The character arc of Ela Bhatt
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 7 September 1933 in Ahmedabad, the middle of three sisters, to a lawyer father and a mother active in the womens movement. Between then and her death sit a girls high school in Surat, an English degree in 1952, a law degree and a gold medal for Hindu law in 1954, a short spell teaching, a job in the legal department of India oldest textile union in 1955, a marriage in 1956, the womens wing of that union to run from 1968, three months studying labour and cooperatives abroad, an association founded in 1972 for women no labour law protected, and twenty four years running it. The line below draws the whole story.
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Who was Ela Bhatt?
The law covered factory workers. She organised everybody else.
Her father was a successful lawyer and her mother was active in the womens movement and served as secretary of the All India Women Conference, so the two halves of her life were in the house from the start. She was the middle of three sisters, spent her childhood in Surat and went to the Sarvajanik Girls High School there from 1940 to 1948.
She took a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1952 and then went to law college in Ahmedabad, receiving her law degree in 1954 along with a gold medal for her work on Hindu law. She taught English briefly at a womens university in Mumbai, and in 1955 joined the legal department of the Textile Labour Association, India oldest union for textile workers. She married Ramesh Bhatt in 1956.
In 1968 the union asked her to head its womens wing, and that is where she saw the thing that defined the rest of her life. Thousands of women connected to the textile trade were working elsewhere to supplement the family income, from home or on the street or in small workshops. State law protected industrial workers. It did not protect the self-employed. The people doing most of the work were outside the entire structure that existed to defend workers.
She went to Tel Aviv for three months to study at an institute of labour and cooperatives, and took an international diploma in labour and cooperatives in 1971. Then in 1972 she founded the Self-Employed Women Association of India, and served as its general secretary from 1972 to 1996. A union of self-employed women was close to a contradiction in terms under the law as it stood, which is exactly why it had to exist.
She became part of the international labour, cooperative, women and micro-finance movements, and the awards followed: the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1977, the Right Livelihood Award in 1984 for helping home-based producers organise for their welfare and self-respect, and the Padma Bhushan in 1986. She was chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith from 7 March 2015 until 19 October 2022, and died two weeks after leaving that post.
The moments
Ela Bhatt's timeline.
The 1930s
Born in Ahmedabad
Everyday. A lawyer father and a campaigning mother.
The 1940s
School in Surat
Everyday, and it changed her direction. Eight years at a girls high school in Surat.
The 1950s
A degree in English
Milestone, and it changed her direction. English first, and then the law.
A gold medal in Hindu law
Milestone, and it changed everything. Top of her year in the law she would later argue with.
The Textile Labour Association
Milestone, and it changed everything. A young lawyer in the oldest union in the country.
She marries Ramesh
Everyday. A marriage, in the middle of the union years.
The 1960s
The womens wing
Milestone, and it changed everything. They handed her the womens wing, and she looked at who was in it.
The law left them out
Setback, and it changed everything. The law protected the factory and not the women doing the work.
The 1970s
Three months studying cooperatives
Milestone, and it changed her direction. She went abroad to learn how cooperatives are built.
Work inside the union, or start another
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: found a new association, taken, or press from inside. She ran it for twenty four years, and it became part of the international labour, cooperative and micro-finance movements.
She founds SEWA
Milestone, and it changed everything. A union for the women no labour law covered.
The Magsaysay Award
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Five years in, and Asia noticed.
The 1980s
For welfare and self-respect
Milestone, and it changed everything. The citation says welfare and self-respect, in that order.
The Padma Bhushan
Milestone, and it changed her direction. India third highest civilian honour.
The 1990s
Four movements at once
Milestone, and it changed everything. Labour, cooperatives, womens rights and micro-finance, all at once.
Twenty four years as general secretary
Milestone, and it changed everything. Twenty four years running it.
The 2010s
Chancellor
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Chancellor at eighty one.
The 2020s
She dies at eighty nine
Setback, and it changed everything. She stopped working two weeks before she died.
The association she started in 1972 is still the thing self-employed women in India join. What she set moving came from reading a labour law carefully enough to see who was missing from it, and then spending fifty years building the organisation those women should have had all along.
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Ela Bhatt: frequently asked questions
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What did Ela Bhatt study?
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Sources
- Ela Bhatt, English Wikipedia biography.
- The Ramon Magsaysay Award citation, 1977.
- The Right Livelihood Award citation, 1984.
- The record of the Self-Employed Women Association of India.