Jyotsna Darda

Jyotsna Darda died of cancer on 23 March 2013. In Mumbai, thousands of women came to say goodbye, and thousands more gathered in Nagpur. They were all members of Sakhi Manch, the organization she founded to give women the means and the confidence to start small businesses of their own.

Darda's path to that work began in a poor neighbourhood in Nagpur, where she was helping differently-abled people. There she saw at close range how hard and oppressive life could be for women at the bottom of society. Many people who meet a reality so far from their own give to charity and then return to a comfortable life. Darda chose a different course and built Sakhi Manch.

In this profile, Gunjan Jain looks into what made Darda an icon of women's empowerment. Simplicity, serenity, humility and willpower are part of the answer, and the book asks what else lay behind them.