This accessible, richly textured ethnography illuminates the cultural shaping of development and modernity in the context of a remarkable Gandhian program for women and girls that, since 1946, has engaged with issues of sustainability, gender equity, and poverty in Himalayan India. It blends memories, stories and historical research to analyze how rural women have drawn inspiration, in sometimes surprising ways, from Gandhi, as they have sought to confront new environmental and social challenges.