Discover Top Posts Tagged with #researchbased

Here's the final work done regarding Captain Prem Mathur. Done and Dusted. Phew! Now I can really engage(focus lol) in my assignments.

Captain Prem Mathur: The First Indian Woman To Be A Commercial Pilot

It was the era of pre independence. Women were still subjected to be chained by the responsibilities of the family and hardly encouraged to participate in public affairs. The societal structure had patriarchy imposed upon the freedom of women in various forms unrestricted them from receiving education and pursuing their dreams. Aviation was a male dominated area just like any other field. However, Prem Mathur, are young girl from Allahabad challenged the hegemonic domesticity when the times suited sharp ridges between the private and the public affairs well.

• Early Life:

She was born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh in 1924. She was the youngest among the five children and lost her mother at the age of six months. She completed her schooling from Annie Besant School in Allahabad and pursued higher secondary studies from Ewing Christian College. She completed her Bachelors from Allahabad University.

• Sowing Seeds Of Dream:

After the World War 2 ended Mathur's elder brother bought old aircrafts used in the war to sell them to Lanka Flying Club. Captain Atal of the Delhi Flying Club got hired to transport this product to Colombo. It was him, who had encouraged Prem to let her dreams soar high.

Thinking she is a docile woman, Captain Atal gave her a ride of the aircraft and displayed all the aerobatic procedures he knew, to scare her off. Mathur, however, successfully failed to let him succeed in carrying out his intention and showed enthusiasm throughout the session and requested for the same again. In the next ride, she received the controls and instructions to fly the aircraft. Upon their return, she found a piece of paper, where he had written, “You are a tough woman. You can become a pilot. Why don’t you try?” Mathur decided to follow her passion.

• Beginning Of Her Career:

Captain Atal got appointed as an instructor in the Lucknow Flying Club on October 1948. She was his first student. Prem would go to cycling for hours and at in her training everyday sincerely. Soon, she was capable to fly solo without instruction. Her enthusiasm, added fuel to her determination to ace at her task and encouraged her to broaden horizons to explore her talent.

In 1949, Lucknow Flying Club got an invitation for the National Air Race to be held in Calcutta. When she showed her eagerness to take part in it, asking for an aeroplane, she was discouraged on the grounds that all others were men with ‘high experience' in their fields. In spite of sexist remarks to keep her off the competition and underestimate her resolve, she did manage to get hold of a flight owing to her firm persistence. The plane was a small one with a capacity of 10-11 gallons of petrol for covering a distance of about 3500 miles. The race required her to travel from Barrackpur to Jamshedpur, from there to Asansol and finally from Asansol to Calcutta. Her father’s words of encouragement boosted her morals further when he asked her to remember that, ‘a person only dies once.’

In those days, radio was not available and using maps was the only way to make it to the preferred destination. Prem effectively used the Maps and reached Patna. It was dark by then and she had no experience of flying at night whatsoever. Yet she stayed on her track without any sense of fright and successfully landed in Calcutta, the next morning, where she received congratulatory greetings along with amazed gestures towards her successful attempt.

Two days later the race was held, and Prem Mathur left behind all her competitors and reached each of the required destinations first. It was rare moment to see somebody with an experience of 100 hours of flying defeating adept participants. Overnight, she was raised to the status of a public figure and her achievement arrested the attention of almost all the newspapers. Appreciations were showered from the likes of Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, General Cariappa, Pundit Govind Ballabh Pant, Lal Bahadur Shastri.

• Captain Prem Mathur:

Prem travelled to Delhi to prepare for her commercial pilot licence test. She lost her elder brother in an accident meanwhile but remained undeterred from her goal and completed her course with the constant help and words of encouragement from her father. Her hard work paid off when she became the first woman to be be the commercial pilot in India. It was, unfortunately, the beginning of her struggles. She got mansplained about how the job of instructor was fit for her but she demanded to join an airline. Eight airline companies rejected her citing the reason of men being uncomfortable with the female pilot. These segregational attitude she received, however couldn’t stop her and she continued trying.

Finally, she got appointed as a co-pilot in Hyderabad for six months, unpaid in Deccan Airways. In her interview, she got asked a few technical questions and also how she would manage with the men during the night halts. She assured them with the response that they definitely wouldn’t regret hiring her. During this period, she flew eminent personalities like Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Lady Mountbatten. However, she couldn’t endure the patriarchal environment at the workplace for long. Deccan Airways had refused to give her command as a pilot, stating “If they know the pilot is a woman they will run away.”

She left Deccan Airways and took the job of a pilot in a private jet of G.D Birla. In 1953, she joined the Indian Airlines, which was a compilation of eight pre-independence domestic airlines, making India the first country to appoint a female pilot in their IATA (International Air Transport Association) Airlines Ltd. She took her retirement in 1984.

Prem Mathur passed away in 1992. Her determination, courage, resilience, strength and hard work continue to inspire women who dream of navigating the sky. She thoroughly challenged the socially accepted signs of femininity and demonstrated that woman are equally capable of engaging in whichever pursuits they like.