Profile
I am Indhu. I live in the bustling city of Bangalore in South India. Time disappears when I take long walks, watch birds or read a book.
I am an independent researcher, facilitator and activist engaged with gender, women’s histories, lives and human rights, marginalisation and democratic processes.
I was formerly the head of Hengasara Hakkina Sangha, a feminist space that I nurtured with my colleagues for 12 years. As an organisation, we staunchly believed in violence free life and equal rights for women in all arenas. This was reflected in our legal and rights literacy training for rural women’s collectives, in our research on women’s lives and institutions, and our advocacy work.
My work gives me meaning. I feel I contribute to a counter narrative to the dominant, mainstream and hegemonic discourse generated by majoritarian powers everywhere. Everyone deserves dignity in a community, in a country and in the world. We are all located at different axes of power and need to be dynamic in our perception of how power acts, unbind ourselves from; rigid, dogmatic, ideological articulations. Only this can change peoples life situations and infuse activism with vitality. This is the disruption that I seek.
My colleagues and I created resources in Kannada from a feminist perspective on rights, gender, and law.
When we were working with women’s collectives on violence against women, we knew there weren’t any resources in our languages. Most resources were in English and thus the rights language seemed alien and distant.
Thus, our painstaking work researching, designing, creating resources in Kannada helped empower many rural activists to spearhead campaigns on violence against women. It helped them articulate women’s worlds through a language of rights with social, legal, and bureaucratic institutions. I am immensely proud of this achievement.
I am motivated by the need to see an equal world, for genders, gender minorities and other marginalised people.
I am inspired immensely by the hope and dignity that people have even in the most marginalised and hierarchical spaces.
Academic Partners
- University of Washington
What reciprocity looks like for me
Reciprocity is complex. We are all at different positions of power at different times depending on our roles, situations, locations, skin colour, ethnicity, caste, accident of birth and myriad other factors. How we can be introspective and handle power wisely in all places and take along people with lesser privilege at that point in time — and truly understand and facilitate the articulation of multiple voices and potentials — is reciprocity for me.
Advice I’d tell people inspired to do work that I do
Ask questions to understand, to unsettle authority. Be gentle with people, none of us are fully formed, there are no absolutes, we are all work in progress. be utterly wary of ideology morphing into dogma!
Fun Facts
If I was an animal, I would be …
An iridescent purple sunbird
My secret talent is
I can draw intricate kolams on the floor.
My favorite hobby is …
Birdwatching
My favorite thing to eat is …
A dosa
My favorite place to be is …
Under a tree!