Women’s Rights Activist | Founder of SEWA | Champion of Self-Employed Women
Ela Ramesh Bhatt was born on September 7, 1933, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. A lawyer by training, she dedicated her life to empowering poor, self-employed women across India. In 1972, she founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a trade union aimed at organizing women working in the informal sector—such as street vendors, artisans, and small-scale farmers—who lacked social security and basic rights. Under Ela Bhatt’s visionary leadership, SEWA grew into a nationwide movement that provided women with access to credit, healthcare, education, and legal support. She believed in economic self-reliance as a path to social empowerment and worked tirelessly to bring women’s voices to the forefront of policy discussions. Ela Bhatt was internationally recognized for her work, receiving numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1984. She passed away in 2022, leaving behind a powerful legacy of grassroots activism and women’s empowerment that continues to inspire social change worldwide.