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In the year 1934, somewhere in between the concurrence of colonialism, at the young age of 19, Avabai Wadia passed the bar examination with honours in the United Kingdom. With this, Avabai became the first South East Asian woman from Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, to pass the bar but this was only the start of her legacy.
Born in the year 1913 in British Ceylon into an affluent and aspirational Parsi family from India’s Gujarat, Avabai was always encouraged to educate herself. So when she moved to London at the age of fifteen, she had already started working towards her goal of becoming a lawyer.
As a law student, she participated in rallies and worked with the Commonwealth Countries League and the International Alliance of Women. Despite the social stigma and challenges faced by women pursuing a career and coming from a colonised country, she practised law for two years in London before returning to Ceylon and continuing her practice at the Supreme Court until the year 1941.
Her becoming a lawyer and practising law improved the conditions and contributed to the upliftment of a lot of South East Asian women.
In the year 1941, during WWII, upon Avabai’s father retiring from his job as a shipping officer, the family moved to India and settled in Bombay. It was here where Avabai immersed herself in social work and joined the All India Women’s Conference.
In a conservative country like India, which was still dealing with the aftermath of colonialism, Avabai found her calling in advocating for women’s healthcare and sexual wellness — especially contraception and birth control. With the threat of ostracism over her head, she worked towards resolving issues of family planning and women’s reproductive health.
In the year in 1949, she founded The Family Planning Association of India, FPAI, a non-government organization and headed it for 34 years. The organisation still dedicates itself to improving female reproductive health and advocating for women’s rights. FPAI, with a decentralised and community-oriented approach, not only worked towards family planning but also focused on improving the lives of women through education and skill development. Wadia warned people against coercive practices in family planning programmes and advocated for voluntary and informed participation.
Avabai, was perhaps the first woman to work towards birth control in the history of India’s family planning, and her efforts in the field proved to be instrumental in India’s first five-year plan, making the Indian government the first ever in the world to promote family planning policies in the early 1950s.
She also founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation, another NGO and was officially recognised for her work in the year 1971, when she was honoured with Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award.
In her autobiography, The Light is Ours, Avabai wrote, “I did not feel it a waste not to carry on with a legal career, for the law was a fortifying element in all that I undertook.”
Avabai, a woman way ahead of her time, dared to talk about abortion laws and women’s reproductive health when the stakes were much higher, especially for a woman. She worked towards the upliftment of women, till her death at the age of 91.
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