In November 2021, a group of eleven women found themselves sitting together in a room in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Three of us (Anushi, Ekta and Angarika) had traveled from Bangalore, and the rest from different parts of Madhya Pradesh. There was a nervous energy in the room. “Why do you think we’ve all come here?”
The fourth episode features Neha Dixit who claims that journalists need their legs more than their brains. As she narrates experiences from sting operations and press releases, she demystifies investigative journalism and reveals how it’s not one mysterious tip but rather mundane legwork that breaks the biggest stories.
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.
Among the many gifts that the classroom throws in my face, one that I am equally envious and enamored by is the beehive of female friendships all around me.
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.
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.
