Shanti Devi

Shanti Devi was a Gandhian social worker and president of the Seva Samaj, which she founded in Rayagada district in 1964. She was named for the Padma Shri in 2021 in the field of social work, from Odisha ^[1].

Into the tribal hills

Shanti Devi was born on 18 April 1934 and studied at Fakir Mohan College in Balasore ^[2]. After marrying Dr Ratan Das in 1951 she moved to Koraput, a largely tribal area, and in 1953 the couple settled in Sankhalapadar village near Rayagada ^[2]. There she began by nursing villagers with leprosy and yaws, working for four years to rid the area of yaws ^[2].

Seva Samaj

From 1956 to 1980 she worked with Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement ^[2]. In 1964 she founded the Seva Samaj at Rayagada with eight tribal girls, and three years later opened another hostel for tribal girls at Gunupur ^[2]. She also set up a home for orphan girls at Jabarguda and a training camp for destitute women in Gunupur ^[2].

She was secretary of the Odisha Bhoodan Yagna Samiti, a member of the state social welfare board and, from 1978, president of the Odisha prohibition committee ^[2]. In 1990 she served as an honorary juvenile court judge for Koraput and Gajapati districts ^[2].

Walking for peace

Between 2010 and 2013 she joined a four-phase march for peace and non-violence with 20 Sarvodaya workers through 20 Maoist-affected districts of Odisha and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh ^[2]. She translated Vinoba’s biography and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas into Odia ^[2]. She received the Jamnalal Bajaj Award in 1994 ^[2].

Shanti Devi died at her home in Gunupur in January 2022 ^[3].