Pushpa Bhave dies at the age of 81
Noted critic and scholar Pushpa Bhave passed away after a protracted illness early on Saturday.
She was 81. She is survived by her husband, the writer and broadcaster Anant Bhave, countless friends and students.
Veteran Pushpa Bhave cremated in Mumbai at Shivaji Park Cemetery without any religious rites.
She was also an academician and an intellectual, who fought for the rights of common citizens, he said.
Born and brought up in Dadar, Bhave did her MA in Marathi and Sanskrit from Elphinstone College, Mumbai.
She retired as head of the Marathi department in Ramnarain Ruia College in 1999.
Even after her retirement, the renowned public intellectual used to travel across Maharashtra delivering lectures. People fondly called her ‘Pushpa Tai.’
In one of the recent interviews with Mumbai Mirror, Bhave had said that her family never encouraged her to be a teacher. Yet, she was a part of several powerful social and political interventions, whether it was Baba Adhav Hamal Panchayat, the Devadasi Mukti Morcha, or the Dalit Movement.
Bhave had taken part in the Samyukta Maharashtra movement and the Goa liberation movement.
During the Emergency, she had offered her home as shelter to underground political workers like Mrinal Gore.
Following the mysterious death of a Dadar resident Ramesh Kini in the 1990s, Bhave had raised her voice against the builder-politician nexus and demanded a probe.
“She was a mentor for many, including me, and stood for secular and socialist values. She never compromised on her principles and followed in the tradition of other great socialists like S. M. Joshi, Mrinal Gore, etc.,” a close associate Jatin Desai told IANS on her demise.