[4] She encountered social injustice and poverty in her daily life as she observed her mother Nagammal who toiled hard and had to continue working even as she was in the advanced stages of pregnancy.

Sankaralingam hailed from a wealthy family, but discontinued his college education in 1930 in response to Gandhi's call for non-co-operation movement and civil disobedience.

[7] Sankaralingam and Krishnammal believed that one of the key requirements for achieving a Gandhian society is by empowering the rural poor through redistribution of land to the landless.

For two years between 1950 and 1952 Sankaralingam was with Vinoba Bhave in Northern India on his Bhoodan (land-gift) Padayatra (pilgrimage on foot), the march appealing to landlords to give one sixth of their land to the landless.

Between 1953 and 1967, the couple played an active role in the Bhoodhan movement spearheaded by Vinoba Bhave, through which about 4 million acres (16,000 km2) of land were distributed to thousands of landless poor across several Indian states.

[4] Through LAFTI, she also conducted workshops to allow people, during the nonagricultural season, to support themselves through entrepreneurial efforts like mat weaving, tailoring, plumbing, carpentry, masonry, computer education and electronics.

The prawn farms also caused heavy seepage of seawater into the groundwater in the neighbourhood, thus the local people were deprived of clean drinking water resources.

The result is that even more small farmers sell their meagre land-holdings to multinational prawn companies and move to the cities, filling urban slums.

[4] Undeterred by this, Jagannathan filed a 'public interest petition' in the Indian Supreme Court, which in turn asked NEERI (National Environmental Engineering Institute of India) to investigate the matter.

The legal battle around the prawn farms is still not resolved and the Jagannathans continue their struggle to establish non-exploitative, eco-friendly communities in the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu.

[9] She also received the Right Livelihood Award along with her husband "for two long lifetimes of work dedicated to realising in practice the Gandhian vision of social justice and sustainable human development, for which they have been referred to as 'India's soul'".