Ela Bhatt Quotes

Microfinance is the best example of success in the kinds of systemic institutional areas.

All my life I have worked to change concepts, and that begins with how people see and understand the problems.

Teachers do not care…It is not because teachers are badly paid and the teachers are organized but they do not teach. If we don’t respect them it is because we see them doing other business than teaching.

…Poverty and violence are not God made, they are man made. Poverty and peace cannot coexist.

Injustice happens at many levels, from the grass roots to the top. And one of the keys of SEWA’s vision and action is linking them.

We were rebuilding the nation, looking to a more just society. It was a time when many of us were going to the villages to live there. We were a generation that had no confusion in our minds as to how to do things. Gandhiji had shown the way. This atmosphere infused politics and the way we did things.

...tribute to her unflinching zeal towards the betterment of women in society.

I am Hindu, and my activism is very much framed within that context, of karma as meaning action.

realities of our own countries rather than catching up with the western economic models, [Bhatt urged] the people to follow a principle which ensures six basic necessities- food, shelter, clothing, primary education, primary healthcare and primary banking- are available within a 100 mile distance. If these necessities are locally produced and consumed, we will have the growth of a new holistic economy.

…Inner peace is important, but I have always felt that living a daily life with peace is the end. So in reality individual peace and global peace are not separate. They are one and the same.

...as I worked with the unionized labor, of the much larger labor force that was outside the purview of the protective labor laws, of any form of social security, access to justice, access to financial services, anything. That tugged at my heart. And those people were unorganized and had no strength to act to seek remedies.

[SEWA] have been doing many different things, leading the SEWA movement which is about economic freedom for the poor, women, and self employed.

The country is moving in a different direction, times have changed. But for me Gandhiji’s values are still the frame, still alive and valid.

What we really are looking for is self reliance and that is how we should measure success. I don’t much like the word empowerment, but self-reliance is the foundation of SEWA’s approach,.

Through women, what exists and is real, what is traditional, historical, modern and cultural, given the opportunity, is upgraded. That is what the challenge to bring peace is about.