Nivedita Menon | |
---|---|
Nationality | Indian |
Occupation(s) | Writer, professor |
Nivedita Menon (1960, Poona/Pune) is a writer and a professor of political thought at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. [1] She previously taught at Lady Shri Ram College and the Department of Political Science at Delhi University. [1]
Menon is a feminist scholar who has taught at the International Studies School of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi since 2009. [1] [2] [3] [4] Before moving to JNU she was a teacher at Lady Shri Ram College for 15 years, and the political science department at Delhi University for seven years. [1] Menon says that the Indian feminist movement she was exposed to in college, as well as the writings of global feminists, helped her evolve a better consciousness with respect to issues of sexuality and politics. [1] She was greatly influenced by the work of global feminists like Betty Friednan, Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem. [1]
Menon has written or edited several books about feminism and politics, including the 2004 volume Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics Beyond the Law. [5] She also writes on current issues in the journal Economic and Political Weekly , the online news blog kafila.org, and several newspapers. [6] [7]
Seeing Like a Feminist, released in 2012, received favourable reviews. It also had high sales, partly due to uproar following the 2012 Delhi gang rape. [8] The title of the book is a play upon the title of Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. A review in The Hindu said that the book "[dissected] social institutions, policy, and common ideas to explain the many ways the process of “gendering” occurs — here making a distinction between ‘sex’ as the biological characteristics and ‘gender’ as the set of cultural meanings that are arrived at over time." [4] Writing in the journal Economic and Political Weekly , feminist scholar Mary John said; "Written in a highly engrossing style, [the book] takes on very serious issues while also frequently making the reader smile. Nivedita Menon has managed to condense some of the most complex challenges facing the women’s movement in contemporary India and elsewhere in the form of a series of short reflections that are organised within six chapters." [9] [10] [11] A review in The Guardian noted that "Menon succeeds in shattering some deeply-engrained myths, and her efficient gathering of the intersectional strands makes it a breezy but sharp read." [12]
Menon is known for her staunch opposition to nuclear power. [13] Menon has commented on the different portrayals of the Kashmir conflict within India and outside it, and has criticized the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. [14]
In an article published in The Hindu on 18 October 2016, Menon criticised the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). [15] She wrote that, "the talk of a Uniform Civil Code has nothing to do with gender justice. It has entirely to do with a Hindu nationalist agenda to ‘discipline’ Muslims". She went on to describe the UCC as "a stick to beat Muslims with" and claimed that the "Muslim Personal Law is already modern", as it already provides women the right to property and recognises marriage as a civil contract, unlike Hindu marriages which were largely considered sacrament, until recently. [15]
During the protests in JNU in March 2016, Nivedita Menon made a speech titled "Nation, a daily plebiscite" in which she discussed nation formation, nationalist aspirations, and Kashmir's accession to the Indian Union. [1] [16] The lecture was part of a series about nationalism. [14] The ABVP activist and students union joint secretary Saurabh Kumar Sharma filed a police complaint accusing her of having made anti-national statements to the effect that "Everyone knows that India is illegally occupying Kashmir. It is said the world over. Everybody accepts (this)". She was also accused of saying, "Manipur and Kashmir have been illegally occupied by the Indian state". [14] [17] [18] A video clip from her lecture was highlighted by the news channel Zee News, which labelled Menon "anti-national". In the clip Nivedita said that " Hindu Society is the most violent, to the root violent society in the world". [19] [20] The incident led to her being targeted for her views by people and student organisations. [16] [14]
Menon claimed that her actual statement was, "We [Indians] must accept that Kashmiris' call for freedom is absolutely justified". [21] She also said "We know that people the world over think that India is illegally occupying Kashmir". She also said, "If people are raising slogans for azadi (freedom), shouldn’t this be looked at in the context of India being seen as an imperialist country internationally?". She also highlighted the fact that Kashmiris equate "India" and Indian nationalism with militarism and abuse of power. [14] [17] [22] Menon later stated that she had not said anything anti-national. [23]
The video of her speech and the reactions to it also led to Menon receiving widespread support online. A number of activists published a statement saying that Menon was being vilified by the media and the police, and that the complaints against her constituted harassment. [14] Friends and students of Menon created a Facebook page in her support. [24] [14] The controversy led to her being described as a figure of dissent against the Hindu right. [1]
Menon is known as 'Nivi' to most of her students and peers. She belongs to an upper-caste middle-class family, and was brought up in different parts of India, including Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. [1] Menon's sister is the queer activist, stand-up comedian, and gender and sexuality consultant Pramada Menon, [25] [26] who co-founded the organization Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA). [27] [28] Their brother is Dilip Menon, who is a historian at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. [1] [29]
In 1994, Nivedita Menon won the A. K. Ramanujan Award (Instituted by Katha) for translation from Hindi and Malayalam into English 1994. [35]
Jawaharlal Nehru University is a public research university located in Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and research emphasis on social sciences and applied sciences.
Urvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. She is known for her work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books such as The Other Side of Silence: Voices from and the Partition of India and Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir.
Madhu Purnima Kishwar is an Indian academic and a Hindutva commentator. She is currently employed as a chair Professor in the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Kishwar along with fellow-academic Ruth Vanita co-founded the journal Manushi.
Feminism in India is a set of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and opportunities for women in India. It is the pursuit of women's rights within the society of India. Like their feminist counterparts all over the world, feminists in India seek gender equality: the right to work for equality in wages, the right to equal access to health and education, and equal political rights. Indian feminists also have fought against culture-specific issues within India's patriarchal society, such as inheritance laws.
Amitabh Mattoo is one of India's leading thinkers and writers on Modern and Contemporary History, Political science, International relations. He was awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2009. He is Dean of the School of International Studies, Chair & professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and honorary professor of international relations at the University of Melbourne. Until 19 June 2018, he served as Advisor to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, with the status of a Cabinet Minister. Mattoo is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies and was recently elected unanimously as its Deputy Chair. He was the founding CEO of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne and served as chairman of the governing board of Miranda House, University of Delhi, the highest-ranked women's college in India, and served as Chair of Kirori Mal College earlier He has also been a member of the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing. In 2002, he was the youngest person to be appointed as vice chancellor of a public university in independent India. Mattoo's advice on policy matters has been sought across political parties and across governments, including by Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh. Following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, he has offered a political roadmap for securing the future of Jammu and Kashmir. He has been a persistent advocate of multiculturalism and of reconciliation between Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims.
Amrita Basu is an American academic and political scientist. She currently is a professor at Amherst College where she holds affiliations in the departments of Political Science, Sexuality, Women's, & Gender Studies, Asian Languages & Civilizations, and Black Studies.
Angana P. Chatterji is an Indian anthropologist, activist, and feminist historian, whose research is closely related to her advocacy work and focuses mainly on India. She co-founded the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir and was a co-convener from April 2008 to December 2012.
Amita Dhanda is an Indian academician and activist. Earlier a Professor of Law, she is now designated as Professor Emerita at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. She was appointed as a member of the strong 14- Member National Advisory Council for the implementation of the RTE act in 2010. She is also on the Academic Council of Tamil Nadu National Law School. She started her career as a researcher at the Indian Law Institute, Delhi and since then has gone on to become a full-time Professor at NALSAR. She has contributed to the research of Mental Health and disability studies in India and is the head of the Centre for Disability Studies in NALSAR. Amita Dhanda identifies as a feminist and has written several papers based in gender. She has authored three books and is also a guest writer for Kafila, along with few other online news magazines and national dailies. Her expertise also extends to Interpretation Of Statutes, which she holds repute for.
Radha Kumar is an Indian feminist, academic and author. Her work focuses on ethnic conflicts and peace processes from a strongly feminist perspective.
Nazariya: A QueerFeminist Resource Group is a non-profit queer feminist resource group based out of Delhi NCR, India. The group was formed in October 2014, and has since established a South Asian presence. The organization undertakes workshops/seminars, helpline- and case-based counselling, and advocacy to affirm the rights of persons identifying as lesbian and bisexual women, and transgender persons assigned female at birth. Nazariya QFRG also works to inform queer discourse in institutions, and build linkages between queer issues, violence and livelihoods. They focus on the intersectionality between queer, women’s and progressive left movements in India.
Kamla Bhasin was an Indian developmental feminist activist, poet, author and social scientist. Bhasin's work, that began in 1970, focused on gender education, human development and the media. She lived in New Delhi, India. She was best known for her work with Sangat - A Feminist Network and for her poem Kyunki main ladki hoon, mujhe padhna hai. In 1995, she recited a refurbished, feminist version of the popular poem Azadi (Freedom) in a conference. She was also the South Asia coordinator of One Billion Rising.
Jayakumari Devika is a Malayali historian, feminist, social critic and academic from Kerala. She currently researches and teaches at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram as a Professor. She has authored several books and articles on gender relations in early Kerala society. She is bilingual and has translated both fiction and non-fiction books between Malayalam and English. She also writes on gender, politics, social reforms and development in Kerala on publications like Kafila, Economic and Political Weekly and The Wire.
Vrinda Grover is a lawyer, researcher, and human rights and women's rights activist based in New Delhi, India. As a lawyer, she has appeared in prominent human rights cases and represented women and child survivors of domestic and sexual violence; victims and survivors of communal massacre, extrajudicial killings and custodial torture; sexual minorities; trade unions; and political activists.
Uma Chakravarti is an Indian historian and filmmaker. Beginning in the 1980s, Chakravarti wrote extensively on Indian history highlighting issues relating to gender, caste, and class, publishing seven books over the course of her career. Her body of work mostly focused on the history of Buddhism, and that of ancient and 19th century India.
On 9 February 2016, some students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) held a protest on their campus against the capital punishment meted out to the 2001 Indian Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, and Kashmiri separatist Maqbool Bhat. The organisers of the event were former members of the Democratic Students' Union (DSU). The event was held despite the university administrations withdrawing permission for the event shortly before it was due to begin, due to protests by members of the student union of ABVP. The event saw clashes between various student groups. A video was circulated by an Indian news channel, Zee News, in which a small group of individuals, whom a later university-investigation described as outsiders to the university wearing masks, shouted "anti-India" slogans.
Shehla Rashid Shora is an Indian human rights activist who has pursued her Ph.D. at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was vice-president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) in 2015–16 and was a member of the All India Students Association (AISA). She rose to prominence whilst leading the student agitation calling for the release for Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and others who were arrested on charges of sedition in February 2016 for participating and organizing sloganeering in JNU.
Anasuya Sengupta is an Indian poet, author, activist, and a cited expert in representation for marginalized voices on the Internet.
Amita Singh is an Indian political scientist, currently serving as a professor of law and governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, in Delhi, India. She is also a member of the Indian Council of Social Science Research. She is the recipient of numerous awards, and has published widely on public administration in India. Singh has been criticized for controversial statements made regarding Dalits, Muslims, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Aparajitha Raja is an Indian politician who was the national leader of the All India Students’ Federation (AISF). She is currently serving as a National Council member of All India Youth Federation. She is the daughter of D. Raja, the Communist Party of India’s (CPI) General Secretary, and Annie Raja, the General Secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women.
Kalpana Wilson is an author and scholar with a focus on South Asia. She is a founding member of the South Asian Solidarity Group. She has taught at the London School of Economics, SOAS University of London, and Birkbeck, University of London.