Ambalal sarabhai

Mridula Sarabhai

Indian independence activist and politician (1911 – 1974)

Mridula Sarabhai (6 May 1911 – 26 October 1974) was an Indian independence activist and politician. She was a member of the Sarabhai industrialist family of Ahmedabad.

Early life

Mridula was born in Ahmedabad, India to an affluent business family. She was one of eight children of Ambalal Sarabhai and Sarla Devi, and a sister of Vikram Sarabhai.[1] She was home-schooled by a succession of British and Indian teachers under the supervision of her parents. In 1928, she was enrolled for college education at Gujarat Vidyapeeth[2] but dropped out the following year, ostensibly in order to participate in the Salt Satyagraha. At a young age, she heeded Gandhi's call to boycott foreign goods and institutions, and is said to have refused for this reason to go abroad to study.

Congresswoman and Freedom fighter

At an early age, Mridula came under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi. As a child of ten, she worked with the Vanara Sena ("Monkey Army" – a group of child activists

Rebel With A Cause

Mridula Sarabhai, born into Ahmedabad's celebrated industrial dynasty and nuclear scientist Vikram Sarabhai's sister, was one of those amazing women who fought for India's freedom.

After the midnight hour, she grew disillusioned with the Congress, rejected the lure of high office and championed the unpopular cause of Sheikh Abdullah for the last twenty years of her life, even going to prison for defending the Kashmiri leader.

Aparna Basu, who has just published Mridula's biography, recounts Sarabhai's fearless commitment to saving human life during the horrific trauma of Partition.

he Partition of India in 1947 and the resultant migration and massacres represented a human tragedy of enormous proportions. It 'enforced movements of people on a scale absolutely unparalleled in the history of the world.' 'There must be many examples in the bloody history of mankind where the extent of violence has been as great or even greater but it is probably true that there has never been such a big exchange of population,' wrote Horace Alexander.

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Sometimes we come across individuals in life who are amazing, incorruptible and of a good character which is hard to attain. They are the people who help us all to be better human beings. One such individual I remember is a lady long gone from us named Mridula Sarabhai who single handedly by the sheer force of her character did more for communal harmony, human rights and dignity during the time of Partition than she is given credit for. As people worldwide celebrated Women’s Day on 8 March last week, memories of amazing women like Mridula Sarabhai swim into ones thought.

Mridula Sarabhai was born in 1911 into the industrialist family of Ambalal Sarabhai, a close aide of Mohandas Gandhi. She was also the sister of well-known nuclear scientist Vikram Sarabhai. Though she died at the relatively young age of 63 in 1974, she will be remembered as a natural crusader of human dignity and as a role model for humanity for much time to come. Dressed in her Pathan shalwar-kameez outfit with a man’s collar, she was always ready to stand up against adversaries at a moments notice.

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