Producer and Host: Sneha Visakha
Intro Music: Wehrmut by Godmode
Outro Music: Opheliea’s Blues by Audionautix
Trigger Warning: references to gender-based violence and structural violence
Kindly note – This episode is English and Hindi; a translated transcript will be put up on our website shortly.
In the eighth epsiode of the Feminist City, Sneha Visakha is in conversation with Deepa Pawar, Founder-Director, Anubhuti Trust. In this episode, they talk about the diversity of urban youth, the challenges young women & girls face in the city, particularly those belonging to vulnerable communities such as nomadic and denotified tribes (NT-DNTs) in the city. They talk about the right to pee campaign, the way urban infrastructure and deprivation contributes to gender-based violence, exclusion and injustice. They discuss the politics of urban development, about who helps build the city and who benefits from the current paradigms of development, about ‘mental justice’ as a critical dimension of social justice to be situated in the constitutional framework, and about the invisible structural violence that city-dwellers experience, particularly those belonging to NT-DNT communities.
Deepa Pawar is the Founder and Director of Anubhuti Trust, with 20 years of experience in the social development sector. With a Masters’ in Social Work, she is a trained counsellor who has worked extensively with vulnerable communities and a core member of the Right to Pee campaign. She is an internationally recognised NT-DNT woman activist and wrote the first ever book documenting Gadiya Lohar nomadic tribe’s iron weapons / tools making.
Anubhuti Trust, formed and self-led by women from different backgrounds, work on wide-ranging issues such as youth leadership, community development, mental justice, disaster risk management and constitutional literacy among others, from a gender justice, anti-discrimination and constitutional lens.
You can read more about Deepa Pawar and her organization, Anubhuti Trust here.
If you would like to support their work, you can find information here.
Readings
Mental Justice of the NT-DNTs in Context of the Pandemic, Deepa Pawar, EPW
Mental Justice: An Action-Research Report with College Youth in Maharashtra, India, Anubhuti Trust
Reporting on the Payal Tadvi case – Livemint, TheWire
Journey to Social Awareness, with Deepa Pawar, The New Indian Woman Podcast
The Right to Pee Campaign (article), Refinery29, Video Explainer, Mumtaz Shaikh, BBC
Infographic: Study on the socio-economic and educational status of denotified tribes (DNTs), Vijay Korra, EPW Engage
Arbitrary & Disproportionate Criminalisation of Marginalised Communities, Srujana Bej, Nikita Sonavane, Ameya Bokil, Oxford Human Rights Hub
Countermapping Pandemic Policing – Sanctioned Violence in Madhya Pradesh, Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project
Illustrations: Phullobai, a Vegetable Seller Who Faced MP Police Wrath During Lockdown, Anurag Ekka & CPA Project; The comic is also available in Marathi, Hindi and other languages here.
Violence at home can leave scars on your children’s – and grandchildren’s – DNA, Priyanka Vora, Scroll Gender-Based Violence and Environment Linkages: The Violence of Inequality, Report, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)
