My workplace is a prison. My client is the prisoner. Who am I?
There are many kinds of social workers, but the kind that works in prisons is often asked, “Why would anyone work for prisoners?” “Is my son doing okay? Ask him to come meet me next week.” “Madam, there is no vacancy in the shelter home, especially for a mentally disabled woman. Now what to do?”
Meet Manju Soni from Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Manju has been working with Vanangana NGO since 2000 and for the past five years has been working as a caseworker in the organisation, focused on gender-based violence cases.
In our third episode, we meet Rupal Oza, a geographer who works with gender and space. In her new book, Semiotics of Rape, published by Zubaan, she talks about the making of the book, the politics of rape, the role of land and caste in cases of rape, and discusses some critical cases that emerged from Haryana in the last decade.
Filmmaker and artist Shabnam Virmani initiated the Kabir Project in 2002, seeking the meanings and relevance of Kabir’s poems and songs for our contemporary worlds. Kabir was a 15th Century poet who lived in Benares and is part of the Bhakti tradition. Her inspiration in this poetry and its wisdom has taken the shape of a series of award-winning films, books, urban festivals, rural yatras, and a digital archive called Ajab Shahar.
Muktasree Chakma is a researcher, journalist, feminist, and rights activist. She also runs a platform called Supporting People and Rebuilding Communities (SPaRC), which works on minorities’ rights in Bangladesh.
In this episode, meet Avdhesh Gupta from Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Avdesh has been working with Vanangana NGO as a caseworker since 1995 on gender based violence cases.
Malobika is a queer feminist activist, engaged in the LGBTQ rights movement in India for the last 23 years. She is the co-founder of the collective Sappho, and also set up the organization Sappho for Equality in Kolkata, in 2004.
In a quiet and layered way, Sarala Emmanuel walks us through what it meant to ‘become’ a feminist activist and work towards peace in times of conflict in Sri Lanka.
Tooba Syed, feminist researcher, trainer, writer, organiser, and teacher, works on issues of gender, violence, rights of the marginalised, housing, and feminist education in Pakistan. Tooba’s been going for marches since she was 17, and in this interview, she traces her journey of starting out as a model, to discovering feminism, to working with the Left movement in Pakistan.
Dr. Uma Chakravarti, feminist historian, filmmaker, and activist, points to what connects us, culturally and historically, as South Asians.
