It was 1989, and police had come to clear a women’s sit-in. The protesters worked as vendors and Ahmedabad’s municipal corporation wanted them off the street, a move that would jeopardise their livelihoods. But the officers had not reckoned with a petite union leader who argued for two hours — until they finally gave in.

The policemen had come up against India’s “gentle revolutionary”. An activist who championed collective power, Ela Ramesh Bhatt, affectionately called Elaben (ben means sister), died earlier this month. Pioneering financial services for poor women, Bhatt fought tirelessly against poverty, and became a global feminist icon with admirers from Nelson Mandela to Hillary Clinton.

Born to a well-off family in Gujarat in 1933, Bhatt’s early life was steeped in India’s freedom struggle against British colonialism. She attended school and college in Surat, before studying law in regional capital Ahmedabad, dubbed the “Manchester of India” for its textile mills. She later married fellow student leader Ramesh Bhatt.