, and have the right to be searched only by other women.

Over the next 18 years, Satpathy won all of the cases against her.

Satpathy was a writer in the Odia language; her work has been translated and published into a number of other languages.

In 1980, she won that seat as Congress (Urs) candidate, and in 1985 as an independent.

Nandini Satpathy returned to the Congress party in 1989, on the request of Rajiv Gandhi.

The Congress party was unpopular in Odisha as a whole, due to its two term miss rule (primarily under Janaki Ballabh Patnaik as Chief Minister).

In 1990, her son Tathagata Satpathy won Dhenkanal assembly seat as Janata Dal candidate.

She received the 1998 Sahitya Bharati Samman Award for her contributions to Odia literature.

Her last major literary work was translating Taslima Nasreen's Lajja into Odia.

She was elected as a member of the State Legislative Assembly from Gondia, Dhenkanal and remained in the Assembly until 2000, when she decided to retire from politics; she did not contest the 2000 elections.

She was not influential in and was critical of the Odisha branch of the Congress party.

She died on 4 August 2006 at her home in Bhubaneswar.

In 2006 a social cause organisation, the Srimati Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust (SNSMT), was established in her memory.

It is one of the leading social cause organisations of Odisha albeit India.