SEWA Founder & Gandhian Activist Ela Bhatt Passes Away at 89

Ela Bhatt had been the recipient of the Padma Shri (1985) and the Padma Bhushan (1986).

Ela Bhatt, lawyer and Gandhian activist who found the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA) in 1972, passed away at the Ahmedabad Hospital at the age of 89 on Wednesday, 2 November.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/HitendraPithadiya)

Ela Bhatt, lawyer and Gandhian activist who found the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA) in 1972, passed away at the Ahmedabad Hospital at the age of 89 on Wednesday, 2 November.

Bhatt had been the recipient of several awards for her work to empower impoverished women in Gujarat, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1977), the Padma Shri (1985), and the Padma Bhushan (1986).

She has served the general secretary of SEWA from 1972 to 1996. She had been the chancellor of the Gujarat Vidyapith until 19 October this year, when she stepped down from the university founded by Mahatma Gandhi. She had also been serving as the chairperson of the Sabarmati Ashram from 2016.

Condolences poured in for the esteemed social worker on Twitter.

"Extremely saddened by the passing away of renowned Gandhian & founder of SEWA, Ela Bhatt ji. A Padma Bhushan recipient and a pioneer of women's rights, she devoted her life in empowering them through grassroots entrepreneurship. Her exceptional legacy shall always inspire," Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge wrote on Twitter.

The social activist has also served as a Rajya Sabha MP and an adviser to the World Bank. In 2007, she had joined the Elders, a group of world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela to promote human rights and peace.

"Non-violence, to me, has never been a lack of action or timid acceptance, it has been a force of its own that is connected with wider day-to-day political, social, and economic struggles for the freedom of the poor and women workers," Bhatt had written in a piece for The Indian Express last year.