Mridula Sarabhai

'If I had a hundred women like Mridula,' said Gandhiji, 'I could launch a revolution in India'. Born in 1911 into the Sarabhai family of Ahmedabad, she came under the spell of Gandhi and left her home to join the Salt Satyagraha. She was imprisoned several times between 1930 and 1944. Deeply influenced by Nehru's ideas on socialism and secularism, and a close associate of his, Mridula Sarabhai was involved not only in the freedom struggle but also in the fight for women's right to equality, civil liberty, and in the individual's right to dissent. She worked fearlessly during communal riots to protect the rights of minorities and restore communal peace and harmony. Her work for the recovery of abducted women in the Punjab in the aftermath of the Partition of India is well known. The last twenty years of her life were devoted to Kashmir and championing the Cause of Sheikh Abdullah. This is the story of Mridula Sarabhai's public life, her work for women, the freedom of the country, and Hindu-Muslim unity. A nonconformist, and a rebel championing unpopular causes, she spurned offers of high office in the political arena of national government. Based on Mridula Sarabhai's private papers, the book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of contemporary Indian history and politics, but to the wider public as well. This biography, the first account of her life, is also a page from the social and political history of modern India.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.