Disability rights activist · Founder, Soulfree · India’s first quadriplegic PhD from IIT Madras
She calls herself “a cripple who is whole.”
Not with bitterness. Not with irony. With a quiet, fierce conviction that her body, paralysed from the neck down since she was 18, does not define the sum of who she is.
Preethi Srinivasan was once a state-level cricketer and swimmer. Her life changed in an instant. And what she built from the wreckage of that instant is one of the most extraordinary stories in India today.
Table of Contents
The Girl Who Had Everything
Born in Chennai and raised across three continents, the world was really her oyster.
Preethi Srinivasan started swimming at the age of three. Inspired by Sir Vivian Richards shortly after the 1983 World Cup, she also started playing cricket at four. Shepherd
By the time she was a teenager, she was leading. Preethi was the captain of the under-19 Tamil Nadu women’s cricket team, and led the state team to the national championships in 1997 at the age of 18. She was also a title-holder swimmer, having won a state gold in 50m breaststroke and silver in other events.
She ranked in the top 2% of American students in 1996 and was recognised in the “Who’s Who” among American high school students for 1995/96.
Athletic. Academic. Ambitious. A life built on momentum.
Then came the accident.
One Second. Everything Gone.
Preethi suffered a spinal cord injury at the age of 18 which left her paralysed below the neck.
From excelling in all spheres of life, being confined to a wheelchair broke her spirit. “My heart was totally broken. I had a privileged existence for the first 18 years of my life. I was showered with love at home.”
Think about what that means for a moment.
A girl who swam since she was three, suddenly unable to move her arms. A cricket captain who led her state to nationals, suddenly unable to hold a bat. A student who ranked in the top 2%, suddenly fighting just to be admitted to a university because the building had no ramps.
“Emotions rule when trauma happens. My life was charmed for the first 18 years. Not a shadow of failure touched it. Everything was so good that I did not know anything otherwise. So when I was faced with a life-altering condition, it was something that an 18-year-old could not understand or absorb.” Concept Phones
She didn’t bounce back overnight. Nobody does. There were years of grief, anger, and the slow, painful work of rebuilding an identity from scratch.
But slowly something changed in her and she was determined to change her situation.
The Obstacles Society Placed in Her Way
Here’s what many people don’t realise about Preethi Srinivasan’s story: the accident was only the first obstacle. What came after, from the world around her, was sometimes harder.
Srinivasan faced systemic challenges in accessing education and employment. A university once denied her admission because she was quadriplegic and couldn’t climb stairs.
Not because she wasn’t qualified. Because there was no ramp.
She fought that. She fought every closed door, every lowered expectation, every institution that looked at her wheelchair first and her mind second. Media support forced institutions to address the discrimination she faced in education, and that visibility gave her the strength to continue.
She enrolled in correspondence courses. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Medical Sociology. Then a Master’s in Psychology. And then, when most people would have stopped, she applied for a PhD at IIT Madras.
At the convocation ceremony on July 11, 2025, Dr. Preethi Srinivasan made a significant breakthrough to become the first Indian quadriplegic to obtain a PhD from IIT Madras.
Her PhD was in Feminist Disability Studies because even in her scholarship, she was fighting for others.
What She Built: Soulfree
While she was rebuilding her own life, Preethi was watching something else. She was watching what happened to other people with spinal cord injuries in India, people without her support system, her education, her determination.
They were disappearing. Into homes, into silence, into a healthcare system that had no infrastructure for them.
Inspired by her mother’s words on societal responsibility, she established Soulfree in 2013 to support individuals with severe disabilities. Her mother, Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Srinivasan, became the organisation’s co-founder and guiding force.
Soulfree’s flagship initiative, the Integrated Spinal Rehabilitation Centre in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, is the first of its kind in India.
The organisation has empowered over 2,500 lives through holistic rehabilitation services, including physiotherapy, counselling, and vocational training.
This is not a charity that gives people fish. It is one that restores the ability to stand, to work, to imagine a future.
Soulfree’s advocacy work has focused on accessible transportation, employment opportunities, and access to education and healthcare, challenging societal attitudes toward people with disabilities and advocating for greater representation and recognition of their contributions to society.
The Recognition That Followed
The world eventually caught up with what Preethi had been doing quietly for years.
She has been honoured with the Kalpana Chawla Award for Courage and Daring Enterprise by the Government of Tamil Nadu, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Lions International, the “Amazing Indians 2024” Award for Healthcare by the Times Now Network, the Devi Award from The New Indian Express for making inclusivity mainstream, and the “We Serve India” Award from Forbes India in 2025.
Her awards also include Femina’s “Penn Sakthi” recognition among the top 10 most influential women in Tamil Nadu, and Vijay TV’s “Sigaram Thotta Pengal – Ray of Hope” award. X
She is a five-time TEDx presenter and a member of the Advisory Board for the Welfare of the Differently-Abled in Tamil Nadu, a state-level panel headed by Chief Minister Thiru MK Stalin. She has also been a Student Representative to the Board of Directors of the Society for Disability Studies since 2021, a prestigious international body.
Her journey is now part of the Tamil Nadu school curriculum.
What Preethi’s Story Says to You
Maybe you’re reading this during a gap year that turned into five years.
Maybe you left your career for your children, for your health, for a family crisis, and somewhere along the way, the woman who had ambitions and plans quietly got buried under everything else. And now you’re sitting with a half-formed dream and a head full of reasons why it’s too late, too hard, too unrealistic.
Who will take me seriously after this gap?
I don’t have the right qualifications anymore.
I’m not young enough to start over.
What if I try and fail?
Preethi Srinivasan was paralysed at 18. She couldn’t move her hands. She couldn’t climb stairs. A university turned her away because there was no ramp.
And she still went back to study. Still earned her Bachelor’s. Her Master’s. Her PhD from IIT Madras at 46.
It didn’t happen in one day. It happen because Preethi took small but resolute steps In years.
Your obstacles are real. Your inhibitions make sense. But if there is one thing Preethi’s life proves, it’s this: the gap between where you are and where you want to be is not the problem. Giving up on the distance is.
You don’t need to be fearless. You just need to take the next step, even from a wheelchair, even with no ramp in sight.
What would you call yourself, if you stopped letting your obstacles name you?
📚 References
- Soulfree — About Preethi: https://soulfree.org/about-preethi/
- The Better India: https://thebetterindia.com/338782/preethi-srinivasan-soulfree-inspire-spinal-cord-injury-rehabilitation-centre-disability-tamil-nadu/
- The Logical Indian: https://thelogicalindian.com/meet-tamil-nadu-born-preethi-srinivasan-empowering-2500-lives-beyond-disability-with-soulfree/
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preethi_Srinivasan
- MyKhel — World SCI Day feature: https://www.mykhel.com/cricket/world-sci-day-ex-tn-cricketer-dr-preethi-srinivasan-story-of-courage-change-382229.html
- Global Coaching Lab profile: https://globalcoachinglab.com/perspectives/how-one-quadriplegic-activist-is-breaking-barriers-to-provide-dignity-for-the-disabled/
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