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‘Elaben Bhatt was forthright... not in speech, but in her work’
Updated On: 06 November, 2022 07:27 AM IST | Mumbai | Nidhi Lodaya
Feminists and educationists remember the late Gandhian Ela Ramesh Bhatt whose phenomenal work at SEWA inspired them to take up the cause of women’s rights and empowerment
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Late Ela Ramesh Bhatt, fondly known as Elaben, passed away on November 2, at the age of 89. She was a Gandhian, social activist and the founder of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). PIC/RAMESHWAR BHATT
It was in the year 1972 that Dr Vibhuti Patel, 68, first met Ela Ramesh Bhatt. Then, a student at Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, Patel remembers being instantly charmed by her. “She was a young lawyer at the time and had just founded SEWA [Self Employed Women’s Association]. She was also working with the Textile Labour Association (TLA), fighting for women workers in the industry. I was part of an organisation in Baroda called Study and Struggle Alliance, which was also working on issues of students, youth and industrial workers’ rights, and we met during those times.”
The two met again, when Bhatt was called in as a keynote speaker at the first conference of the Indian Association’s Women’s Studies held at SNDT University, Mumbai in 1981. In1981, Patel was Researcher at Research Unit for Women’s Studies at SNDT Women’s University and in the core committee of the Women’s Studies Conference.
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