India, Sept. 4 -- Incredible as it might appear, I met Gloria Steinem in 1956 at the home of one of the three young men who had built post-independence institutions such as the Cottage Industries Emporium - Lakshmi Jain, Som Benegal and DD Joshi. They were three bachelors aged around 30 or less, living in a lovely apartment in Golf Links in Delhi. The rent-free apartment was an offer by another one of those who had jumped aboard the wave of post-independence service to enable the refugees of Partition to be rehabilitated - Dr Shanthi Ghosh.

The post-independence atmosphere in Delhi was like a celebration, as so many people had jumped in to build so many of the institutions that we see and favour today. Visitors to India were eager to kno...