Where we look at the interconnected structures of power such as law, state, religion, caste and class, language, marriage and family, through a feminist lens.
By a feminist approach, I specifically mean the ethics of care articulated by the philosopher Virginia Held, which understands that people are intrinsically interrelated, as opposed to the model of the independent, self-sufficient individual of liberal theory.
I am a 23-year-old student from Haryana, who studied at Delhi University (DU) for her BA, and at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for her MA. Over time, I have found that education is something I hold absurdly close to my heart.
I want to tell this story in two parts. In one, the expectation of meritocracy oppresses everyone; in the other, even access to academic oppression is denied.
I was born in the Gond Adivasi community in Wardha, Maharashtra. I am the eldest of my siblings—three sisters and a brother. My parents are farm labourers who work in fields that belong to other people.
Of course, it was the perfect beginning: a group of deaf children showing off some exceptional drumming, and that too related to Carnatic classical music.
In 2013, Nirantar produced a short documentary on the non-binary experience in schools. Featuring Nrrups, Sunil and Rajarshi, the film travels from Kolkata to Bengaluru to Thane to meet people for whom school was the brutal part of their childhood.
This is a reported piece on the student groups at IITs, who work on educating and building awareness around caste-based discriminations in Indian institutes of eminence, particularly engineering institutes. These groups work under the larger aegis of Ambedkar Study Circles, which exist outside campuses too.
“Education must be spoken about outside the school. Being a student is easier outside the school,” believes Saba, who has been running the Savitribai Phule Fatima Sheikh Library with a team of educators (ex-members of the library) in Bhopal since 2010. She was referring to the library and its potential to be an educational institution, perhaps one that is more inclusive than a school itself.
In Part One of this two-part conversation with The Third Eye, Bhan discusses the making of the ‘urban’ in policy versus reality, the lack of identity for the urban poor, what urban practitioners should have learnt from the Covid pandemic, and the great disruptor entering urban studies—the Anthropocene.
The windy lanes of Darjeeling is often peppered with “Aiya! Kay saro chisso hau!” (Gosh, why is it so cold!) as people hunch over small fires outside shops and at street corners. A collective excitement ripples through when the sun comes out: people hurry to spread out blankets, carpets, and pickles on their roofs and balcony railings.
