In 1933, Sharayu Daftary was born into the Hirachand family and was closely connected to industrialist Walchand Hirachand, one of the pioneers of Indian industry. Her father was Lalchand Hirachand, Walchand's brother. Therefore, she grew up in a family where business and industry were intertwined with everyday life.
However, simply being born into that world did not mean that she had access to participate in it. According to biographical accounts, women in the Hirachand family were traditionally not permitted to enter the family business, and this exclusion became a central tension in Sharayu Daftary's story. Daftary did not inherit a position in the business; she created one.
She studied economics at Elphinstone College in Mumbai and married Arvind Gaurishankar Daftary at 19. Rather than treating her marriage as the end of her professional ambitions, she eventually entered manufacturing in her own right.
Daftary had been born close enough to the industry to see how it worked, but not close enough to participate in it simply because she was a woman. She had to challenge the gender stereotypes surrounding her before she could claim a place inside the world she had grown up around.
At 25, She Started with ₹2 Lakh and Five Workers.
In 1958, Sharayu Daftary, at only 25 years of age, established Bharat Radiators Limited. All she had when she started this venture was ₹2 lakh in capital, five workers, and an automobile ancillary business.
And this was not a simple stint at entrepreneurship. For her, it meant entering manufacturing and creating an industrial space as a woman in a field overwhelmingly dominated by men.
She eventually became the company's managing director and remained closely associated with it for decades. Many corporate records state that Bharat Radiators was incorporated in 1958, while a World Bank archival document from the late 1970s described Daftary as the company's managing director and noted that she had built the factory herself, with its main concentration on radiators and additional industrial production.
The same archival source also stated that she had developed substantial export interests, showing that her enterprise had moved beyond a tiny startup into a full-fledged business.
Her journey here portrays an important contrast: she wasn't simply given a business to manage. The archival description highlights that she had built the factory herself, while also noting her energetic drive and leadership skills.
Her Factory Was Run On Trust, Not Fear
Sharayu Daftary followed a simple management philosophy, and that became one of the strongest parts of her company's foundation.
In a Jain Samaj interview, Daftary recalled that, “For 32 years we had no strike, no go-slow and no loss of manpower.”
She did not believe that workers needed to be constantly watched to produce quality work. Instead, she believed in the concept of trust. She gave them specifications for materials and asked them to act as their own quality inspectors.
Her reasoning was that such dynamics between workers would maintain and increase their self-esteem, skills, responsibility and loyalty towards the company.
Her philosophy was later summed up through the phrase “need not greed”, a phrase that captures her idea of successfully building an enterprise without making accumulation the only measure of success.
Workers reportedly called her “Tai”, meaning elder sister in Marathi. This is a small but revealing detail about the relationship she maintained with her workers and employees.
As Sharayu mentioned in the Jain Samaj interview, “I always told my workers that I had full faith in them.”
Then Came The Firsts
In 1971, Daftary became the first woman president of the Automotive Components Manufacturers Association of India, ACMA. And this isn't merely a claim repeated in biographies. ACMA's own historical annual reports list Mrs Sharayu Daftary as president for 1971–72.
Her journey of success continued in 1981, ten years later, when she became the first elected woman president of the Indian Merchants' Chamber (IMC. This distinction is particularly significant because it showcases how business chambers were important institutional and commercial spaces in India's business world.
The Jain Samaj profile also describes her as the first elected woman president of the organisation.
Through her career, she also became the first woman member of the executive committee of FICCI. In other words, her career moved her from one factory to some of India's most influential business organisations.
Her achievements here aren't scattered or isolated accomplishments. Each “first” represents a different door that she opened for herself — an institution where women had historically been underrepresented. Yet her platform and strength transformed the scenario one step at a time.
She Was Not Only An Industrialist
Daftary was deeply involved in Jain religious and community institutions. She served as the president of the Dakshin Bharat Jain Sabha and also became associated with Jain Bodhak, a fortnightly Jain publication founded by her grandfather. Eventually, she took up the editorship of the publication.
She explained that her understanding of Jainism was directly connected with how she understood leadership and equality.
She believed that her motivations and strengths stemmed from Jain philosophy, wherein gender equality was not discussed as a modern concession but rather as something intrinsic to Jain thought.
She truly believed that a man and a woman are like the twin wheels of life's carriage, and she followed through on that thought in the implementation of her leadership skills and workplace ethics.
A Career That Did Not Require Choosing Between Family And Work
At the age of 19, Daftary married Arvind Gaurishankar Daftary. Her spouse supported her ambitions and motivated her pursuit of breaking gender stereotypes and building a strong foundation for her company. They had three daughters.
Her daughter Gauri recalls that despite being a working woman, Sharayu Daftary always made time for her daughters' lives, including early morning swimming classes and Kathak lessons.
This intimate profile showcases how Daftary, as a mother, encouraged her daughters to make their own decisions rather than choosing the ones imposed on them.
Her marriage stands as a contradiction to the traditional values imposed by Indian society, and this complicates the familiar idea that women must choose between professional achievement and family life.
Daftary's career was not built by erasing the roles that she had as a wife and a mother. However, her determination and the support of her children and spouse proved that those identities did not have to cancel each other out.
Recognition Came Later, But Her Career Had Already Made Its Mark
In 2004, Daftary received the Padma Shri in the field of Trade and Industry. This award formally recognised a career that had already stretched across decades.
She also received the Jain Ratna Award for her contributions to Jainism and its values.
This is crucial because it recognises how her work wasn't simply restricted to industrialist mindsets or institutional profits. Her philosophy was deeply rooted in Jain thought and acts of philanthropy.
Her work as an editor and advocate for women's dignity and opportunities earned her the awards she received and the respect she gained from people around her.
The Woman Behind The Firsts
Sharayu Daftary died in May 2025 at the age of 91.
The Institute of Jain Studies remembered her as an industrialist, philanthropist and Jain leader, while noting her pioneering positions in the IMC and ACMA.
However, the most compelling way to remember her is not by the number of her firsts. It is through her strength.
Daftary's story began because one door was closed to her. Instead of treating that as a setback, she spent her career asking why she was excluded from the family business and created a business of her own where the narrative could change.
She entered an industry that was predominantly dominated by male professionals, yet she created an institution where gender equality was given importance.
Therefore, her story becomes less about breaking the glass ceiling and more about building something with a strong foundation when the ceiling was never meant to let her through.
She was denied a place in the business she was born into. So Sharayu Daftary built a place of her own and spent the rest of her career making sure that women got entry and opportunities in a field where there was room for others to grow.
References:
- Times of India — She was the child of my dreams Times of India — She was the child of my dreams
- Reflections. live - From Elphinstone College to Bharat Radiators, Tracing Her Rise, Reflections — From Elphinstone College to Bharat Radiators
- Jain Samaj / Ahimsa Foundation — detailed interview/profile with Daftary Sharayu Daftary: Founder, Bharat Radiators Ltd.
- World Bank Archives — historical description of Daftary as managing director of Bharat Radiators, highlighting her leadership. World Bank Archives — Travel Briefs, India