PhD, DU | Feminist | Women, Labour, Neoliberalism Words- EPW, Indian Express, Telegraph, Frontline, Gender&Development, Asia Labour Review, Scroll & more
I write for
@IndianExpress
- a deeply distressing incident unfolded at IIT-BHU, where a woman student endured an ordeal that is too painful to recount. Link -
Women are quite literally just one unfortunate event away from being "disposed" in ways Sharmila Rege explains. Just one photo away, one overhead phone call, one glance at a protest site, one emotional outburst, one unfortunate event, one presence at the wrong time/place away.
"To be a feminist killjoy means celebrating a different kind of joy, the joy that comes from doing critical damage to what damages so much of the world"
Judith Butler reviews
@SaraNAhmed
's stunning work, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook!
#AcademicTwitter
What is the point of accepting applications and abstracts of students from south asia when you can neither provide them funding (not even partial) nor hybrid mode to join in?!!! Frustrating!!
"Muslim women have the lowest LFPR while among Hindu women, forward caste women have the lowest LFPR, implying that social norms and religious conservatism might play a role in women being “allowed” to work"
I can't fathom the intensity of dual lives women are forced to live. The amount of energy, patience and sanity that goes into everyday calculations to not let our conservative families know about our true selves, about our work, about our political inclinations. It's exhausting!
I've tried to engage with and problematise the intersection of Patriarchy & Caste within UC spaces and its implication on democracy, through my personal experiences & ethnographic observations, in the latest issue of
@epw_in
Link-
DM if you can't access it
If only I could somehow send this to her, the woman who inspired me to write.
#ArundhatiRoy
"I write to ascertain my living beyond mere breathing. I write to save myself from my rage and anger and sometimes love. I write before it consumes me"
Please read!
I write for
@IndianExpress
,
"Do women truly embody the spirit of “We the People of India” as envisioned in our Constitution?"
This piece is written with rage, pain and fear which has become synonymous with the existence of women in the country. Link-
It's humiliating to take permissions to live our own damn life and then be made to feel lucky that we've been "at least" ALLOWED to do this much. It's tiresome to be dead cautious of every single step we take, for the consequences are too brutal to bear.
To give an account of every hour you spend outside home, to elaborate our whereabouts every now and then, to explain why we are choosing to do/not do a certain work. To prove your worth at every step. To keep fighting in every single sphere of our lives, with no space to rest.
This felt so personal! Time & again we see women around us giving up on their dreams bcos of the hate filled exclusionary patriarchal system. Spend the whole of their lives to prove their worth & in a snap everything is over. The whole state machinery gathered to save one man!!
"Where do we go when the scars on our flesh are so deep that they start fading from the surface and begin eating our insides? We go to each other"
@Khushbu68906378
and I poured our hearts in awe of female friendships in this piece. Read?
#womenforwomen
More power & love to each one of us for persisting regardless of odds, for resisting every single minute in ways uncountable. To keep living when every other thing wants us to be dead, at least dead from the head. Maybe one day we don't have to do any of this. Till that day! ✊🤍
Happy Babasaheb
#AmbedkarJayanti
💙💙
The man who spearheaded Women's Rights and Dignity of Labour like no one else ever could have.
Also, this super stunning art is by Vikrant Bhise! ✨
#JaiBhim
A thread.
Everything that I wrote in 2023, ranging from reportage, opinion pieces, book reviews and academic pieces. 2023 was wholesome; I pushed my limits to see how diverse I can write, both in terms of formats and topics.
Read 18 books this year, apart from my academics. The target was to read 24 but it's always a struggle to manage leisure reading alongside academics.
But next year target pura kiya jayega!
I'm privileged to be presenting my working paper "Existing Between Plight and Protest: A Case of Delivery Workers in Delhi" on this exchange btw Asia and Africa, moderated by
@asianlabour
, cohosted by
@CAsianSAfricaUP
& Uni of Indonesia
Thanks to prof
@alfgunvald
for inviting me.
I was totally academic fangirling!
Attended this amazing lecture by the sweetest
@ProfSrilaRoy
, who discussed her book "Changing the Subject: Feminist and Queer Politics in Neoliberal India", chaired by
@shakyanepal
at SAU
Also, prof generously signed my printed copy of her book!
Thank you
@ProfSrilaRoy
for sending your book across. I wish more profs were as empathetic and cool as you are.
Also, thanks
@suman_sahu99
for the cutest bookmark!
As difficult as it gets to survive in academia and at home nowadays, women like these keep me going. Much love! ❤️🌻
“Ishq mei Imroz ho jaana”
Read this beautiful piece written by
@madversity
as he recollects his memory of meeting Amrita-Imroz.
A man serving tea is still a distant sight for majority households. All of us loved Imroz for his love for Amrita.
@newslaundry
On the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti, sharing some of the many books which helped me understand CASTE more deeply and sensitively.
A thread.
I'd be pleased if you can add more to this list. Jai Bhim ✊
Threat looms over the lives of delivery workers as
@letsblinkit
reduces the already miniscule per delivery charges, yet again. The workers were framed on false charges, threatened by bouncers & abused by managers, for raising their voice.This must stop!
#justiceforblinkitworkers
Only a few days back I went to
@Rituparna37
ma'am to discuss teaching & personal issues to which she said, "teaching is a very rewarding but complicated job. Students make it worthwhile. One shld only do it when one's completely ready".
It's a shame that she has to undergo this!
One of my poems got published in the Borderless Journal. Please read. 🌿
‘We bleed for life’
Link -
(Ps: I'm desperately trying to not let academia consume the little writer in me)
"My dream is to retrain as a fiction writer" said
@ProfSrilaRoy
and it has stayed with me since.
Reminds me of the title, "Women, Dreaming" by Salma.
Had the absolute pleasure to interview her for her brilliant work, "Changing the Subject". Pls read. Link
Citizens' protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, today, demanding Justice for the Horrific Incident of Sexual Assault on Kuki Women by Hate Mob in Manipur!
#ManipurBurning
#ManipurBurning
I write for
@ttindia
, urging us to look critically into the "70 hours work a week" take of Murthy. The article delves into its implications on class, gender and overall mental health of our workforce and society at large.
@leo_mukherjee
“Indian women work ten times more than men on unpaid domestic chores and caregiving compared to their counterparts in other parts of the world”
@NewIndianXpress
This girl in the metro, probably in her late teens, can't stop fanatically apologizing to her "baby" for not letting him know that she went somewhere. It breaks my heart to see how women are trained to believe that control is love and coercion is care.
Can't imagine the horrors, pain & dehumanization she went through. I'm crying. I'm at rage! Traumatising. But the family & state will only keep curbing women's agency & mobility. Just think who are u saving them frm? Work on THAT! Women dying tragically shld not be normalised!
My column in today's
@ttindia
"The importance of focusing on gender cannot be overstated. It invites us to confront the multifarious obstacles that continue to hinder women from fully participating in and benefiting from the nation’s economic growth"
Link:
Will be presenting a paper titled "Reproduction of Rural Insecurities in Urban Spaces under Neoliberalism: A Feminist Ethnographic Study of Women Garment Workers in Delhi NCR region" at IIC, Delhi tom.
Join if this interests you.
@WeRuralIndia
#AcademicTwitter
#AcademicChatter
A genteel reminder of the National Seminar on "Looking Beyond Income Paradigms: Bringing Rural Dignity in India's Policy Discourse" organised on 29th Jan 2024 at India International Centre, New Delhi.
This is open to all, but one has to confirm at ruralagrarianindia
@gmail
.com
Glad to share that
@suman_sahu99
and I were honoured to co-author & present our working paper, "The Rise of Anti Feminism as the New Woke on Internet" virtually at the prestigious annual conference of
@IAFFE
, among other insightful papers!
#IAFFE2024
#killjoysolidarity
#Feminism
Extremely insightful & intriguing session by
@pamelaphilipose
ma'am, drawing on her experiences from the field, imp of empathy in reporting & binaries of our society. Thanks
@unwomenindia
@PressClubOfI1
@UNinIndia
for organising Gender Sensitive Reporting Workshop for journalists
More power to
@Rituparna37
for speaking truth to power. This is the horror that academia has become. Each one of us is thinking about giving up. For some of us, academics hasn't been a BACKUP, it has been a dream, a conscious decision that v made. It's shattering bit by bit.
This is not like the usual stuff that I have written so far. It's a more soul breaking story about why I have felt like quitting academia in recent times.
@IndianExpress
A few days back, the
@BBCUrdu
invited me for their flagship program Sairbeen on Murthy's "youngsters should work 70 hours" comment. I'm writing a full fledged piece on this but for starters, here's the link of the video where I very briefly talk about it-
If I ever succeed at writing a novel, due credits will be given to
@Aakar__Patel
for writing this piece and sending peak motivation! Have only been able to gather courage to write a few short stories as of now.
More than 50% women are self-employed, of whom half are employed in unpaid family work, or working in family farms. Most of these employments are distress driven, and does not empower women, says, Dr. Dipa Sinha,
@sinhadipa
, AUD at
#COFI2023
👇
Someone just asked me in my dept "what will you do with so much money?", When I'm yet to receive my scholarship for 5-6 months which is less than the bare minimum I need as a PhD student, who chooses to not teach to not compromise with her research. Tell me about gas lighting.
We will be moderating a discussion on platform labour in Asia and Africa, featuring our contributor
@chauhananjali98
, co-hosted by
@CAsianSAfricaUP
, and University of Indonesia. Special thanks to
@alfgunvald
. An international exchange between these two continents is much needed!
"The Indian media is in a state of crisis. And this crisis is not accidental or random, but systematic and structural" - I analyse the current state of Indian media and its relation to the larger socio-political happening in the country.
@SociologyDoing
@hrw
Today's a special special day. Two legendary feminists, literary giants and badass activists were born- Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison.
Forever grateful to them. Striving everyday to take the movement they built and lived for forward. Love, power and resistance ✊❤️
Introduce yourself with seven books:
Second Sex -de Beauvoir
Dialectic of Sex - Firestone
Sexual Contract -Pateman
Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State -Engels
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 - Marx
Gender Trouble -Butler
Metaphysics of Morals-Kant
Introduce yourself with Seven books:
Ethics— Spinoza
Phenomenology of Spirit — Hegel
Science of Logic— Hegel
Capital — Marx
For Marx— Althusser
Being and Time— Heidegger
Margins of Philosophy— Derrida
I reviewed
@dalitdiva
's "Trauma of Caste" fr
@frontline_india
&it has to be in ur reading list
"the annihilation of caste is not solely the burden of Dalits;it must be a collective endeavour & a unified outcry fr a world where violence finds no refuge &where hatred does nt reign"
A wave of gig worker strikes has swept across India, most recently by delivery workers at Blinkit, the "10-minute delivery" platform.
@chauhananjali98
spoke extensively with workers and unionists about how they are organising against extreme exploitation.
Today we are recoding our conversation with Silvia Federici for
@CrisisCritique
Podcast.
It should be uploaded shortly after.
In the meantime, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel for this and other episodes.
I rage to write-
Will we forget Hathras like we forgot the Khairlanji massacre?
The annihilation of caste is not the sole burden of Dalits alone, but a collective scream for a healthier and more peaceful society founded on love, friendship and solidarity
Happening tom at JNU.
Book launch and discussion of Semiotics of Rape by Rupal Oza, in conversation with
@r_gov11
, Mansiah Mashal, Archana Dwivedi, Tejaswi Chhatwal, moderated by Urvashi Bhutalia!
@ZubaanBooks
How easy it is to gaslight women, esp those from oppressed groups, as soon as they demand recognition and acknowledgement. For anyone who has read
@YashicaDutt
will KNOW from where the character of Pallavi came from. In academics we call this plagiarism!
#MadeInHeavenS2
Glad to be a part of such an informative and theoretically rich discussion on Gig Workers Politics. Thank you
@alfgunvald
@asianlabour
for putting this together and having me over.
YouTube link for those who missed the webinar -
#AcademicTwitter
"It’s the sort of factory-made model of feminism that is Taylor Swift and Barbie, these very plastic manufactured women that just say what’s comfortable for everyone. It’s feel-good feminism. And for that reason it’s a failed feminism, in my view.”
My take on Uttrakhand UCC move- "While purportedly framed in the name of women's safety, the code may, reinforce traditional norms & power structures that have long subjected women to restrictions, forcing them to lead unfulfilling lives"
Link-
@newsclickin
Wanted to know fellow women's experiences of PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) bcos there's absolutely no dialogue on it and it has been driving me crazy for months now!
Apparently, it's worse if you've pcos or/and depression.
How are women managing it along with everything else?
Happening tom at JNU.
Book launch and discussion of Semiotics of Rape by Rupal Oza, in conversation with
@r_gov11
, Mansiah Mashal, Archana Dwivedi, Tejaswi Chhatwal, moderated by Urvashi Bhutalia!
@ZubaanBooks
How will you feel to see your degrees drowning deep to a point of no return, to prove that you didn't lie, that you are in pain? Sit with this and imagine what Wrestlers must be going through.
Will any women dare to speak after this?
#WrestlersProtest
Yet another instance of how women do it differently. Another reason why women should be on the table more. When our society is literally burning with hate,
@riachops
aced at sending love & compassion even in rejection letters. Kudos!
I remember reading Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors in 10th STD & oh my! This movie is such a clever adaptation of it. I tried scrapping the surface of what ALL this stunner had to offer. Read & see the movie! Thanks
@SociologyDoing
@Rituparna37
✨
Link-
*NEW* The contractual nature of the job deprives
#women
#SchemeWorkers
of their rights & social security benefits, leaving them with no ability to demand better wages or working conditions.
Anjali Chauhan writes.
Enjoyed writing this review as much as I enjoyed reading the book! It's always a pleasure to read
@nilanjanab
. I would particularly recommend this book to men. To co-creating spaces of equality, leisure and peace for all! ❤️
@frontline_india
@quote_hanger
@vaishnaroy
Breaking free from the superwoman myth:
Nilanjana Bhowmick’s latest work debunks the myth and serves as both a testament and an instruction manual on navigating a man’s world.
Work up today to this lovely review.
As the piece is behind a pay wall, those who would like to read it can drop their emails in comments/DM. I would love to share. Documenting resistance becomes a necessity in times when history is under attack. Here's my contribution towards the same.
#HumanRights
#CasteViolence