There are Hindu Brahmins at the sewing machines, Muslims sewing on buttons. Debi Nair, a social activist with the Share movement, says the effort to organize female workers is Gandhian by design. The rallies were covered in the newspapers. The movement creates independence, and its strength improves lives. Differences in caste, marital status, even religion, are minimized.
Members start their day with an all-religion prayer.
Our strategy is to see ourselves as workers, not as somebody's wife, somebody's mother or belonging to any religion. It is secular in the sense that, to our union, secular is accepting all religions, respecting all religions. You have to believe in your religions. The men who once objected to the women's independence now see their wives off at the bus station when they go to meetings out of town, Bhatt says. The SEWA movement has become a model and has spread from Gujarat to four other Indian states.