The Door That Closed
People sometimes ask me how it felt to be turned away from the family business simply because I was a girl. I will tell you the truth—it stung, but it also set me free. I was born in 1933 in Mumbai into the Walchand circle. My father, Lalchand Hirachand, was a respected industrialist and a Padma Shri awardee himself. His brother, Walchand Hirachand, had already written his name large across Indian industry. We grew up surrounded by talk of factories, ships, aeroplanes and construction. Yet when the time came for me to step into that world, tradition closed the door. Women, they said, did not belong in the boardroom or on the shop floor.
I had studied Economics at Elphinstone College. I had ideas. I had energy. And at nineteen I married Arvind Gaurishankar Daftary, a man who never once asked me to shrink myself. He read widely, thought freely, and stood beside me when I decided that if the family business would not take me, I would start something of my own.
Five Workers and Two Lakh Rupees
In 1958, at the age of twenty-five, I put together two lakh rupees and five workers and registered Bharat Radiators. We made parts for automobiles—radiators and other components that kept engines cool and vehicles moving. It was not glamorous work. I wore a simple white sari to the factory and learned the machines myself. There were days when I came home late, helped the girls with their homework, and then opened books on management and engineering because I refused to stay ignorant of my own enterprise. My husband encouraged every late night of reading. He never treated my work as a hobby.
Looking back, the hardest part was not the capital or the customers. It was the constant need to prove that a woman could run a manufacturing unit without it falling apart. Bankers looked doubtful. Suppliers waited to see if we would last. Yet the workers stayed. Over the decades they began calling me “Tai.” That word meant more to me than any title. We went years without a strike or a go-slow. I believed that if you treated people with dignity and trusted them with responsibility, they would give you their best. I still believe that.
The Firsts That Followed
In 1971, the Automotive Components Manufacturers Association elected me president—the first woman to hold that post. Ten years later, in 1981, the Indian Merchants’ Chamber chose me as its president, again the first woman, and the first woman to lead any major chamber of commerce in the country. I returned to that chair for a second term in 2000. Somewhere along the way I also became the first woman on the executive committee of FICCI. These “firsts” never felt like personal trophies. They felt like doors being pushed open so that other women might walk through more easily.
In 2004, the Government of India awarded me the Padma Shri for contributions to industry. I accepted it with gratitude, but I also remembered the quiet beginnings—five workers, a small shed, and a determination that gender would not decide my future. The award belonged as much to the people who had worked beside me for decades as it did to me.
Faith, Family and the Longer View
Away from the factories and the chambers, I remained a practising Jain. Faith was never separate from work for me. I later served as president of the Dakshin Bharat Jain Sabha and edited Jain Bodhak, the fortnightly that my grandfather had founded as a voice for the community. In its pages I often wrote that equality between men and women is not a modern invention forced upon our tradition. It has always been present in Jain thought if one looks carefully. The soul has no gender. That simple idea gave me quiet strength on difficult days.
Arvind and I raised three daughters—Czaee, Gauri and Kavita. They grew up watching their mother leave for the factory in the morning and return with stories of production targets and board meetings. I hope they learned that a woman can love her family and still claim a full place in the world of work. My husband made that balance possible by never treating my ambitions as a threat to his own. That partnership was one of the greatest gifts of my life.
What I Would Tell a Young Woman Today
People sometimes speak of glass ceilings. I prefer to think of them as locked doors that can be opened with persistence, preparation and a little stubbornness. I never set out to become a symbol. I simply refused to accept that my gender made me less capable of running a business or leading an industry association. Along the way I discovered that humane leadership—listening, trusting, treating every worker as a person rather than a number—produces results that outlast any single manager.
I stayed with Bharat Radiators for the rest of my working life, more than six decades as managing director. The company grew, the industry changed, and new technologies arrived, yet the core lesson remained the same: start with what you have, treat people well, and keep learning. When I look back from the vantage point of ninety-one years, I see a long road that began with a refusal and ended with a life I would not trade.
If a young woman today finds herself told that certain rooms are closed to her, I would say this: build your own room. Gather your capital, however small. Find five people who believe in the work. Put on whatever clothes allow you to move freely among machines and meetings. Read every night. And never let anyone convince you that your place is only at home. The world has space for both—family and factory, faith and finance, care and competence. I lived that truth for nearly seven decades. It is still true.
In May 2025, my time on this earth came to a close. I leave behind a company, a record of institutional firsts, three daughters, and the quiet satisfaction of having refused to accept the limits others tried to set. The workers who once called me Tai, the colleagues who elected me to lead, and the community that shared my faith—all of them were part of the story. The empire I built was never only about radiators or titles. It was about proving, day after ordinary day, that a woman could take her place in industry and remain fully human while doing so.
References:
- Wikipedia contributors. “Sharayu Daftary.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org
- “Mom has always been a friend.” DNA India, 11 January 2015. https://www.dnaindia.com
- Jain Spirit, Issue 9 (2001). Profile of Sharayu Daftary and her work with Jain Bodhak and industry associations.
- Government of India, Padma Awards list, 2004 – Padma Shri conferred on Sharayu Daftary for contributions to Trade and Industry.
- Rotary Club of Bombay tribute, May 2025, noting her membership from 1990 and institutional firsts.
- Corporate records (Ministry of Corporate Affairs / ZaubaCorp / Tofler) confirming directorship of Bharat Radiators Private Limited from 31 January 1958 onward.
- International School for Jain Studies (ISJS) newsletter, May 2025 – obituary tribute recognising her industrial and community contributions.