NEW DELHI - Sushma Swaraj, 46, who was sworn in as New Delhi's first woman chief minister on Monday (October 16), has broken into several male bastions both in Indian politics and within her Hindu Nationalist Party. Born to refugee parents who migrated to India after the 1947 partition of the subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan, Swaraj entered politics at a very early age.

She left a career in law in the mid-1970s when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed emergency rule across the country and in 1977 became the youngest provincial minister when she made it to the cabinet of her northern home state Haryana. During her tenure, she opened a string of girls schools in the state. In 1996, she was elected to the Upper House of Parliament and then became the first woman spokesman for the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People's Party). Swaraj earned another feather in her cap when she became the first woman to be elected party general secretary.

A staunch upholder of women's rights and an ardent champion of a proposal to reserve a third of parliamentary seats for women, Swaraj used Hindu mythology to press for the cause, which still remains unfulfilled. (AFP)