Anis Kidwai

Anis Kidwai (1906–1982) was a writer, an activist and a politician from Uttar Pradesh. She worked towards peace and the rehabilitation of the victims of India's bloody partition, and spent a majority of her life in service of the newly independent India. She served two terms as a Member of the Parliament in the Rajya Sabha as a part of the Indian National Congress from 1956 to 1962.

Personal life Anis Kidwai was born in 1906 in Barabanki, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh into a patriotic and orthodox family of Awadh, known as the Kidwai family. Her father, Wilayat Ali was a prominent lawyer who wrote humorous columns in local papers. Anis was a self-taught student. She became well-versed in Urdu and English literature by listening to the tutors that taught her brothers. After her father's death, she was consigned to a life behind the purdah until the late 1930s, when India's final efforts at the freedom struggle allowed her a greater degree of participation in public life.

Anis married her cousin Shafi Ahmed Kidwai in 1920 and lived with him first in Allahabad and then in other cities, wherever her husband's job took them. Her husband's brother Rafi Ahmed Kidwai was a freedom fighter and was regularly imprisoned for his activism, and his family, including Shafi and Anis regularly faced political persecution for it. It was after she came to Delhi that she was suggested by Gandhi to focus on helping others. In just a few months, working alongside Subhadra Joshi, Anis helped victims of the communal bloodbath that followed Independence; and with Mridula Sarabhai she helped in the recovery of abducted women. She retired on 2 April 1968.

During her tenure, she participated actively in the proceedings alongside other women MPs like Savitry Devi Nigam, Dr Seeta Parmanand and Subhadra Joshi. She spoke in favour of the Punishment for Molestation of Women Bill 1958, which was introduced by Savitry Devi, which eventually lapsed and was not taken up again. Before her official political career began, Anis served as a secretary of the Women's Congress Committee from 1921 to 1923. It was published in 1974 to great critical acclaim and won her an award from the Urdu Academy of Uttar Pradesh. In 1976 and 1980, two collections of essays were published, titled Nazre Khush Guzre and Ab Jinke Dekhne Ko. In her book Zulum, she condemns the inhumanity of communal violence. She also authored Char Rukh, a book on the lives and work of writers and poets. Anis Kidwai was honoured by the Sahitya Kala Parishad for her contribution to literature. The opening credits of the Bollywood film Pinjar contains a dedication to Anis Kidwai.