Icons of Social Change

The 10 social reformers featured in Icons of Social Change are

Mahasweta Devi, the brilliant Bengali writer who through her writings and her work among tribals in various parts of India has brought to light their pitiable living conditions;

Baba Amte, who fought against the stigma brought about by leprosy and set up a community of leprosy patients which is self-sufficient in every way;

Chandi Prasad Bhatt, the man behind the famous Chipko Movement and guardian of the dwindling forests of Garhwal;

J.N. Kaul, the founder of the SOS Children’s Villages in India, who has helped innumerable orphaned children rebuild their lives;

Ela Bhatt, who encouraged the exploited women workers of Ahmedabad to take charge of their finances through the cooperative, SEWA;

Bindeshwar Pathak, the first to acknowledge and work actively towards spreading awareness about the right to cleanliness and privacy through Sulabh, a chain of public toilets;

Aruna Roy, who started the Right to Information movement so that every citizen knows how public funds are being utilized by the elected representatives;

Sugatha Kumari, the poet and environmental activist from Kerala who restored a destroyed forest and went on to start a shelter for battered, homeless and exploited women;

Rajendra Singh, who achieved what many thought impossible by bringing water back into the wells and rivers of western Rajasthan;

Sandeep Pandey, the man whose mission is to transform the lives of India’s underprivileged children through education.