Brinda Karat

Brinda Karat (née Das; born 17 October 1947) is an Indian Marxist politician and former member of Rajya Sabha for West Bengal, serving as a Communist Party of India (Marxist) representative from 11 April 2005 to 2011.

In 2005, she became the first woman to serve as a member of the CPI(M) Politburo. and thereafter its vice-president.

Early life and education Karat was born on 17 October 1947 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India to Oshrukona Mitra, and Suraj Lal Das. Her mother was Bengali, and her father was a Punjabi refugee from Lahore in the newly created Pakistan. Theirs was an inter-community marriage fraught with familial opposition; Mitra’s father’s brother imposed a social ban on attending the wedding. In response, she approached her mother’s family, and finally the ceremony took place at Indian nationalist Subodh Chandra Mallik’s home.

Karat's mother died when she was 5.

At the same time, anti-war movements across Europe and the Atlantic were on the rise to protest the intervention of the United States in Vietnam. For Karat, this was the turning point; “There was a whole range of questions,” she mentioned in 2005, “Why should a poor country like Vietnam be attacked by a big power like America? Why should young people go to war? What were the reasons for war? These questions are even relevant today. At that time you could not be young without questioning the Vietnam War.” Consequently, She was associated with a few Indian student groups, but no institution in particular. She familiarised herself with Marxist literature, and began ideating ways to “bring back home that awareness in the Indian context.” The same year she started working as a trade union organiser with textile mill workers in North Delhi. She grew to be active with worker's movements and the Indian women's movements. She gained prominence in the campaign for reform of rape laws in the 1980s. Karat is a prominent campaigner for gender issues and has fought within the party for adequate representation for women in its leadership. On 11 April 2005, she was elected to the Indian Parliament, Rajya Sabha as a CPI(M) member for West Bengal. In 2005, she was also elected to the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the highest decision-making body of the party and Brinda Karat is its first woman member. Her sister Radhika Roy is married to Prannoy Roy, founder and CEO of NDTV. a film made by her niece, Shonali Bose, on the Anti-Sikh riots in 1984. She is an aunt of the historian Vijay Prashad.

Literary works

Brinda is the author of Survival and Emancipation: Notes from Indian Women's Struggles, a work addressing the challenges faced by women's movements in India from a left perspective, and of An Education for Rita: A Memoir, 1975-1985 over her life and struggle under the name of Rita.