Meet three women who have pledged half their wealth to charity

Mumbai: Women’s earnings must be matched with a definitive say over her own finances. Bharati Dasgupta (81), Rajitha Gopinath (44) and Nirmala Peters Mehendale (60) exemplify this thought. The three Mumbai residents are part of a group of 187 people, including married couples, who have pledged half their wealth (during their lifetime or after their death) to charity. The initiative titled Living My Promise, was started by a group of six people in 2018, in a bid to get people whose wealth is over a crore to get involved in philanthropy. It is modelled on the Giving Pledge, a global pledge undertaken by billionaires like Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Here’s what drove Dasgupta, Gopinath and Mehendale to pledge a large part of their wealth to philanthropy.
Bharati Dasgupta, 81, Prabhadevi resident
Bharati Dasgupta, a human resources professional and social sector entrepreneur, was one of the earliest signatories to the Living My Promise initiative.
Dasgupta, a single parent, has had many careers: at the Indian Banks’ Association, which she resigned from in 1989 as executive, management services; as an HR consultant with IT companies; as a co-founder of Catalysts for Social Action in 2002 (CSA, she stepped down as managing trustee in 2012) to help prospective parents on adoption; and now, in her ninth decade, as the founder of a not-for-profit trust, Aagam, to promote awareness about citizenship and help marginalised youth.
“The smallest person can give something – it can be an act of kindness, a piece of vital information, sharing knowledge — anyone can give,” Dasgupta said.
After selling her flat in Pune, Dasgupta used the funds to start a new venture, Aagam, in 2022. It works on two prongs: One, to help the marginalised youth complete their schooling (Class X) and two, on creating informed citizens. To that end, in August 2023, the former chief electoral officer of Maharashtra Shrikant Deshpande and former governor Ramesh Bais released a comic book produced by Dasgupta. Me, the superhero Indian citizen, is an easy-to-read comic flip book on what it means to have a vote, governance structures, the role of media and judiciary, among other vital aspects of citizenry.
The idea to enable marginalised youth to complete their education under the National Institute of Open School (NIOS) came from Dasgupta’s work with children in care homes and orphanages. “Whatever savings I had, plus the money I got after selling my flat has given me sufficient funds to work on this initiative and to take care of myself,” she said. In other words, Dasgupta is already living out her pledge.
Rajitha Gopinath, 44, Sion resident
“My mother used to say this often,” said Rajitha Gopinath, who teaches at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) in Juhu. “‘What is the point of saving for your children’, she would ask. ‘If you save, they get spoilt. If you don’t save, then they will work hard and they will make their own life’,” Gopinath (44), mother of two, said. Though her mother may have only been half-joking, Gopinath believes it whole-heartedly.
Recently, she and her husband, Rushabh Mehta (44), pledged half their wealth to charity — sure, they will make sure their children’s needs are catered to, but “once they are self-reliant,” Gopinath said, “we don’t think there is any need to leave anything.”
Five years ago, Gopinath and Mehta joined a handful of parents to start an alternative school for children above the age of five. Called the Sadhana Learning Centre, the school is run under the aegis of a Section 8 company called the Learners’ Collective Foundation. It is based on the philosophy of democratic or self-directed learning spaces. In other words, all the children in the school get a say in its governance, as well as in what they learn.
The democratic mindset runs deep in the couple. The duo signed up as signatories to Living My Promise three years ago after a friend of Mehta’s introduced him to it and it didn’t take long to make this pledge. Mehta and Gopinath met while at University in the United States; they were members of the Association for India’s Development (AID), which raised funds from students and residents to send to NGOs back in India. “We both were already attuned to this way of thinking,” Gopinath said.
Nirmala Peters Mehendale, 60, Vile Parle resident
Nirmala Peters Mehendale graduated from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1985, and worked in human resources for close to three decades. Simultaneously, her journey in philanthropy began when, in 2005, she started an initiative called Kindness Unlimited which aimed to foster volunteerism and collaboration among the youth in order to spread, quite simply, kindness.
“Vasant Kalbag studied the science behind kindness, and concluded that humans had a tendency to give and take. I tracked him down and found that he lived right down my street, and I started going over and meeting him and his wife. We would talk about what is going on in the world and he told me that in fact, it wasn’t the survival of the fittest but the survival of the kindest that made us thrive,” Mehendale.
When Covid hit in 2020, her corporate work took a backseat and she became immersed with Kindness Unlimited work. “If you can make decisions where your self-interest is balanced with the greater good, you can avoid greed and burnout. Then there is plenty to do, whether it is volunteering time, resources or money.”
Legally, we have the right to will our money that we have earned to anyone. Few take this route, fewer women have the agency to do so. When Mehendale decided to pledge half her wealth to Living My Promise, she sat her 30-year-old son down to explain what she planned to do. “Aditya was delighted that I thought that way.”
Mehendale’s husband, Sanjay (65), is not part of the pledge. “Yet,” says Mehendale.
You can find out more about the initiative at LivingMyPromise.in. Gunjan Thaney runs the initiative at India Welfare Trust.