Smt. Purnimaben Pakvasa – The Ever
Young Freedom Fighter
Lord Krishna in the 3rd Chapter of the Bhagawad
Gita teaches us that we should work and continuously go on doing work – He
explains that whatever a great man does, the others also do; the standard he
sets up is followed by the others. He states that though HE, Lord Krishna is
not required to work, yet he is continuously in action. For if He were not to
do so, people all around would follow him and the world would fall into ruins.
Today I am writing about a lady who is following
this precept and she is actively engaged in the cause of educating women, and
improving the lives of adivasis, particularly in backward areas of Dang... And
she is 94!
Purnimaben comes from a family of freedom
fighters. Her father Shri Vrajlal Sheth was a freedom fighter, a physical
culturist and a Scout Master, who was imprisoned for 2½ years during our
National Movement for Freedom. Her uncle Shri Amritlal Sheth was popularly
known as “Lion of Saurashtra” and who underwent imprisonment twice during the
freedom movement. His whole family was put in jail during the movement.
Purnimaben married Shri Arvind Pakvasa, son of
Shri Mangaldas Pakvasa. Arvindbhai was an eminent philatelist of international
repute. He had a very valuable collection of stamps which was disposed of for
Rs. 8 lakhs, a princely sum in those days, and gave away the entire amount to
charities. Shri Mangaldas Pakvasa father-in-law of Purnimaben was a true
Gandhian and a freedom fighter, solicitor, president of Bombay Legislative
Council, and was Governor of C.P. and Berar, of Mysore & of Bombay State. She
has 1 son and 2 daughters who are all well settled. Instead of staying with
them, she chooses to live at Saputara in Dang (Gujarat), which is her “Karmabhoomi”.
Purnimaben is well educated and qualified. Apart
from being a graduate from SNDT, she also has undergone military training, and
has herself conducted several military training camps imparting military
training to women. She is also trained for flying trainer aircrafts!
She has an excellent track record as a freedom
fighter. She took part in satyagraha at Limbdi and also at Rajkot. She also
worked as a volunteer at Haripura Congress Session where she served Subhash
Chandra Bose as a captain of volunteers. At the young age of 17, she, as a
freedom fighter, was arrested and was put in Sabarmati jail. Kasturba Gandhi
also was in the same prison at the same time. Purnimaben was teaching reading,
writing and imparting education to Kasturba and also to other female
co-prisoners including some women criminals sentenced to life imprisonment.
Gandhiji used to correspond with Kasturba and he discovered a marked
improvement in letters sent by Kasturba. On inquiry, he learnt of the efforts
put in by Purnimaben. He sent blessings to Purnimaben and asked her to
continue “literacy” as her mission. She was then only 17. Even at 94 she is
actively pursuing the said mission! Under the direction of Gandhiji she has
taken up a life time mission of empowering women by making them courageous,
honest, fearless and economically self-supporting, she is working for the
upliftment of women of the backward strata of the society and helping them in
gaining their rightful place in the society. She does this by imparting basic
education and physical, military and spiritual training to them.
Her work in her chosen field is going on
relentlessly. Between 1947 and 1952 during her stay at Nagpur where her
father-in-law was the Governor (incidentally the only time I had met her
earlier was in 1949 at Nagpur when I was just 14). She started women’s
organization and organized cultural programmes for women. Later she started a
school and Kanya Chhatralaya at Saputara, and R.N. Shah High School, Malini
Kishor Sanghvi Junior College, and Malini Kishor Sanghvi College of Commerce
and Economics at Juhu, Mumbai.
In 1953, she established an organization called “Shakti Dal” for giving
training to women in self-defence, mental and spiritual development. In 1962,
seeing the condition of backward and tribal people, she decided to devote her
time and energy to uplift the adivasi population. In 1969 she established
“Ritambhara Vishva Vidyapeeth”, and under it started a school, a nursery,
training centre for cottage industries, and cultural activities at Saputara.
The activities also included starting primary health centres and imparting
training to nurses and mid-wives.
She has served as a camp commandant for 20 years
for winter training camps for Bhonsle Military School at Nasik. She has
organized over 50 camps for imparting physical, military and yogic training to
women, and has through these camps imparted training to over 26,000 women and
girls from all over the country.
Village Development also has been area of her
work. She prepared a 5-point programme for development of villages in the
backward districts of Dang. The main emphasis was laid on educational
development, economic upliftment, providing medicine facilities, removing
superstitions and explaining the advantages of prohibition. This is being
carried out through community centres established in several villages. Over
3500 people have taken advantages of these programme which is expected to
generate employment for over 10,000 people in next 3 years.
She has been associated with a large number of
organization, including Bharat Scouts & Guides, NCC, Bombay Physical Culture
Association, SNDT University, Central Board of Film Censors, Bap nu Ghar,
Balkan-Ji-Bari and several other organizations. She also has several
publications to her credit.
For her untiring work she has been given many
awards; some of them are as under:
-
Freedom Fighter Award in 1983 by Rashtriya
Shaala, Ghatkopar, Bombay
-
Amrut Puraskar in 1984 for services rendered
to advasis
-
Sanakar Kendra, Vadodara for services rendered
to adivasi
-
Award from abhivadan Trust, Bombay in 1985 for
services rendered to adivasis
-
Young Rotarian Award for Freedom Fighter in
1993
-
Youngmen’s Gandhian Association & Champaben
Gondhiya Award of Rajkot in 1995 for services rendered to women
-
Patrakar Foundation Award for Freedom Fighter
in 1995
-
Felicitation by Gujarat Government as Freedom
Fighter in 1996
-
Smt. Lakshmi Menon Literacy Award in 1997 by
All India Committee for Eradication Illiteracy Among Women
-
“Ba Puraskar” from Pujya Ba Bapu Satkottar
Rajat Jayanti, Pune on 2nd October 2000
Recently only in January 2007 she received
Vishistha Seva Award from Gujarat Stree Kelewadi Mandal for her work for
adivasi women’s education.
Her achievements are many, but to list only a
few important ones; they are as under:
-
Under auspicious of Ritambhara Vishva
Vidyapeeth provided literacy training to 8000 women. The literacy programme
is continued
-
5000 children were trained under Balwadis
-
Platform for providing complete village
development established in 21 villages in Dang District
-
3000 people were administered oath to refrain
from drinks
-
Cottage industries and home made products to
supplement income established in 22 villages
-
Provided free medicines to 30000 adivasis
-
Trained 4000 adivasi girls in academic
education and home industries.
The list of her achievement is highly
impressive. It is difficult to believe that a single person can achieve so
much during a life time. She resides at Saputara in Dang District of Gujarat,
which is a very backward area. Even at this age she chooses to live a simple
life way out in the wilderness. Her visits to Mumbai are very rare occasions.
She generally comes to attend the Annual General Meeting of Ritambhara Vishva
Vidyapeeth. While I was working on this article I came to know that she is in
Mumbai to attend the AGM and I promptly seized the opportunity of meeting her
in person and paying my respects to her. It is a great experience to meet this
94 year old lady who at this age continues to serve the cause of humanity and
works for advasis and women situated in backward areas. As she explained to
me, she comes to Mumbai for a day to attend the AGM and stays for a day more
to please her children and grandchildren. Her message to us was that ‘one
should educate the uneducated, particularly the women’. This can achieve great
results. Like Mahatma Gandhi she can very well say that “My life is my
message.” Her’s is a saga of life-long service to the cause of humanity.
Meeting Poornimaben is truly like visiting a place of pilgrimage. Even if some
of us draw inspiration from her and devote more of our time, energy and money
for such causes I would feel that the purpose of my writing this article would
be fulfilled.
Contact details:
RITAMBHARA VISHVA VIDYAPEETH
BEHIND CHANDAN CINEMA
NIRMALADEVI ARUNKUMAR ANUJA MARG , J.V.P.D. SCHEME
VILE PARLE (W)
MUMBAI .
TELEPHONE NO.26239755.
