Kiran Bedi (born 9 June 1949) is a former tennis player who became the first Indian woman to join the officer ranks of the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1972 and was the 24th lieutenant governor of Puducherry from 28 May 2016 to 16 February 2021. She remained in service for 35 years before taking voluntary retirement in 2007 as Director General, Bureau of Police Research and Development.
As a teenager, Bedi was crowned the national junior tennis champion in 1966. Between 1965 and 1978, she won several titles at various national and state-level championships. After joining the IPS, Bedi served in Delhi, Goa, Chandigarh and Mizoram. She started her career as an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in the Chanakyapuri area of Delhi, and won the President's Police Medal in 1979. Next, she moved to West Delhi, where she brought about a reduction in crimes against women. Subsequently, as a traffic police officer, she oversaw traffic arrangements for the 1982 Asian Games in Delhi and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 1983 in Goa. As Deputy Commissioner of Police of North Delhi, she launched a campaign against drug abuse, which evolved into the Navjyoti Delhi Police Foundation (renamed to Navjyoti India Foundation in 2007).
In May 1993, Bedi was posted to the Delhi Prisons as Inspector General (IG). She introduced several reforms at Tihar Jail, which won her the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1994. In 2003, Bedi became the first Indian and first woman to be appointed head of the United Nations Police and Police Advisor in the United Nations Department of Peace Operations. She resigned in 2007, to focus on social activism and writing. She runs the India Vision Foundation. During 2008–11, she hosted a court show Aap Ki Kachehri. She was one of the key leaders of the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in January 2015. She unsuccessfully contested the 2015 Delhi Assembly election as the party's chief minister candidate.
Early life and education Kiran Peshawaria was born on 9 June 1949 in Amritsar, Punjab, India, into a Punjabi business family. She is the second child of Prakash Lal Peshawaria and Prem Lata (born Janak Arora). She has three sisters: Shashi, Reeta, and Anu. Her great-great-grandfather Lala Hargobind had migrated from Peshawar to Amritsar, where he set up a business. Bedi's upbringing was not very religious, but she was brought up in both Hindu and Sikh traditions (her grandmother was a Sikh, although her other family members were Hindu). Prakash Lal helped with the family's textile business, and also played tennis.
Bedi's grandfather Muni Lal controlled the family business and gave an allowance to her father. He cut this allowance when Bedi's elder sister Shashi was enrolled in the Sacred Heart Convent School, Amritsar. Although the school was 16 km away from their home, Shashi's parents believed it offered a better education than other schools. Muni Lal was opposed to his grandchild being educated in a Christian school. However, Prakash Lal declared financial independence and enrolled all his daughters, including Kiran, in the same school. Bedi started her formal studies in 1954, at the Sacred Heart Convent School in Amritsar. She participated in National Cadet Corps (NCC), among other extra-curricular activities. At that time, Sacred Heart did not offer science; instead, it had a subject called "household", which was aimed at grooming girls into being good housewives.
When Bedi was in Class 9, she joined the Cambridge College, a private institute that offered science education and prepared her for the matriculation exam. By the time her former schoolmates at Sacred Heart cleared Class 9, she cleared the Class 10 (matriculation) exam. Bedi graduated in 1968, with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English, from Government College for Women at Amritsar. The same year, she won the NCC Cadet Officer Award. In 1970, she obtained a master's degree in political science from Panjab University in Chandigarh.
From 1970 to 1972, Bedi taught as a lecturer at Khalsa College for Women in Amritsar. She taught courses related to political science. Later, during her career in the Indian Police Service, she also earned a Bachelors of Law degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi in 1988 and a Doctorate of Philosophy from the Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in New Delhi in 1993.
Tennis career
Inspired by her father, Bedi started playing tennis at the age of nine. As a teenage tennis player, she cut her hair short as it interfered with her game. In 1964, she played her first tournament outside Amritsar, participating in the national junior lawn tennis championship at Delhi Gymkhana. She lost in early rounds, but came back to win the trophy two years later, in 1966. As the national champion, she was eligible for entry to the Wimbledon junior championship, but was not nominated by the Indian administration.
Between 1965 and 1978, Bedi won several tennis championships in India, including:
Title Year Place Notes / Source Junior National Lawn Tennis Championship 1966 Amritsar All-India Intervarsity Tennis Title 1968 Vishakhapatnam With her younger sister Reeta. The pair won the championship three years in a row. Northern India Lawn Tennis Championship 1970 Chandigarh Asian Lawn Tennis Championship 1972 Pune All-India Hard Court Tennis Championship 1974 All India Interstate Women's Lawn Tennis Championship 1975 New Delhi National Women's Lawn Tennis Championship 1976 Chandigarh Gold medal, National Sports Festival for Women 1976 New Delhi With her sister Anu
Bedi was also a part of the Indian team that beat Sri Lanka to win the Lionel Fonseka Memorial Trophy in Colombo. She continued playing tennis until the age of thirty, when she started focusing on her Indian Police Service career. In 1972, she married fellow tennis player Brij Bedi; the two had met on Service Club courts in Amritsar.
Indian Police Service Career
As a young woman, Bedi frequented the Service Club in Amritsar, where interaction with senior civil servants inspired her to take up a public service career. On 16 July 1972, Bedi started her police training at the National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie. She was the only woman in a batch of 80 men, and became the first woman IPS officer. After a 6-month foundation course, she underwent another 9 months of police training at Mount Abu in Rajasthan, and further training with Punjab Police in 1974. Based on a draw, she was allocated to the union territory cadre (now called AGMUT or Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories cadre).
First posting in Delhi
Bedi's first posting was to the Chandni Chowk subdivision of Delhi in 1975. The same year, she became the first woman to lead the all-male contingent of the Delhi Police at the Republic Day Parade in 1975. Her daughter Sukriti (later Saina) was born in September 1975.
Chandni Chowk was an affluent area that included the Parliament building, fish markets, and the residences of the Prime Minister and the President. The crimes in the area were mainly limited to minor thefts, but political demonstrations (which sometimes turned violent) were a regular occurrence. During the 1980s, there were many clashes between Nirankari and Akali Sikhs. On 3 December, a group of Nirankaris held a congregation near India Gate. A contingent of 700–800 Akalis organized a demonstration against them. DCP Bedi's platoon was deployed to stop the protesters and prevent violence. As the protesters resorted to brick-batting, Bedi charged them with a cane, although there was no tear gas squad to support her unit. One of the demonstrators ran towards her with a naked sword, but she charged him as well as other demonstrators with a cane. Ultimately, her unit was able to disperse the demonstrators. For this action, Bedi was awarded the President's Police Medal for Gallantry (1979), in October 1980.
In 1979, Bedi was posted to Delhi's West District, where there were not enough officers to handle the high volume of criminal activity. To compensate, she started recruiting civilian volunteers. Each village in the district was night patrolled by six civilians led by an armed policeman. She enabled anonymous reporting of any knowledge about crimes. She clamped down on bootlegging and the illicit liquor business to reduce crimes in the area. Bedi implemented an open door policy, which encouraged citizens to interact with her. She implemented a "beat box" system: a complaint box was installed in each ward, and the beat constables were instructed to have their lunch near this box at a set time each day. She regularly asked people if they knew about the beat constable assigned to their area, and also walked with the constables to raise their self-esteem. Within 3 months, there was a reduction in crimes. There was a drop in cases related to "eve teasing" (sexual harassment of women) and wife beating. This gained her the goodwill of local women, who also volunteered their services to help fight crime in the area.
In October 1981, Bedi was made DCP (Traffic). The preparation for the 1982 Asian Games had caused traffic snarls in the city. The construction of 19 sports stadiums and several flyovers had resulted in a number of blockades and diversions. Bedi encouraged coordination between the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking and Delhi Development Authority. She clamped down on errant motorists with a heavy hand. She replaced challans (traffic tickets) with spot fines. Her team towed improperly parked vehicles using six tow trucks ("cranes") for traffic control. This earned her the nickname "Crane Bedi". On 5 August 1982, an Ambassador car (DHI 1817) belonging to Prime Minister Office was towed away by sub-inspector Nirmal Singh, as it was wrongly parked outside the Yusufzai Market at Connaught Place. Singh was fully supported by Bedi and her superior Ashok Tandon.
To raise funds for traffic guidance materials, Bedi presented Asian Games traffic management plan to a group of sponsors. The sponsors committed to providing road safety and other educational material worth 35 lakh. She also bought traffic police jeeps for her officers; for the first time, four wheelers were allocated to inspectors in the traffic unit. After the Asian Games were over, she was given Asian Jyoti award for excellence. She refused to accept the award for herself alone, and recommended that it be given to entire traffic unit.
Bedi did not spare errant motorists from the rich and influential section of society, which resulted in a powerful lobby against her. Her victims included the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation and her own sister-in-law. After the Asian Games were over, she was transferred to Goa for 3 years. According to contemporary rumours, Indira Gandhi's aides R. K. Dhawan and Yashpal Kapoor, as well as her yoga instructor Dhirendra Brahmachari (whom Bedi had personally fined for a wrongly parked car), played a role in her transfer. According to another theory, the loss of revenue resulting from her experiment of holding classes for traffic violators (instead of fining them) was a major factor in her transfer.
Her 7-year-old daughter suffered from nephritic syndrome since the age of 3, and was seriously ill at the time. Bedi requested the Home Ministry not to transfer her out of Delhi until her daughter's condition became stable. According to Bedi, she had put herself in a "very vulnerable situation", and the only people who could help her were the ones "who had been offended by my 'equal enforcement of law'". Her request was not entertained, and she had to leave behind her daughter, who was too ill to accompany her.
Goa