Violet Hari Alva was an Indian lawyer, politician and Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha. She was the first woman lawyer to appear before a High Court in India and the first to preside over the Rajya Sabha. Alva was born Violet Hari on 24 April 1908 in Ahmedabad. She was the eighth of nine children. Violet’s father, Reverend Laxman Hari, was one of the first Indian pastors of the Church of England. Having lost both her parents when she was sixteen, her older siblings provided for her education till her matriculation at Bombay’s Clare Road Convent. She graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay and Government Law College. For a while thereafter, she was a professor of English at the Indian Women’s University, Bombay.

In 1937, Violet Hari married freedom fighter and later parliamentarian Joachim Alva. He was an Indian lawyer, journalist and politician from Mangalore. He was a prominent Christian figure involved in the Indian independence movement. After Independence, Alva was appointed Sheriff of Bombay in 1949. In 1950, he entered the Provisional Parliament of India. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957 and 1962 from North Kanara. The couple set up legal practice together. In 1943, Violet Alva was arrested by British Indian authorities. Pregnant with her second son, Chittaranjan, Alva was imprisoned in Arthur Road Jail.

In 1952, Alva was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of the Indian Parliament. After the second Indian General Election in 1957, she became Deputy Minister of State for Home Affairs. In 1962, Alva became the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, thereby becoming the first female to preside over the Rajya Sabha in its history

In 1969, Alva resigned after Indira Gandhi declined to back her as VicePresident of India. The Alvas had two sons, Niranjan and Chittaranjan, and a daughter, Maya. Niranjan Alva married Margaret Alva, parliamentarian and former Governor of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Violet Alva suffered a fatal cerebral haemorrhage three days after resigning on 20 November 1969.

A portrait of Joachim and Violet Alva the first Parliamentarian Couple was unveiled in Parliament in 2007. A commemorative stamp of late Joachim and Violet Alva was released by President Pratibha Devisingh Patil in New Delhi in November 2008, coinciding with the birth centenary year of Violet Alva. Their daughter-in law Margaret Alva is an important Congress leader.