I’ve found that reading obituaries I learn about the lives of people I’d never heard of before. In the FT Weekend’s 12th November edition I learned about Eli Ramesh Bhatt, 1933-2022, the Indian activist who championed collective power pioneering financial services for poor women.
Bhatt realised most workers were not unionised, and had neither protection from exploitation nor regular salaries. This so-called informal sector, which most female workers belonged to, spanned home-based craftspeople, street vendors and small-scale farmers.
Determined to change this, Bhatt started the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in 1972, India’s first working women’s movement.
The first 6,000 members took a decade to recruit. Today SEWA is India’s biggest union — it counts 2.1mn members and provides services from healthcare to training.
Bhatt knew finance was critical to eradicating poverty. Loan sharks preyed on self-employed workers, without bank accounts or health insurance, whenever they suffered mishaps from crop-ruining storms to injuries. So in 1974, SEWA started a women’s bank. “Poor women are economically active,” the microfinancing pioneer argued, and “should not be considered unbankable”.
This is one of the parts that struck me the most:
Bhatt insisted on putting money in their hands rather than their husbands’. Women were more prudent and productive with money, she contended; SEWA’s loan recovery rates supported her thesis, at well over 90 per cent.
That’s so true. That was the case in my family and I’m guessing in many others too. It’s a shame we don’t recognise it more.
My Excerpts 