ELA BHATT AND MIHIR BHATT reveal to Priya Adhyaru-Majithia how distinctly divergent they are.
Poles apart in thoughts, work and temperament, renowned social activist Ela Bhatt and her son Mihir, a disaster management expert, share the uniquely unified objective of social uplift. Creation is the focus of Ela Bhatt, the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India, who is a lawyer by training, and an initiator of international labour, cooperative, women and microfinance movements in India. While ‘healing’ is the forte of her son Mihir Bhatt, trained as an architect, and founder and director of All-India Disaster Mitigation Institute working for disaster risk mitigation and rehabilitation activities.
“We are poles apart, and yet extremely close to each other,”… says Mihir describing the equation he enjoys with Elaben, the recipient of esteemed civilian honours like Padma Shri (1985); Padma Bhushan (1986); Ramon Magsaysay Award (1977); Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development (2011).
“Be it professionally or by nature, we are quite unlike each other,” he puts it straight. “While she focuses on development, my focus is on disaster. She is actionoriented while my work is to share ideas. She has local subjects and direct targets while I have global issues and indirect targets. Her working pattern is at micro-level while mine is at macro layers,” he explains. “And besides all this, our lives are closely interlinked as we take our daily meals in each other’s company with hands folded in belief, reciting different shlokas from Gita, Annapura or Swasti Vachanam,” says Mihir. Their vital differences come to the fore when Elaben says, “I work with people and form institutions to ensure that those who are marginalised are uplifted so they can merge with the mainstream. While he paves the way for institutions and directs how that structure can collectively attain its objectives and be more responsive, productive and participatory.”
POINT-COUNTERPOINT
Their professional zones are distinctly diverse, so is their attitude. Elaben is minutely focused and laboriously exact while Mihir has a holistic view and is a carefree thinker. Pointing out these traits, Elaben says, “Mihir thinks too vastly. He puts and sees everything into contexts. He captures a bird-eye view of the happenings and sees the value of each instance relatively. He never forms a habit and keeps changing his routine and lifestyle. He sees things in totality and lives the life of a modern-day rishi. However, these same traits irritate me when I see that he is so occupied in generating lofty ideas that his bags would lie unpacked even though he would be pushing off on a 12-day trip to another continent the same day! These details are never his priority.”
Firmly countering this, Mihir says, “Details can be learnt at the last minute and we can hire trained staff to provide those basic details. I feel she gets unnecessarily occupied with finer details like when is the flight, what is the time, which is the airline, who is to receive, is all properly packed? These queries just don’t occur to me.”
Mihir smiles as he recalls how he once spent four-and-a-half hours at an unknown beach in Fiji, Japan, because he forgot to collect details of who will pick him at the airport. He had also forgotten to carry address of the meeting place as well as where he was supposed to stay. While the same memory unnerves Elaben, Mihir smiles, “It was an experience of its own kind.”
Mihir reveals, “I live the change, while she makes a point of forming good habits and following a regular routine like drinking warm water during monsoon, doing yogasana everyday even during trips, or when hospitalized.” Mihir adds that Elaben forms personalised slogans and memorises them. He says, “While packing for a trip, she has a mantra – Das Chapati Che – each syllable is a reminder to pack and check whether she is carrying medicines, address of the next location, spectacles, passport, ticket, cell phone and charger.”
Elaben, known for her non-con- frontational attitude and agree-to-disagree nature, openly confronts him at this point, “Hun toh badhu shikhavu pann paalan kon kare? (I teach him everything but who is bothered about it?)” She adds, “I believe in minute detailing (aath thi itti sudhi ni) but my son is a free spirit (azaad atma),” she chuckles.
WORKING FOR THE MARGINALISED
Distinctly poles apart in their thoughts, work fields and temperament, Elaben and Mihir have a uniquely unified objective of life that is to work tirelessly for social upgradation and help others. They both agree on their mission, “We work to upgrade those who are crushed and are either thrown or live on the margins,” says Elaben. And Mihir says, “One more thing that we both agree on is food. She and I both love to eat what my 13-year-old son Rameshwar cooks. And he cooks everything from shahi paneer to Mexican tortilla, laado and fulka roti.”
How did a 13-year-old learn so much? Mihir replies, “He has learnt it due to his daadi’s ability to encourage and boost talents in individuals. Those same hands guided me and helped me grow into an independent thinker. Many poor and marginalised women of the society are benefiting from the same care.”
Innovatively summing up the rise of a giant trade union that SEWA has become today, Mihir says that it was as a member of Textile Labour Association that Elaben came in contact with women workers like headloaders, waste-pickers and chindi workers (who stitched quilts from scraps discarded by mills). “She yearned to capacitate them and that emotion led her to found SEWA in 1972,” he says.
And did it become so big? Elaben says, “I did not imagine it would grow so much when I took the first step. However, I can certainly say my training in Israel helped. I was asked by the TLA to head its women’s wing in 1968. I went to Israel to study at the Afro-Asian Institute of Labour and Cooperatives in Tel Aviv for three months, receiving the International Diploma of Labour and Cooperatives in 1971. I was influenced by the fact that thousands of female textile workers worked elsewhere to supplement the family income. Implementing a similar model here, I gathered self-employed women in a union under the auspices of the Women’s Wing of the TLA. And, in 1972, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) was established.” And the rest is the history after which this eminent social activist not only earned nickname of ‘ben’ — moniker for “sister” in Gujarati as a mentor of the trade union movement, but also received numerous accolades worldwide.
The story appeared on page 8 of Ahmedabad Mirror on August 18, 2013 as a part of Mirror’s special column Relative Values.
