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In 1992, in the North Indian town of Ayodhya, a Hindu mob destroyed a disputed mosque after years of agitation to replace it with a Hindu temple. In triumphant celebration, and to put the fear of God in the Muslims, violent Hindu mobs menaced, threatened and killed Muslims all over India. Mumbai – where a virulently Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena government was in power – was aflame, and reports came in from many sources of how the police either collaborated or looked on as Muslims were being murdered. Helpless families in the Muslim areas of the city huddled together in fear and desperation.

Among the few that dared to do something was the 74- year-old Dr Parikh – Indutai or sister Indu to her friends – who suggested to her colleagues that they should all visit the affected areas. When there was hesitation and apprehension she declared that if the others were unwilling to go then she would walk to the Muslim slums by herself – which of course the loyal Praveen, her chauffeur, would not allow her to do. Nor would her other colleagues at Streehitakarini – an organization for women’s welfare she had established in 1964. And so, under her leadership, a dedicated band of secular social workers reached the affected areas, offered their solidarity and support to the victims, and rehabilitation and relief works were able to start despite the great danger from the murderous mobs. After calm was restored to the area, over 30,000 inhabitants of the slums of Bharat Nagar were added to the number of people protected under the benevolent wing of Streehitakarini, already tending to the health and social needs of over 100,000 slum dwellers in the Dadar area of Mumbai. Although neither this particular act of heroism, nor the story of her dedicated lifetime of social work, are very well known among the general public in India and abroad, the life and work of Dr Indumati Parikh, who sadly died of pneumonia on 17 June, has touched many people in various ways. Dr Parikh – and her late husband, the famous orator and economist Prof. Parikh who created Bombay University’s Kalina Campus – developed a new Humanist approach to social change, using participative techniques, and transforming the very community in which they were working into an agent of social change: “M.N. Roy taught me to be a friend and guide of the people I work with, not their leader”. The Center for Study of Social Change which they also founded, along with other Humanist colleagues including the famous philosopher Lakshman Sastri Joshi, was the academic resource for the work of Humanism in Mumbai. In the process, Dr Parikh and her colleagues were able to create a close-knit family of friends who themselves took on the responsibility of transforming their communities and their environment. The majority of recruits of Streehitakarini’s doctors and social workers are from the slums in which the organization has operated. “Our task is to create individuals out of the sea of humanity around us”, she would often say. And the individuals she helped create were imbued with a sense of freedom and equality – where else in a caste-ridden and hierarchical society like that of India would a qualified doctor working in the organization marry a chauffeur employed there?

Dr Parikh’s simple and practical but innovative approach to social work is legendary. A lifelong teacher, even on her death bed she taught the nurses treating her in hospital new techniques. Until the very end, she continued to discuss and make plans for speedy implementation of the dream project on which she was engaged: the completion of construction of the M.N. Roy Memorial Human Development Campus, which was the venue of IHEU’s 14th World Humanist Congress ‘Humanism for Human Development and Progress’, and which she organized as President of the Indian Radical Humanist Association.

At home with academics, intellectuals and social activists, Dr Parikh translated David Werner’s Where there is No Doctor which ran into several editions, and authored a book on the life history of Lokhitwadi, an 18th century Humanist from Maharashtra, and other works on social development.

Dr Parikh was a laureate of the International Academy of Humanism, twice recipient of IHEU’s Distinguished Service to Humanism Award, and recipient of several other honours, including the Jamnalal Bajaj Award for Women and Child Welfare conferred by the then Prime Minister of India. She brought a Humanist angle to the empowerment of women, by giving both women and men a sense of equality, and women the knowledge and ability to take care of their own health as well as control of their own fertility. Her approach to developing grass- roots level Humanism will be her lasting contribution to Indian society.