On the 4th and 5th of April, Miranda House, Delhi successfully organized their Gender Equality Mela, 2018. The first day commenced with an interactive session by Kamla Bhasin and Suneeta Dhar, established feminists and social workers. A discussion was carried out around the different meanings and strands of the overall women’s movement.
Renowned Panellists Were the Part of Discussion
The second session panellists were Bijaylakshmi Nanda, Associate Professor of the Department of Political Science at Miranda House, Divya Vaishnava, a social worker and Founder of BUD Foundation, and Preeti Choudhury, an author and a lecturer. They discussed the idea of remoulding the culture of accountability in different ways, with regards to sexual harassment and content-related issues.
Rakhee Bakshee and Richa Aniruddh, journalists, were the speakers for the third session. They talked about the stigma that is created by female journalists. Their work in a session titled “What’s on Screen? Gender and Media”, was elaborately discussed. They mentioned the kinds of biases that they had to face and struggle within the course of their careers.
About the Panel Discussion
A roundtable discussion among the representatives of the Internal Complaints Committee from colleges such as Kirori Mal College, Hindu College, St. Stephen’s, Ramjas, Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, and Miranda House, marked the end of the day. Institutionalized sexual violence within the context of the university was talked about. Titiksha Vashisth, a Masters student from JNU and a Miranda House alumnus, played the role of the moderator.
The second day initiated with Chandrahas Mishra and Ms. Geeta, acid attack survivors, sharing their stories and how they dealt with stigma.
The next session of the day was conducted by Rita Manchanda, a journalist and research scholar, Mehroosh, a student of psychology of law at Jamia Milia Islamia and Samreen Mushtaq, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science at Jamia Milia Islamia, on the topic ‘Women in Conflict Areas’.
The next panel included Suraj Pawar, a social activist and the program coordinator of Azad Foundation, Pavel Sagolsem, a research scholar and program associate at Centre for Health and Social Justice, and Dhruv Pandey, Assistant Professor at the Women’s Studies and Development Centre, University of Delhi. The discussion was organized upon ‘Masculinity and Consent’.
The last panel witnessed an intensive conversation around the challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community. Aroh Akunth, a Dalit and queer activist and member of the Queer Collective at Ambedkar University, Ritambbara Mehta, the co-founder of Nazariya and Rudrani Chhetri, a transgender activist from Delhi, were the speakers with Kabir Trivedi, the founder, and president of the Miranda House Queer Collective, moderating the session.
The fest was concluded with the screening of an Anurag Kashyap movie: ‘That Day after Everyday’.
