Avabai Bomanji Wadia

Avabai Bomanji Wadia

Avabai Wadia speaking at the Third International Conference 1952. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Dhanvanthi Rama Rau and Margaret Sanger in attendance
Born 18 September 1913
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Died 11 July 2005
India
Occupation Social worker, writer
Years active 1932-2005
Known for Sexual health and family planning advocacy
Spouse(s) Bomanji Khurshedji Wadia
Parent(s) Dorabji Muncherji
Pirojbai Arsiwala Mehta
Awards Padma Shri

Avabai Bomanji Wadia (b. 18 September 1913) was a Sri Lankan born naturalised Indian social worker, writer[1][2] and the founder of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Family Planning Association of India, two non governmental organisations working to promote sexual health and family planning.[3][4] She was honoured by the Government of India in 1971 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.[5]

Biography

Early life and education

Avabai was born on 18 September 1913 in Colombo, British Ceylon (Sri Lanka), into an affluent and highly westernized Parsi family with roots in Gujarat, India.[6] Her father, Dorabji Muncherji, was a well placed shipping officer,[3] and her mother, Pirojbai Arsiwala Mehta, a decent home-maker. After initial schooling in Colombo, Avabai moved to England in 1928 (aged 15) and completed her schooling at Brondesbury and Kilburn High School, London.[3]

Choosing a career in law, she joined the Inns of Court in 1932 and enrolled as a lawyer in 1934, becoming the first Sri Lankan woman to succeed in the bar examinations,[3] which she passed with honours.[6] She practiced at the High Court of Justice, London for one year (1936-37),[6] but could not land a permanent job in any solicitors' firm. She chose to attribute this to gender discrimination,[3] although this could have been the result of her involvement in numerous controversial causes both as a student and as a practicing lawyer. As a law student, she had got involved in the activities of the British Commonwealth League and the International Alliance of Women, and had participated in several rallies and picketing events. She had also met and mingled with various leaders of the Indian freedom movement, including Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, and Jawaharlal Nehru, when they visited England.[3] These associations were held against her when she applied to any law firm for a post as junior lawyer. Avabai spent two years in relative idleness in England until, having failed to land a job at any law firm, she decided to return home. She returned to Colombo in 1939, was enrolled immediately at the Supreme Court, and began to practice law by assisting a senior Parsi lawyer.[3] She did this from 1939 to 1941, with no particular distinction, and this marked the end of her career in law.[6]

Contraception activism

Elise Ottesen-Jensen.

Surely, this amounts to a subtle coercion of women to keep on having babies because they do not know of or cannot exercise other options, says Avabai Wadia, about the unwanted pregnancies happening to over 500 million women in the developing world.[4]

Margaret Sanger.

In 1941, Avabai's father retired from his job and decided to return to his native land. The family moved from Ceylon to India in 1941 and settled in Bombay permanently. Here, Avabai met her future husband, Bomanji Khurshedji Wadia, and they got married on 26 April 1946.[3][6] Predictably, the marriage was not a success, and the couple were soon estranged. However, they were never legally divorced, because divorce was a taboo of tremendous strength in India at that time. Avabai did become pregnant in 1952, but suffered a miscarriage, after which the couple made no further effort to stay together.

In Mumbai, Avabai chose not to make any attempt at practicing law. Instead, she joined the All India Women's Conference and took up social activism in the cause of feminism, with a focus on contraception.[3] Having inherited a significant fortune upon the death of her father, she founded the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI) in 1949 and became its president, a post she held for 34 years continuously.[3] Her efforts resulted in the inclusion of "family planning" (a euphemism for contraception) in the first five year plan, which was launched in 1951.[3] India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was an Englishman in all but name, a Cambridge man, an avowed Fabian socialist who believed passionately in radical Progressivism and in the idea that the government must regulate social behavior of the individual for the greater common good as determined by the (un-electable) intellectual class. As an Indian woman who spoke English well, had an absent husband, was poised and confident as she held a cigarette in one hand and a glass of sherry in the other, and declaimed articulately on the paradigms of modernity, Avabai was just the type of woman to get Nehru's attention and support. He showered her lavishly with the patronage of the state, and it was largely due to her personality and connect with Nehru that contraception became accepted as early as 1951 as one of the focus areas of the freshly minted government of India. The following year (1952), backed and funded by the Indian government, Avabai organised the Third International Conference on Planned Parenthood which was held in India and gave the opportunity to all the eight associations working in the field to come together. The conference was attended by renowned women's rights activists, Margaret Sanger and Elise Ottesen-Jensen. At the conference, the delegates unanimously voted for the formation of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which took shape shortly afterwards.[3]

Throughout the decades when India was a virtual one-party state ruled by the Congress party, Avabai, as a westernized, modern, non-Hindu woman, not only enjoyed state patronage but was also invested with the power to dispense patronage on behalf of the government. She served on numerous government committees and commissions, and held the power to allocate funds as she deemed fit to any left-wing cause. She combined a rich social life and robust networking in left-wing circles with furthering the goals of the IPPF, of which she remained an office-bearer from the day of its inception to the day of her death. She served as president of the IPPF for two terms from 1983 to 1989.[6] It was during her tenure as president that the IPPF received the UN Population Award[7] in 1985 and the Third World Prize[8] in 1987.[3] During this period, courtesy the patronage of the state, and despite her dismal professional record as a lawyer, Avabai was appointed Justice of Peace in Bombay in 1957 and the magistrate of Juvenile Court in Bombay in 1958.[6]

Avabai was associated with the Family Planning Association of India since its inception in 1949 till her death, as a founder member (1949-1953), as its general secretary (1953-1963), as its president (1963-1997) and served as its president emeritus from there onward till her death.[6] After serving out her second term as the president of IPPF in 1989, she continued as its patron till 2005.[6] She was also a life member of the Women's Graduate Union, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and Maharashtra Women's Council.[6] She was the vice president of the All India Women's Conference for two terms (1956-1958 and 1958-1960), a member of the governing council of the Population Foundation of India and the honorary editor of the Journal of Family Welfare[9] since 1956.[6] She wrote extensively on the subjects of sexual health and family planning and some of her publications are:

He memoirs was published in 2001 under the name, The Light is Ours by the International Planned Parenthood Federation.[16]

Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati honoured Avabai Bomanji Wadia with the degree, Doctor of Law (honoris causa)[6] and the Government of India awarded her the civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1971.[5] She died on 11 July 2005 at the age of 91, her husband preceding her in death in February 1979.[3][6] She bequeathed a part of her personal wealth to The Research Centre for Women's Studies[17] which manages the Dr. Avabai and Dr. Bomanji Khurshedji Wadia Archive for Women,[18] a body which promotes the women's cause through dissemination of knowledge and social activism.[19] A trust, Avabai Wadia Memorial Trust, has been established which is involved in family planning programmes in association with other non governmental bodies and medical institutions[20] and conducts regular endowment lectures on the subject.[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "OCLC Classify". OCLC Classify. 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Worldcat profile". Worldcat. 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Paul Bell (11 August 2005). "Obituary: Avabai Wadia". Web report. The Guardian. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Woman`s Lifelong Cause Is Global Family Planning". Web report. The New York Times. 17 December 1985. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  5. 1 2 "Padma Shri" (PDF). Padma Shri. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 15, 2014. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "Social services and women's health advocate". Praboqk. 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  7. ↑ "UN Population Award". UNFPA. 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  8. ↑ "The Third World Prize". TWAS. 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Journal of Family Welfare". Med India. 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  10. ↑ Avabai Bomanji Wadia (1981). Population Education for the Younger Generation. Family planning association of India. p. 138. OCLC 108274674.
  11. ↑ Avabai Bomanji Wadia (1979). The Role of Voluntary Organisations in Promoting Family Planning and Population Policy. Family Planning Association of India. p. 37. OCLC 31820781.
  12. ↑ Avabai Bomanji Wadia (1947). Some Careers for Women. Thacker. p. 39. OCLC 1987653.
  13. ↑ Avabai Bomanji Wadia (2001). Proceedings of The First Dr. C. Chandrasekaran Memorial Lecture, October 30, 2001 on population and development : the changing scenario. OCLC 7210728.
  14. ↑ Avabai Bomanji Wadia. Population development and the environment. Audio book. Radio Canada International. OCLC 8746399.
  15. ↑ Avabai Bomanji Wadia (1988). The light will belong to us all. London: Third World Foundation for Social and Economic Studies. p. 8. OCLC 716106672.
  16. ↑ Avabai Bomanji Wadia (2001). The Light is Ours: Memoirs & Movements. International Planned Parenthood Federation. p. 706. ISBN 9780860891253.
  17. ↑ "Research Centre for Women's Studies". Research Centre for Women's Studies. 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  18. ↑ "Research Centre for Women's Studies". Research Centre for Women's Studies. 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  19. ↑ "IAWS" (PDF). IAWS. 2012. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  20. ↑ "The MOGS-FPAI Avabai Wadia Memorial Workshop Inauguration". Gautam Allahbadia. 10 April 2009. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  21. ↑ "K. R. Cama Oriental Institute". K. R. Cama Oriental Institute. 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.

Further reading

External links

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