On the trail of trailblazers By Randeep Wadehra

Trailblazers of Gujarat by Kamlendra Kanwar

Harmony Publishers. Pages: 270. Price: Rs. 495/-

One of the qualities a trailblazer is blessed with is the awe-inspiring capacity of taking trouble to achieve preset goals; another is vision. Gujarat has been particularly blessed with such personages, and one is not referring to Mahatma Gandhi who bested the British at their own political mind-games, nor does one need to recall Sardar Patel who hammered an amorphous entity into a viable and vibrant Union of India. There have been others whose contribution as nation builders is invaluable. While they are idolized within the state many of them have gained national and international fame.

Take, for example, Verghese Kurien who was a government servant posted to a government creamery in Anand. Contrary to the sarkari stereotype, he went beyond looking-busy-while-doing-nothing routine. Against all odds and prejudices he not only pioneered the milk cooperative movement in Gujarat but also ushered white revolution in the country, catapulting it to the rank of number one milk producer in the world. Then there is Ela Bhatt whose awesome tenacity has transformed the outlook of women from the lowest socio-economic stratum. Having lived sheltered childhood as a judge’s daughter she was timid by temperament but had a strong sense of the right and the wrong. The combination of compassion and love of justice infused in her the desire to empower vulnerable women. Breaking tradition she set up Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – which now has 687,000 members. This is a first in the history of trade union movement, especially when you learn that it happened in the unorganized sector consisting of head-loaders, bidi rollers, seamstresses, vegetable and garment vendors etc. SEWA also boasts of its own bank.

Strategic vision and talent for innovation are the other salient traits of trailblazers. Bakul Dholakia helped IIM Ahmedabad transcend political shenanigans and become an example for other IIMs to follow. He introduced innovative courses that helped wannabe managers acquire skills more relevant to the present needs of industry. The cardiologist Tejas Patel is the only Asian to have patented in his name a catheter for angioplasty. Moreover, he has to his credit 45,000 cath lab procedures with about 25,000 of these done through the trans-radial route, i.e., inserting the catheter through the wrist to reach the coronary arteries. All this requires tremendous discipline and a genius for innovation. Similarly, Pankaj Shah pioneered chemotherapy in India and is revered for his strong professional ethics. The octogenarian Shroff couple – Kantisen and Chandaben – has helped revive Kutchi hand embroidery, empowering thousands of women in the process.

Then there are others: Pranlal Bhogilal, the owner of largest number of vintage cars in India; Sudhir Nanavati, lawyer and educationist; Balkrishna Doshi, the architect described by Fortune magazine as the ‘only Indian to become a world force in design’; and Mukesh Patel, a multi-faceted personality. Not all of the persons chronicled in this book may be trailblazers in the literal sense, but their contribution to society is enduring indeed.