Anasuya Sarabhai was an Indian social reformer, who took the initiative of the women"s Labour Movement in India. She founded the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association, India"s oldest union of textile workers, in the year 1920. Anasuya was called Motaben, which means elder sister in Gujarati language. She mentored Ela Bhatt, who was the founder of the Self-Employed Women`s Association of India (SEWA). She was the aunt of Indian scientist Vikram Sarabhai who is regarded as the father of the Indian space program. Anasuya Sarabhai died in the year 1972.
Early Life of Anasuya Sarabhai
Sarabhai was born on 11th November 1885 in Ahmedabad in a family of industrialists and business people. Anasuya at the age of nine along with her brother and younger sister was sent to her uncle"s house after the death of their parents. She undertook an unsuccessful child marriage at the age of 13 years. With the help of her brother, she went to England in 1912 to take a medical degree, but switched to the London School of Economics when she realized that the animal dissection involved in obtaining a medical degree was in violation of her Jain beliefs. In England, she was influenced by the Fabian Society, and got involved in the Suffragette Movement.
Political Career of Anasuya Sarabhai
Anasuya Sarabhai came back to India in the year 1913 and started to work for the welfare of women and poor. Along with that, she also started a school. Then she decided to get involved in labour movement after observing the exhausted female workers of mill. Sarabhai helped the textile workers to organize a strike in 1914 in Ahmedabad. She was also involved in a month-long strike in 1918, where weavers were asking for a 50 percent raise in wages and were being offered 20 percent. Mahatma Gandhi, who was a family friend of Anasuya, was then acting as a mentor for her.
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