The daughter of a royal family, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur became the English language secretary to Mahatma Gandhi and led many protest rallies during the Quit India movement. She later became out first health minister and founded the AU India Insti­tute of Medical Sciences.

The first woman to hold a cabinet rank in India, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was also the only Indian Christian in the cabinet then. The Rajkumari had a long history in the Independence struggle of India. Born on February 2, 1889, in Lucknow, she was the only daughter of Raja Harnam Singh, the last ruling prince of Kapurthala in Punjab, and enjoyed the goodwill and confidence of many leaders of the Indian National Congress. Many other political leaders also visited the Raja, and Amrit Kaur became interested in the freedom struggle and learnt about the activities of the freedom fight­ers and about Mahatma Gandhi.

She saw Mahatma Gandhi for the first time in Bombay, and was immensely influenced by his words. It was the Jallainwala Bagh massacre of 1919 that inspired Kaur to fight for an indepen­dent India. And despite being against the wishes of her parents, the Rajkumari joined the Indian National Congress and eventually shifted into Mahatma Gandhi's ashram in 1934. She became a disciple of the Mahatma and was assigned the role of his English language secretary.

The role of English language secretary of the Mahatma was a difficult task. Gandhi received an enormous amount of mails, and he himself used to write more than 160 notes in own hands. Beside these, the secretaries were also required to manage innumerable editorials, essays, and public statements. Being a member of the Indian National Congress, she was sent on a mission of goodwill to Bannu, Northwest Frontier Province, representing the party. The British government of the Raj arrested her, charging her with sedition, and she was convict­ed and imprisoned on 16th July 1937. This, however, didn't deter her from the getting involved in the freedom struggle. In 1942, she again became active and played a role in the Quit India Movement, leading many protest rallies. In one such rally in Kalka (Punjab), Kaur suffered injuries when the troops charged the protesters. She was arrested and imprisoned again.

 Kaur was committed to Mahatma Gandhi's objective of making India a free nation. At the same time she activily worked on the elimination of several bad practices of the Indian soci­ety including child marriage, system of purdah both among the Muslim and Hindu women and illiteracy.

After Independence, Kaur was a part of Jawaharlal Nehru's first Cabinet ministry. As the Minister of Health in the cabinet, Rajkumari Kaur was a moving force in the conceptualisa­tion and building of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. Apart from this, she was also the Chairperson of the Indian Red Cross society for 14 years, President of AIIMS and the Tuberculosis Association and a member of the Rajya Sabha. Rajkumari Kaur, resigned as the Health Minister in 1957, but continued to be a member of the Rajya Sabha, till her death on October 2, 1964.