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.
In 2006, at the peak of the second Jan Andolan, NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati found herself back on the streets of Kathmandu, her home in Nepal. She joined the resistance with her camera, both to bear witness, and also to document hundreds of men and women in public spaces to finally topple the monarchy through sustained struggle.
Thus emerged “Borderlines”, a seven-part video series documenting how feminists work, intervene and connect the dots across the region to create knowledge in South Asia.
We know very little about the life of the ordinary woman prisoner. She is either non-existent in popular imagination or made out to be an extraordinary deviant, transgressing all codes of social morality. But what constitutes the ordinary woman prisoner’s ‘criminality’? What lies at the heart of it? What are her dreams, desires and fears? What does a post-prison life look for her?
In this episode, meet Kusum from Mahrauni, Uttar Pradesh. Kusum has been working with Sahjani Shiksha Kendra since 2008. Knowledge has strengthened her and she has a strong understanding of the law.
In this episode, meet Rajkumari Prajapati from Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh. In 2008, 19-year-old Rajkumari joined Sahjani Shiksha Kendra as a teacher, where she taught girls and women in a residential school. Since then, she handles cases as a caseworker and also makes films with The Third Eye.
In this episode, meet Shabina Mumtaz from Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Shabina has been working with Vanangana NGO for 17 years on gender based violence cases. She says, “I do this work to process my own feelings and help others break free from instances of violence, focusing more on mental and sexual violence.”
