Ela Bhatt’s death marks the ‘loss of a Gandhian and an icon of social impact’ for India!

On November 2nd, Ela Bhatt, a specialist in the field of social impact, passed away at the age of 90. Many people were aware of her 90 years old, her history of strokes, and her return to a normal life. Only the writings M S Sriram had made on the Elaben he had always known too well could be found. She is scarcely visible, speaks softly, and appears feeble. He claimed that she is composed of steely resolve nonetheless.

She formerly served as chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith, a more than 100-year-old institution that Mahatma Gandhi created. The struggle for underpaid working women has been a long and difficult one. She began her career as a young attorney who worked for the Textile Labour Association.

Ela Bhatt has received several accolades and honours, including the Magasasay Award for community work, the Padmashri and Padmabhushan award, in addition to a spell as a member of the Rajya Sabha and a hard to miss doctorate from Harvard and Yale. She is frequently seen wearing a Khadi saree and travelling to meetings in autorickshaws.

In 1972, she established SEWA, and in 1974, SEWA Bank. She has links to a number of nonprofit organisations, including cooperatives and Sa-Dhan, which regulates the microfinance industry. She also served as the inaugural president of the Friends of Women’s World Banking’s Indian chapter. How to provide better livelihoods to disadvantaged women who work for themselves so they may live independently has been the common thread connecting all of her endeavours.

In order for impoverished, independent women to get their basic rights free from harassment, this is what the movement stood for and was intimately involved in. Imagine these as the types of perks that employees in the formal sector would generally receive. Only in this instance, it was for the underprivileged women who were self-employed and employed in the unorganised sector, whether they were selling goods on the sidewalks or pushing a pushcart full of fruits and vegetables. These might include perks like having access to social security, gratuities, insurance, and other perks of this nature usually linked with the formal sector.

NDDB was in surplus production by 1991, and there was a suggestion that it export the surplus, Ela Bhatt stated in a long-ago interview with this writer about Verghese Kurien, another prominent figure of Gujarat’s social influence. ‘I recommended that giving the extra milk to the kids of anganwadi staff would be preferable’.