Mallika Sarabhai is a renowned Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam dancer from India. Daughter of classical danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai and the renonwned space scientist, Vikram Sarabhai, Mallika is also known for her association with the field of theatre and cinema. Mallika She started to learn dancing when she was young, and started her film career in parallel cinema, when she was just 15. Mallika played the role of Draupadi in the Peter Brook's movie The Mahabharata. Mallika has won many accolades during her long career, the - Golden Star Award being one of them, which she won for the Best Dance Soloist, Theatre De Champs Elysees, Paris 1977. As well as a dancer, Sarabhai is a social activist. She, along with her mother, manages the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts located at Ahmedabad.She made headlines when she complained that the Narendra Modi government of Gujarat was harassing her due to her public criticism of their role during the 2002 riots; the government in late 2002 had accused her of human trafficking. The Gujarati government dropped the case in December 2004. In 1989 she performed hard-hitting solo theatrical works, Shakti: The Power of Women. after it She direct & acted in numerous productions based on current issues and which raised awareness for social change. Mallika Sarabhai also wrote the script of the play Unsuni based on Harsh Mander's book Unheard Voices.Arvind Gaur translate it in hindi and Mallika Sarabhai direct Unsuni for Darpana Academy.Unsuni travels all over India.Darpana, the arts institution of Ahmedabad, has launched the people awareness movement through its production Unsuni On March 19, Mallika Sarabhai announced to take on BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani from the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat. Mallika announced that she would contest the poll as an independent candidate. She said she had neither personally approached the Congress nor did it offer to make her its candidate. She positioned herself as a "people centric" candidate saying that “I am people’s candidate as people have asked me to contest.” Regarding her poll agenda, she said it will be people centric. Expressing her view that politicians of all hues and colours had killed democracy she said that “Politicians go to the people only during elections and are not to be seen for five years after that,”. The firebrand danseuse, who has been taking up the cause of the riot victims, was also the first to file a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court against the BJP government's alleged role in fomenting communal violence across Gujarat. The firebrand danseuse, who has been taking up the cause of the riot victims, was also the first to file a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court against the BJP government's alleged role in fomenting communal violence across Gujarat.
