Kiran Bedi (born 9 June 1949) is a retired Indian police officer, social activist and former tennis player. In 1972 she became the first woman to join the Indian Police Service (IPS) as an officer. She is best known for her reforms at Delhi’s Tihar Jail in the 1990s, for which she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1994. After retiring she took part in the 2011 anti-corruption movement, joined the BJP and served as Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry from 2016 to 2021.
Quick Facts
| Birth name | Kiran Peshawaria |
| Born | 9 June 1949, Amritsar, Punjab, India |
| Age | 77 |
| Occupation | Retired IPS officer, activist |
| Service | Indian Police Service (1972–2007) |
| Office | Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry (2016–2021) |
| Education | Government College for Women, Amritsar; Panjab University (M.A.); Delhi University (LL.B.); IIT Delhi (Ph.D.) |
| Spouse | Brij Bedi (m. 1972; d. 2016) |
| Children | 1 (Saina) |
| Honour | Ramon Magsaysay Award (1994) |
Early Life
Kiran was the second of four daughters of Prakash Lal Peshawaria, a textile businessman and tennis player who defied family custom to give his daughters a good education. She took up tennis at nine and won the national junior title in 1966 and the Asian women’s title in 1972. After a master’s degree in political science she taught briefly at a college in Amritsar.
Police Career
She joined the IPS in July 1972, the only woman in a batch of 80. As a young officer in Delhi she faced a sword-wielding crowd with a baton during a 1978 clash and received the President’s Police Medal for gallantry. As a traffic chief before the 1982 Asian Games she earned the nickname “Crane Bedi” for towing away wrongly parked cars, including, famously, one belonging to the Prime Minister’s office. She set up Navjyoti, a foundation for the treatment of drug addicts, in 1988.
As Inspector General of Prisons she took charge of Tihar, one of the largest and most overcrowded jails in Asia. She introduced literacy classes, yoga, Vipassana meditation, vocational training, a complaints box and a ban on smoking, turning the prison into what she called an “ashram”. The work won her the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.
She was a police adviser to the United Nations peacekeeping department in New York from 2003. In 2007 she took voluntary retirement after being passed over for the post of Delhi Police Commissioner.
Activism and Politics
Bedi hosted the television court show Aap Ki Kachehri and in 2011 was a core member of Anna Hazare‘s Jan Lokpal campaign with Arvind Kejriwal. She parted ways with Kejriwal when he formed a political party, joined the BJP in January 2015 and was its candidate for Chief Minister in the Delhi election that year, which the party lost heavily. In May 2016 she was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, where she clashed often with the elected Congress government; she was removed in February 2021.
Personal Life
She married Brij Bedi, a textile businessman, in 1972; they lived apart for much of their marriage. Her autobiography is titled I Dare.
Awards and Honours
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Kiran Bedi born?
Kiran Bedi was born on 9 June 1949 in Amritsar, Punjab, India and is 77 years old.
What is Kiran Bedi’s occupation?
Occupation: Retired IPS officer, activist.
Featured image: Kiran Bedi at her office as Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, 2016. Photo by Prabu kanna, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
