ELA RAMESH BHATT (1933–2022)
Ela Bhatt was a Gandhian legal scholar turned social activist who dedicated her life to the empowerment of India’s informal women workers.
She was born on September 7, 1933, in Ahmedabad, did B.A. in English 1952 from M.T.B. College, Surat; LL.B. with a gold medal in Hindu law 1954 from L.A. Shah Law College, Ahmedabad. She joined the Textile Labour Association in 1955 to head the
women’s wing; there she encountered the stark struggles of self-employed women.
In 1972, she founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)—a trade union representing informal women workers such as street vendors, weavers, and home-based producers Within 3 years, SEWA registered as an official union and grew from 7,000 members to over 220,000 by 1995, and today counts more than 2.1 million members across 18 states She launched the SEWA Cooperative Bank in 1974, empowering women with access to micro-loans, financial services, it today boasts over 2.1 million women across 18 Indian states.
To address financial exclusion, Bhatt established the SEWA Cooperative Bank in 1974, offering microloans and financial services to working-class women—demonstrating a repayment rate and solidarity model that inspired microfinance efforts worldwide.
Ela Bhatt’s visionary leadership went beyond SEWA. She co-founded Women’s World Banking (WWB) in 1979 and served as its Chair (1984–1988), promoting microfinance as a tool for women's empowerment globally. She chaired international networks such as Home Net, Street Net, and WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), advancing the rights of informal workers.
A member of India’s Rajya Sabha (1986–1989), she also chaired the National Commission on Self-Employed Women and contributed to the Planning Commission of India. From 2007 to 2016, she served as a founding member of The Elders, a group of global leaders convened by Nelson Mandela to work on peace, human rights, and development.
Ela Bhatt received numerous honours: Padma Shri (1985) and Padma Bhushan (1986) from Government of India, Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1977) Right Livelihood Award (1984) for organizing home-based producers, Also received the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament & Development, Niwano Peace Prize, Radcliffe Medal (Harvard), and honorary doctorates from Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Dubbed a "gentle revolutionary."
She passed away in Ahmedabad on November 2, 2022, aged 89. Ela Bhatt’s legacy lies in her unwavering Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence, self-reliance, and bottom-up social transformation. SEWA’s model has become a beacon for feminist economic organizing worldwide, showing how collective strength and cooperative finance can empower the most marginalized.
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