Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit in the Netherlands in 1965
Born	(1900-08-18)18 August 1900 Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh ,North-Western Provinces, British Raj
Died	1 December 1990(1990-12-01) (aged 90) Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh, India
Spouse	Ranjit Sitaram Pandit
Children	Nayantara Sahgal

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (18 August 1900 – 1 December 1990) was an Indian diplomat and politician, the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, the aunt of Indira Gandhi and the grand-aunt of Rajiv Gandhi, each of whom served as Prime Minister of India. Pandit was sent to London, as India's most important diplomat, after serving as Nehru’s envoy to the Soviet Union, the USA and the United Nations. Her time in London offers insights into the wider context of changes in Indo–British relations. Her High-Commissionership was a microcosm of inter-governmental relations.

Vijaya Lakshmi's father, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), a wealthy barrister who belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community, served twice as President of the Indian National Congress during the Independence Struggle. Her mother, Swaruprani Thussu (1868–1938), who came from a well-known Kashmiri Brahmin family settled in Lahore, was Motilal's second wife, the first having died in child birth. She was the second of three children; Jawaharlal was eleven years her senior (b. 1889), while her younger sister Krishna Hutheesing (b. 1907) became a noted writer and authored several books on their brother.

In 1921 she married Ranjit Sitaram Pandit (1893-1944), a successful Maharashtrian barrister from Kathiawad and classical scholar who translated Kalhana's epic history Rajatarangini into English from Sanskrit. He was arrested for his support of Indian independence and died in Lucknow prison jail in 1944, leaving behind his wife and their three daughters Chandralekha Mehta, Nayantara Sehgal and Rita Dar. She died in the year 1990. Her daughter Nayantara Sahgal, who later settled in her mother's house in Dehradun, is a well-known novelist.