Sharda Mehta

• 1. Introduction

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  Sharda Mehta received her Bachelor of Arts in Logic and Moral Philosophy from Gujarat College in 1901. That degree made her one of the first two women to hold a university qualification in what is now Gujarat. Behind that achievement stood a family with reform embedded in its identity across generations. How did those origins translate into decades of public life? At least part of the answer traces back to her maternal great-grandfather, the poet and social reformer Bholanath Divetia.

• 2. A Reformer's Lineage

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  Sharda was born on the 26th of June 1882 in Ahmedabad to Gopilal Manilal Dhruva, a judicial officer, and his wife Balaben. The family was Nagar Brahmin. Her early schooling was at Raibahadur Maganbhai Girl's High School. She went on to Mahalakshmi Teachers Training College for Anglo-vernacular classes and sat her matriculation exams in 1897. Her elder sister Vidyagauri Nilkanth followed the same educational path. Sharda married Sumant Mehta in 1898, when he was a medical student four years her senior. Her convictions extended across women's empowerment, opposition to caste restrictions, the eradication of untouchability, and the cause of Indian independence.

• 3. From Swadeshi to Civil Action

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  From 1906, Mehta promoted swadeshi goods and khadi cloth. She was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi. In 1917, she organised a protest against Girmitiya, the practice of indentured servitude. In 1919, she helped Indulal Yagnik edit Navjivan. The Gujarat Kisan Parishad, a farmers' conference held in Ahmedabad in 1928, counted her among its participants. She also joined a deputation to meet the Governor of Bombay, seeking a settlement of the Bardoli Satyagraha. In 1929, she appeared before the Royal Commission on Labour, presenting on labour conditions in Ahmedabad's textile mills. The civil disobedience movement of 1930 brought her to picket outside liquor shops. Mehta served on the Ahmedabad Municipality from 1931 to 1935. She was also a member of Baroda Praja Mandal, the Baroda People's Association. Her activities connected her to educational and women's welfare institutes in Ahmedabad, Baroda, and Bombay. In 1934, she established the Jyoti Sangh for women's welfare.

• 4. Schools, Stores, and Institutes

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  Sharda Mehta founded the Vanita Vishram Mahila Vidyalaya in Ahmedabad, a school devoted to women's education. She also established a college affiliated with SNDT Women's University. In 1931, she opened a khadi store at her husband's ashram near Shertha, Ahmedabad. In 1934, she established Apna Ghar Ni Dukan, a co-operative store. Sumant Mehta served as personal doctor to the Gaekwads of Baroda State and as a social worker throughout these years. Among the thinkers who shaped Mehta's intellectual formation was Sukhlal Sanghvi.

• 5. A Life in Words

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  Puranoni Balbodhak Vartao, a collection of children's stories aimed at their development, appeared in 1906. Florence Nightingale Nu Jeevancharitra, a biography of English social reformer Florence Nightingale, came out in the same year. Mehta had studied Hindu texts and Sanskrit literature; the works of Aurobindo and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan were among her intellectual touchstones. She wrote essays on social issues regularly in dailies and magazines. Grihavyavasthashastra followed in 1920, and Balakonu Gruhshikshan, a study of child education, appeared in 1922.

  With her sister Vidyagauri Nilkanth, Mehta translated Romesh Chunder Dutt's Bengali novel Sansar, also known as The Lake of Palms. The translation was published as Sudhahasini in 1907. The sisters also produced a translation of Chimnabai II's 1911 book, Position of Women in Indian Life; Chimnabai II was the Maharani of Baroda. That translation, Hindustanma Streeonu Samajik Sthan, appeared in 1915. Mehta also translated Sathe Annabhau's novel as Varnane Kanthe.

  In 1938, she completed her autobiography, Jeevansambharana, subtitled Reminiscences: The Memoirs of Shardaben Mehta. The book situated her personal history within the social, historical, and political landscape of the years 1882 to 1937. It also recorded the awakening of women across those same decades. She died on the 13th of November 1970 at Vallabh Vidyanagar, thirty-three years after the memoir's final entry.