- Lived:
- 3 April 1903, Mangalore → Madras, London, Bombay, four British jails, a refugee township at Faridabad, and the craft bazaars and rehearsal rooms of Delhi; died 29 October 1988, Bombay (Mumbai)
- Field:
- freedom movement, cooperative socialism, and the post-independence rescue of Indian handloom, handicraft and theatre
- The Big Idea:
- Freedom is completed not by the people who take office but by the people who build institutions — and she built dozens, from a self-built refugee city to the national crafts boards and the National School of Drama, while turning down the offices.
- In their words:
- "The development of any country's handicrafts rests primarily on the women." (recorded with her 1966 Ramon Magsaysay Award)
- If you remember one thing:
- A girl widowed in childhood, whose world told her that her life was finished, became the first Indian woman to contest an election, auctioned contraband salt on the floor of the Bombay Stock Exchange — and after 1947 declined a seat in Parliament and a governorship so she could go and save the weavers instead.