IN HER WORDS

In her own words..

As an undergraduate student of Sociology, my professor

introduced the subject to me as it being meaningful in two ways:

it would either make me quiet and observant or it would make

me vocal and restless and enable me to think out of the box.

Looking back these thirteen years, I can say that it did the latter

to me. It provided me the foundation on which I stand today:

critical thinking, dialogue and analysis.

During my three years as an undergraduate, I volunteered with

community based organisations across the country working

with communities our text books labelled as marginalised,

vulnerable, deprived, and discriminated against. Each time I

visited for a month and my months stay there became my ideal.

The passion I saw in others, the drive I witnessed, the anger I

experienced became what I wanted to be and do. This was a

reality separated from my own but I wanted to understand the

why to be able to understand the how. I kept coming back to

Delhi with stories to tell but those stories were mostly received

with apathy, disgust and otherworldliness.

The gap became wider.

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2In Her

Own Words

As my post-graduation, I chose Sociology over law, a subject

I found more progressive and open-ended.

While I spilled over books and tutorials to argue theories of social

construction and stratification, I longed to apply it. I was warned

that studying sociology has created ideals for me and reality

would be harsh but I jumped at the opportunity of being outside

the classroom. I chose activism over academics.

My own multiple identities, of being a

woman, being a third generation post

partition product, being a non-believer

in religion, informed my decisions and

ways forward.

This marked the beginning of my work on womens human rights.

Subsequently, I worked JAGORI, wherein I focused the attention

of my work more on gender based violence. I built my capacity

as a trainer, learning from experienced feminist-activists the

concept and principles of feminist and participatory training:

capacity building which established feminism as the core and

human rights as the foundation, applied not only in content but

also in perspective and behaviour.

As a trainer, I worked with a range of groups including

grassroots communities, urban poor, NGOs, community based

organisations, university students and faculty, bureaucrats and

police and so on. Participatory capacity building involved a

combination of research (understanding context and developing

content); training (implementation of the training); and advocacy

(enabling the translation of training into practice for action).

This experience strengthened my foundation:

PERSONAL

and vice-versa.

POLITICAL IS

Over the years, I focused more on womens rights and

politics. Working with The Hunger Project India, I closely

met and worked with elected women representatives of

Panchayats who displayed a heightened sense of courage

and determination. Leadership training with them provided

spaces wherein they challenged their conditioning, as women,

as women belonging to dalit, indigenous, and religious

minority communities; they challenged the notion that

politics is a male domain; they challenged the construction

of leadership as individualistic and based on money and

power; they challenged the restrictive development agenda

to include safe drinking water and domestic violence as

pertinent issues of discussion and implementation. While

women are increasingly stepping into decision-making the

backlash of patriarchy is severe. I learnt of transformative

leadership at The Hunger Project and wanted to take a step

further to understand what this means in the global arena.

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6In Her

Own Words

In my present work with the Asia Pacific

Forum on Women, Law and Development

(APWLD), I continue engaging with women

political leaders and activists with an

objective of strengthening their political

participation and challenging gendered

political structures. Working with APWLD

has helped me gain an understanding of

how the same issues manifest themselves

differently in different parts of the region;

enhanced my understanding of human

rights and the use of international and

regional human rights mechanisms to

promote, protect and fulfill womens human

rights; developed an understanding of

analysing violations vis--vis growing

influences of neo-liberal globalisation,

fundamentalisms and militarisation and

its intersection with patriarchy; enhanced

my ability to critically analyse debates

on womens human rights within the

intersectional framework; enhanced

my understanding of using law, local as

well as international, as an instrument of

change to advocate for womens human

rights, at local, national and international levels

of governance. A combination of these learnings

has built my capacity as a trainer and fused my

understanding of transformative politics.

I perceive politics as a double-edged sword. While it

is repressive, patriarchal and communal, it can also

be used as an instrument of change.

Living and working in a democracy is an exciting journey.

While the State has been an instrument of oppression,

democracy has also enabled space for dissent. A

combination of aspects such as ideology, systems,

processes, institutions, actors and expressions make

up the institution of politics. Democracy, transparency,

accountability and inclusion need to creep into each

aspect to make politics transformative. I find politics and

political processes fascinating and a powerful tool for

change. I realise the need for initiatives and platforms

within which activism and politics can come together to

act as one change agent.

My personal, academic and professional experiences

have helped me grow as an individual. The challenges I

have faced have been debilitating but only temporarily,

mostly they have provided me the scope to learn and

explore further. My experiences have enabled me

to be explorative, non-judgmental, and adaptable to

diverse environments, critically view social givens, and

implement bottom-up approaches.

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8In Her

Own Words