The youngest daughter of Communist politician Shapurji Saklatvala and his English wife Sarah Marsh, Sehri Saklatvala was born in Twickenham in 1919 and grew up in London. Along with her three brothers and sister, Sehri Saklatvala was raised in fairly modest circumstances, despite the family connection with the Tata firm. As a young woman, she became involved with the struggle for Indian independence in Britain. Indian Political Intelligence surveillance files note her presence in 1937 at India League meetings, along with other South Asian and British intellectuals and activists such as Mulk Raj Anand, Dr S. A. Wickremasinghe, Harry Pollitt, and Reginald Sorensen, as well as Krishna Menon. In the early 1940s she was also active, at least for a short while, in the Committee of Indian Congressmen.