Meena Kotwal | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Alma mater | Indian Institute of Mass Communication (2013-14 batch) Jamia Millia Islamia Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Years active | 2015–present |
| Notable work | the founder of ‘The Mooknayak’ |
Meena Kotwal is a Dalit journalist, human rights defender, and the founder of The Mooknayak , an online news channel and website focused on social justice for the Dalit minority and marginalised people. [1] [2] [3]
Meena was raised in a Dalit neighborhood in New Delhi. [4] Her parents earned little from their work as laborers. [4] Meena attended the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi (2013-14 batch) and studied radio and television journalism. [5] She also attended Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), Delhi, and Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University. [5]
Meena had worked as a broadcast journalist at the Hindi language division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in New Delhi, India from September 2017 to July 2019. [6] She has said her BBC contract was not renewed after she was outed as Dalit by a colleague and then experienced discrimination, and had her formal complaint denied as lacking "merit or substance" by the BBC. [4]
She also contributes opinion pieces for The Wire, The Print, The Shudra, Youth Ki Awaz and Feminism in India. [7] [8] Her open letter to popular Indian actress Kangana Ranaut was published by The Wire, [9] and the republished in Indian languages and Nepali. [2] She has also worked for National Dastak, an online platform which focuses on the stories of marginalised identities.[ citation needed ]
On 25 December 2021, she posted an online video of herself burning the Manusmriti. [10] She then began to receive death threats and rape threats, and the Delhi Police registed a FIR about the threats. [10] In January 2022, she explained her reasoning for burning the Manusmriti: "The Manusmriti contains a lot of anti-women and anti-Dalit content. Babasaheb Ambedkar had also burned the Manusmriti, on 25 December 1927. Since then, Ambedkarites have been observing the day as Manusmriti Dahan Divas." [10] In February 2022, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and others at the UN wrote to the Indian government to express concern about the threats directed at Kotwal. [11]
She founded The Mooknayak in 2021, [1] and by 2023, employs 10 journalists. [12] She has described it as "a Dalit-centred newsroom." [12] The stories published in The Mooknayak cover issues concerning Dalits and other marginalized groups in India. [4] [3] By March 2023, the related Youtube channel for the online newspaper had 50,000 subscribers. [1]
Meena resides in New Delhi and has a daughter. She is married to Raja Pandey. [4]
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and political leader who headed the committee drafting the Constitution of India from the Constituent Assembly debates, served as Law and Justice minister in the first cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru, and inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement after renouncing Hinduism.
Kangna Amardeep Ranaut is an Indian actress and filmmaker who works primarily in Hindi films. Known for her portrayals of strong-willed, unconventional women in female-led films, she is the recipient of several awards, including four National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards, and has featured six times in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list. In 2020, the Government of India honoured her with the Padma Shri, the country's fourth-highest civilian award.
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Navayana is an independent anti-caste Indian publishing house based in New Delhi, strongly influenced by Ambedkarite ideas. It was founded by S. Anand and D. Ravikumar in 2003. The first book it published was Ambedkar: Autobiographical Notes priced at Rs 40. Since then it has published acclaimed fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels and poetry anthologies. From 2009 onwards, Navayana broadened its publishing outlook to include social issues other than caste because ‘the struggle against caste cannot happen in isolation from other struggles for justice and equality’ as a statement on the website reads.
Rajendra Pal Gautam is an Indian politician, Dalit activist,Social worker and the former Minister for Water, Tourist, Culture, Arts & Languages and Gurudwara Elections in the Government of Delhi. He is a member of the Aam Aadmi Party and represents Seemapuri Assembly constituency in the Delhi Legislative Assembly.
Yashica Dutt or Yashica Dutt Nidaniya is an Indian writer and freelance journalist who has written on topics including fashion, gender, identity, culture and caste. Following the response to her 2016 blog post, ‘Today, I’m coming out as Dalit‘, Dutt published "Documents of Dalit Discrimination" on Tumblr and the book Coming Out as Dalit, which received a Sahitya Akademi award.
Satyendra Murli is a researcher, media pedagogue and a journalist. He has been associated with Doordarshan, as an Indian television journalist; and other several media organizations. He teaches at Delhi University as a professor of media studies. His research areas are journalism & mass communication, media studies, media pedagogy, ethics, Buddhism; and open and distance learning.
Ramchandra Babaji More was a political leader and campaigner with a particular focus around the struggle against the Caste system in India and Class exploitation in the Indian subcontinent.
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Gangadhar Nilkanth Sahasrabuddhe was an Indian social activist from Maharashtra. He was born in a Marathi Chitpawan Brahmin family and belonged to the Social Service League. Along with other activists - Surendranath Tipnis, chairman of the Mahad Municipality and A.V. Chitre, he was instrumental in helping Babasaheb Ambedkar during the Mahad Satyagraha. During the satyagraha he burnt the book Manusmriti. Later, he went on to become the editor of Ambedkar's weekly 'Janata'.
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The Mooknayak is an online news website founded in 2021 with a focus on social justice for the Dalit minority and marginalised people. The Mooknayak means "the leader of the voiceless" and the online news outlet founded by Dalit journalist Meena Kotwal is named for the Mooknayak newspaper founded by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar in 1920.
Wandana Sonalkar is an Indian economist, and an author and translator. She retired as Professor teaches at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in 2017, and previously taught at the Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. Her research focuses on gender and caste in India. She has published translations of several books from Marathi to English, including the autobiographies of Urmila Pawar and R.B. More, and in 2021, she published Why I am Not a Hindu Woman, an autobiography and critique of misogyny, caste and violence in the context of the Hindu religion.
Mooknayak was a Marathi fortnightly-Newspaper founded by B. R. Ambedkar in 1920. The newspaper aimed to reveal the pain and rebellion of society. The first issue of Mooknayak was published on 31 January 1920. This paper was published from Mumbai. An educated youth of Mahar caste named Pandurang Nandram Bhatkar edited this Newspaper. Because Ambedkar was working as a professor in Sydenham College. Therefore, he could not work as an editor openly. So he appointed Gyandev Dhruvanath Gholap as the manager of Mooknayak. Ambedkar himself wrote the foreword in the first issue titled 'Manogat'. He also wrote articles in the next thirteen issues. Chhatrapati Rajarshi Shahu of Kolhapur had given financial assistance of Rs 2,500 for Mooknayak. Ambedkar published Mooknayak in the Marathi language, Because Marathi language was the common language or folk language of that time and B. R. Ambedkar's area of work was Maharashtra. Also at that time the Dalit people of Maharashtra were not very educated, they could only understand Marathi.