Remembering Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA, teacher, mentor, activist: Her advocacy was never strident or loud, she remained a gentle revolutionary, though never passive

Ela Bhatt has been part of my life almost since Dastkar’s beginning in the ’80s. I had the fortune to see her in multiple roles — not just as the founder and head of SEWA, but as homemaker, wife, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother. A teacher and mentor, but also a perennial seeker of truth; nurturing and exemplary always. Her grandsons, both creative, were encouraged to scribble on the walls of her home! Ever welcoming, she loved meeting new people and learning new things. Much of our conversation and correspondence were about Indian social history, and how it shaped our lives and thinking. She was delighted to discover the Gandhian links between our families. “I remembered you while visiting Dandi and particularly Dharasana, where your granduncle Abbas Tyabji was leading the salt satyagraha as Gandhiji got arrested in Dandi,” she wrote, “My grandfather also was at Dharasana, beaten and arrested. He was leading the first team of the satyagraha. I wanted to share this with you.” Something else she shared, which is so eloquent of her as a person, was concerning the day she left the SEWA office after giving up her post as general secretary in 1996, a role she’d had since its inception decades before. After the emotional goodbyes, she was feeling rather flat, wondering what the future held, what she would do. Suddenly inspired, she directed the driver to go to the home of a music teacher she knew, and signed up for singing lessons! Thereafter, Indian classical singing became an important part of her life (as yoga wa...