Born Swarup Kumari Nehru in Allahabad, India, on this day, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900–1990) was a fearless diplomat, freedom fighter, and global voice for equality. The sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, she helped shape India's struggle for freedom.

“Freedom is not for the timid,” she once said. Her chosen names—Vijaya (victory) and Lakshmi (prosperity)—became her destiny.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, she joined the resistance and was jailed repeatedly in the 1930s and 1940s. “Healthy discontent,” Gandhi believed, “is the prelude to progress.” Pandit understood this truth deeply. She said imprisonment was “a slow daily sacrifice... more deadly than some big heroic gesture.”

A leader of firsts, she became the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet post—and in 1953, the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly. “The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war,” she said.

A champion of human rights and the women's rights movement, she also founded the All-India Save the Children. Her memoir, The Scope of Happiness (1979), shared her personal path through success and struggle.

“Difficulties, opposition, criticism—these things are meant to be overcome,” she wrote. “There is a special joy in facing them... It is only when there is nothing but praise that life loses its charm and I begin to wonder what I should do about it.”

Graceful, grounded, and bold, Pandit walked the global stage with wisdom and warmth. She gave her life in service to a freer, more compassionate world.