Shardaben Mehta stands as a trailblazing figure in the history of women’s empowerment and social change in India. She was among the first Gujarati women to complete her graduation. In 1938, she authored Jeevan Sambharana, the first full-fledged autobiography of a woman in the Gujarati language. Notably, it was published decades before the compiled autobiography of her illustrious husband, Dr. Sumant Mehta, came out.
Going to college, even after getting married, was uncommon for Hindu women in those days. Sharda was lucky to have progressive parents. She married Sumant, a radical reformist, while he was still a medical student in the UK. Sharda was 16 years old at the time — much past the typical age for marriage among ‘upper’ caste girls.
For Shardaben, tough subjects at Gujarat Arts and Science College weren’t as challenging — humiliation and stigma imposed by societal attitudes towards gender were a bigger problem. She used to attend classes with her elder sister, Vidyagauri Nilkanth, a year senior, who had resumed higher studies after a gap due to marriage. One of her classmates was a Parsi friend. The two women would enter the class just after the professor and leave as soon as the lecture got over. They had little to no interaction with other classmates—the men would ridicule them, write letters, and sometimes spray itching powder on the benches where they sat. They would even send anonymous letters to their house. But all the harassment couldn’t bring them down—it subsided after a year. Vidyagauri, her elder sister, had another gap in her studies, so the three women cleared BA together in 1901.
Shardaben spent the next few years at Baroda, where Dr. Mehta served as the chief medical officer in the government. This marked the beginning of an active and engaged life for both of them. The couple attended the annual session of the Indian National Congress in Ahmedabad in 1902, forming a close bond with the famous economic historian Romesh Chandra Dutt, who was the dewan in the Baroda state. Their association even led to the couple naming their son Ramesh, a Gujarati version of Romesh, in 1907 in honour of Dutt.
Around the same time, Shardaben started her writing journey. With Vidyagauri, she translated RC Dutt’s novel The Lake of Palms in Gujarati as Sudhahasini. Both sisters also translated The Position of Indian Women in Colonial India by Maharani Chimnabai Gaekwad. Shardaben compiled children’s stories from Puranas and wrote a biography of Florence Nightingale in Gujarati.
Women’s movement, political life
Beyond her literary pursuits, Shardaben also led a vibrant social life. She founded Chimnabai Stree Samaj, an activity centre for women, and organised social programmes in the city in which both men and women could participate.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mehta started becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the life of luxury and tantrums of royalty. He started pondering about leaving the state job and working for society. The doctor took a break for nine months and decided to travel extensively across the country. Shardaben joined him and got a chance to meet with freedom movement stalwarts such as Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu, Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai, and Swami Shraddhanand.
But it was MK Gandhi who impressed her the most. Shardaben had moved to Ahmedabad with her husband when Gandhi returned from South Africa and established his first ashram in a Kochrab suburb. Gandhi developed a close, almost familial relationship with the couple. Shardaben became the president of Sansar Sudhar Parishad (Social Reforms Conference), which was part of the bigger Political Conference at Godhra, in 1917 at Gandhi’s insistence. She also became the first president of Bhagini Samaj, a women’s organisation in Bombay.
When Tagore visited Ahmedabad in 1920, he went to Vanita Vishram, an educational organisation that Shardaben had set up in 1916. The photo featuring Shardaben, Tagore, and Gandhi captured the moment very well. Indulal Yajnik, a maverick leader in Gujarat, was a regular visitor to the couple’s Ahmedabad bungalow. In the initial phase of the publication of Gandhi’s weekly Navjivan, when press workers went on strike, Shardaben and her children took up the folding work of the magazine, noted Indulal in his autobiography.
With her young son Ramesh, Shardaben participated in the Bardoli Satyagraha. Meanwhile, her husband was assigned the responsibility of a camp leader at Sarbhon village by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Shardaben’s time in villages brought her face-to-face with the reality of tribal women. She stopped wearing gold bangles and diamond earrings after that. When Gandhi was carrying out his Salt March, Shardaben went to see Gandhi and noted in her autobiography: “I had to run almost to keep pace with him. He was explaining to me how women can work in the prohibition of liquor.”
After the new University Act came into effect in 1928-29, Shardaben was elected to the senate and later to the syndicate of Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women’s University. But Shardaben soon became disillusioned, summing up her experience thus: “Most of the people join such organisations for either status or to protect their interests and not to serve…I tried hard and brought resolutions on reduction of expenditure, improvement in curriculum, the method of examination, change in time, hostels for women, and introduction of Home Science, but all my efforts went in vain. I could understand the failure after having an insider’s view of the whole game.”
She was equally frustrated with the membership of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and Local Board and decided not to run for office again. Her engagement in various women-centric activities and organisations continued, though. The Mehta family residence, Jyotirdhar, remained open for all visitors—ideology or socio-political inclination no bar. The couple arranged meetings for the leaders of other political organisations at a time when the Congress held a monopoly on power and public life.
Shardaben did not turn up for a felicitation programme organised in Ahmedabad on her 75th birthday. “The goal of social work cannot be a higher position or a heap of praise or featuring of one’s name and photo in the newspapers…We must win the trust of not only urban but rural womenfolk too and awaken them for their welfare,” she wrote in her autobiography.
When Shardaben died at the age of 88 in 1970, she had seen it all, and yet she was not bitter. Gandhi called her the epitome of motherhood — a woman to whom he would wish to be born. Shardaben lived that description until her end.
Urvish Kothari is a senior columnist and writer based in Ahmedabad. He tweets @urvish2020. Views are personal.
This article is a part of the Gujarat Giants series.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)