Mallika Sarabhai is a noted Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam dancer. She has immensely contributed to the fields of acting, writing and publishing. She is a social activist and has participated in many socio-developmental projects initiated by the United Nations.
Background
Mallika Sarabhai was born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India in 1954, in a family of creative geniuses, her mother was a great dancer and father was a famous scientist. Mrinalini Sarabhai and Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai were both legendary figures in their respective fields. However, Mallika never let her parents increasing success overshadow her personality, and managed to carve a unique identity for herself in the following years.
Career
Mallika Sarabhai started her acting career at the age of fifteen and has worked in more than 30 films. In 1984, she played the character of Draupadi in "The Mahabharata", directed by renowned director Peter Brook. The movie was launched in French and English. Some of her critically acclaimed films include "Lovesongs: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow", Peter Brook's "The Mahabharata", "Kahkasha", "A Thousand Flowers" and "Katha". In 1982, she founded the "Darpana for Development" concentrating on the development of performance as a language for change. She also formed "JANAVAK", the voice of the people, to archive and preserve the folk and tribal culture of India. Deeply excited by the possibility of continuing the work as an activist on TV, in 2001 she launched Darpana Communications. She has also produced over 2500 hours of broadcast programming in Gujarati dealing, with social issues like gender bias, communal hatred, the environment, corruption, violence etc.
Politics
On 19 March 2009, Mallika Sarabhai announced her candidature against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani for the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat, as an independent candidate. A Congress spokesperson made it clear that she was not the Congress's candidate, nevertheless there was speculation that the Congress high command had asked the Gujarat state unit to support her candidature. In a reply to a question, she said she had neither personally approached the Congress nor did it offer to make her its candidate for the 2009 election, however in the past she had received many offer from the Congress to contest election, the first being in 1984 from Rajiv Gandhi. She described her candidature as a Satyagraha against the politics of hatred. She eventually lost to L.K. Advani by a huge margin and forfeited her election deposit in the process.