The ongoing Netflix series Diplomat has demonstrated powerfully how competent and smart a woman ambassador can be. Which were India's very first lady ambassadors who ably represented India abroad?
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After independence, this freedom fighter entered India's diplomatic service, serving as India’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union (1947 to 1949) and later the first to the United States and Mexico. She is remembered for her being a strong Indian voice in international affiairs.
Coorg-born, she made history in 1949 as the 1st woman to enter the Indian Foreign Service. She signed an undertaking that she would quit the IFS after marriage, which she eventually fought in court. India’s first woman to serve as an ambassador in the regular career-diplomat cadre, she was posted to Budapest.
The second woman to join the IFS in 1951 and become a career diplomat, she served as an ambassador to Australia, Canada, Italy, Denmark, and Nigeria.
A distinguished member of the 1964 Indian Foreign Service batch, Darjeeling-born Iyer served India as the ambassador to Ireland from 1999 to 2001 and was the first woman foreign secretary from 2001 to 2002, earning recognition for her diplomatic leadership.
A highly-respected diplomat, Nirupama Menon Rao served as India’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 2004 to 2006. She then become the first Indian woman ambassador to the People’s Republic of China from 2006–2009. Later she served as the foreign secretary from 2009 to 2011.
Appointed in 1992, India's ambassador to Egypt, she was one of the 1st woman ambassadors to an Islamic country. Before that she was ambassador to South Korea (1982-1985). The head of the Indian delegation to the CTBT conference in Geneva in 1996, she refused to sign the CTBT treaty.
The second woman Indian ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2011, her term coincided with a period of deepening strategic partnership between the two nations.
Born in Kohima and one of the first women diplomats from the Northeast, she served as Indian Ambassador to Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua from 1978–1980.
Of mixed Maharashtrian-Kannada heritage, Puri joined the IFS in 1974. She became the ambassador to Hungary in 1999. Read her story here.
The ambassador to Suriname and Barbados for a short stint till 2002, Dhaka-born Sinha joined politics and became the minister of state for external affairs in the IK Gujral government.