Note:
The feminist self is a work, always, in progress. Intergenerational conversations, particularly those emerging out of pedagogic spaces, have a certain warmth and intimacy peculiar to academia and to disciplinary canons. They are spaces of isolation and connectedness. In this conversation, we seek to map shifts across generations. With the advent of social media, today, arguably, feminism is an overused term. Also, what it means and stands for is messier than before. Ironically, we also live in an atmosphere of anti-feminism. Feminist bashing is common; we are an easy target. Thus, with wokeness on one hand and the cancellation of feminism on the other, it becomes harder to find a ground to stand on. In this complicated terrain, it is important for us to strengthen intergenerational compassion and solidarities among ourselves. We feel it is important to share our processes with each other. We hope it will invite others to do the same.
RD: Shall we begin by sharing our experiences of what it means to be, or become, a feminist in India, both personally and professionally? Considering the twenty-five-year age difference between us, let’s see how our journeys in finding feminism have been similar or distinct. This might help people to reflect upon their own journeys
GC: I agree. Personal journeys can often provide connectors. While this method of sharing one’s journeys may feel self-indulgent to some, I see autoethnography as shedding light on the self and the context.
Rhea, when I look back, I realise that it took me a while to come to feminism in my own life. And a little more time to identify with it. Today, we see a rapid production and consumption of feminism, particularly on social media. Young women are able to find a quick placeholder for their natural restlessness and rebellion. It was different when I was young. Finding feminism, personally and politically, was difficult and arduous. By saying this, I don’t mean to set up a generational gap between us. Or take away from the journey of younger feminists. I just want to indicate the difference. For instance, we didn’t have courses in feminism, nor was there enough conversation in the media about it. A lot of it was underground, so to speak. And somewhat of a taboo.
As an undergraduate student in the late 1970s in Mumbai, I became committed to Marxist class politics. Soon I realised that to practise Marxist politics, I would have to de-class myself, my ways of thinking, being, and living. The class contradictions of my life seemed insurmountable then. Despite being raised by a Marxist trade unionist father who was instrumental in shaping the public sphere in independent India, I couldn’t devote myself completely to Marxist politics. This might have been my personal limitation. But I also gradually realised that it is gender, both in the private and public domains, that was central to my lived experiences of subjecthood in the world. I saw how I was primarily and centrally constructed as a woman. Turning away from that fact was futile; accepting and surrendering to it was grounding. Often, this realisation can make one complicit with existing gender ideologies and one can willingly – or cynically- surrender to the patriarchal script. Alternatively, this realisation can bring us to a feminist consciousness. Thankfully, the latter happened to me. And that was liberating!
Also, what we call the autonomous feminist movement was just emerging in Mumbai at the time, in the late 70s and early 80s. I was not an integral part of the women’s groups then. I was navigating in and out of philosophical and existential questions, which is why the University became my home, my safe space.
After a decade or so, I found myself stepping into teaching sociology to undergraduate students in Mumbai. I remember teaching a course called Women and Society. I think it was very similar to the course you studied later. Most organically, my pedagogy took me out of the classroom. My students and I performed street plays on women’s issues. We used plays like Om Swaha[1], which was part of the anti-dowry movement and Mulgi Zhali Ho[2], which addressed issues of son preference. These plays were produced by women’s groups in India. This was the late 80s and I was still in my twenties.
RD: So, would you say you were a feminist then?
GC: Depends on what one means by that question. It was only in my 30s that I started calling myself a feminist. The fears of being perceived as ‘western’, as ‘troublemaking’, as ‘denying feminine selves’, and as ‘rebels without a cause’ that restricted me in my 20s were replaced by confidence, conviction, and an empowering critical consciousness in my 30s. Now, in my 60s, I claim the identity unapologetically. The journey has been long, slow, transformative, liberating and fulfilling. Today, I see all things personal and political with a feminist consciousness. It has become my skin, my second nature, my voice.
RD: I think, as a woman living anywhere, but particularly in India, makes gender identity – as you say- hard to ignore. From my earliest experiences of being told to sit with my legs together while wearing a dress, something I remember not wanting to wear in the first place, to watching the women around me being compelled to balance work and home life and putting everything and everyone ahead of themselves at all times, was perhaps my first introduction to gender inequality. Everyday life taught me many lessons, very young. Why were there so many rules for me? Why did my brother have things done for him that I did myself? Why did the fact that I wanted to wear shorts and dig in the mud mark me as different? School made some sense of these burdens of gender. I learnt about “very wrong” practices like dowry, infanticide and honour killing but none of that was happening to me. So what then, was? I didn’t know the word feminism then and it would be years before I knew it. I do remember, however, being deeply aware that something was not right. This was possibly the beginning of the feminist self.
I don’t think I fully knew what feminism was and what it stood for until I was in a master’s programme and it took even longer for me to feel comfortable calling myself a feminist. Even before this, I was aware of the burden women, especially in India, carried and I thought and spoke a great deal about this both at home and with my friends and classmates. Only when I took a course in feminist theory as part of my master’s programme, was I exposed to the history and trajectory of feminism and fully understood what it had accomplished and what it had yet to accomplish. This exposure not only allowed me to make sense of my own experiences but also offered me a lens with which to do sociology.
GC: It’s interesting how everything you say resonates with me; my experiences were very similar to yours as I was growing up. I found myself gendered in all domains, including the intellectual domain. In order to become the ‘thinking self’, I began by trying very hard to occupy the space of being ‘human’ but I did that by erasing my class, caste, and gender identities. I think I was trying to escape into the idea of being the disembodied thinker. I soon realised that that was not a workable idea! Not for women. Since I was also becoming a sociologist, I began to recognise how deeply determined I was by social structures. I slowly reckoned that any attempt at human freedom would involve negotiating the social, not denying it. There was no transcendence per se.
RD: I agree. In fact, what I most enjoy about feminist epistemology is that it encourages the shift of focus from the disembodied, abstract intellectualisation to the embodied, experiential, every day, while providing the latter with roots in theory.
Feminism is often associated with on-the-ground radical activism, but it is also a deeply theoretical thought process. How did/do you navigate the relationship between feminist theory and activism in your work and personal life? For me, it has been an interesting journey.
GC: So in India, like in many parts of the world, the boundaries between academics and activism are deliberately maintained I’d say. While the University is a part of civic society and imagined thus, it is also seen as a ‘pure’ space that must not be contaminated by politics. Our disciplines too, with a self-definition based on principles of objectivity, reinforce ideas that maintain boundaries between activism and academics. While I think this is problematic, I do get caught at times between the two impulses of feminism: to explain and to transform. My preference for theory, and abstraction, somehow made me stay away from ground-level activism. But over the years, I have realised a few things. One, feminism is necessarily about theory, it is about abstraction, it is about developing world views. It cannot be only about ‘action’ or ‘doing’. But it is a kind of theory, a kind of abstraction, a kind of worldview. It is different. It is reflexive, it is critical, it is moral. Theory is an important tool for our politics, for academics and activists. Second, feminism is a personal praxis, however imperfect. I am often asked to stand up and be court-martialed for my actions. If you are a feminist, how are you married? Don’t you see that the institution of marriage is patriarchal? Or if you are a feminist, how are you ‘dependent’ on people? Why don’t you have financial acumen? You light a lamp at home, you have long hair, and so on and so forth. I have learnt to find difficult answers to these difficult questions, from within feminism itself. I am able to make peace with the contradictions of feminism from within feminism. This is possible because there is no one feminism. We are not a monolith, bound by a single text or a single figure. The ‘figure’ of a feminist goes through regular re-examination across history and cultures. There is space to breathe.
RD: How was it in the classroom?
GC: As a pedagogue, the classroom, as I’ve always said, is a site for social transmission and social transgressions. I remember how I had to persuade you to take my course in Contemporary Feminist Theory (CFT) because you said “Ah, the gender classroom becomes a place for sharing sob stories, and doesn’t go beyond that!”. I heard you, yes but I was surprised that the interest you showed in the Classical Sociological Theory class did not extend itself to feminist theory. I remember almost pleading with you to at least audit my course, which you did, mercifully! Maybe you should speak of that. For me, teaching feminist theory is a form of academic activism. It is propelled by values of freedom of thought and freedom to live diverse lives. It is the key to bridging many gaps and working with several contradictions in one’s personal and professional life. I think my students saw me work my way through these processes, they saw my vulnerability. And the strengths in it. That was the road to building some wonderful friendships.
RD: Yes, you had to convince me to take your Feminist Theory course! In my experience of studying “women” in undergraduate sociology, I didn’t know that a ‘feminist’ theory was even possible! Your CFT course was my introduction to the broader politics of gender and it was here that I finally found answers to the questions that I had for years. The classroom atmosphere and the theorists we were reading became the community I never had. To see many of my misgivings reflected in feminist writings helped me finally feel understood. It was like a burden was lifted from my shoulders. I was grateful that I no longer had to do this alone, but I also now recognised my responsibility to do something with this newfound knowledge.
The classroom atmosphere had an impact on me. We would sit all together at a large table, discuss the reading and share our perspectives. As a student, it made me feel like what I had to contribute to the discussion was valuable. Since I was intrigued by this approach to teaching, you and I went on to have discussions about feminist pedagogy through my Master’s and MPhil degrees. Later, as a lecturer and high school teacher, I brought this seating arrangement, attitude and pedagogy into my classrooms as well.
Unlike you, I didn’t have much exposure to activism growing up. I had a very comfortable upbringing in a suburb of Mumbai with good schools and opportunities to develop my hobbies and interests. I spoke English at home. I was already set up for a future better than most. However, as I grew up and went on to university, I began to recognise that being from a religious minority made me, in many ways, an ‘outsider’ and as a result more cautious. I was aware that there were many people in my own city, like me, who were engaged in activism but the political climate I was growing up in made me feel like outright activism was out of my reach. The ‘pure’ space of the university that you mentioned allowed me to be true to my beliefs and speak up without feeling threatened. It allowed space for dissent and critique. Feminist theory showed me answers to the many questions I had been grappling with growing up and feminist pedagogy convinced me of the power of the classroom.
Critical thinking is not typically a characteristic of the Indian education system but teaching sociology in a liberal arts programme necessitated a deeper engagement with society and its functioning. The undergraduate students I taught came to appreciate this. High school teaching offered even more examples of the power of the classroom as a space for transformation. As a teacher in Bangalore’s urban setting, a class discussion about caste led a student to share her very qualified parents’ adverse experiences as Dalits at the workplace. The class then became more interested in caste, insisting we take extra sessions after class hours to become acquainted with the work of B.R. Ambedkar, which was not a part of the syllabus. At Parent-Teacher meetings, parents relayed their children’s enthusiasm for the subject. They were taking their classroom learning home and sharing it with their parents, grandparents, siblings and extended family.
GC: Also, Rhea, I’ve recently been mulling over the idea of positioned pedagogy. What does it really mean to take a position in the classroom? I have begun to articulate to my students that it is my right to teach from a standpoint, and that my objectivity will lie in my ability to listen to various and differing positions but that does not mean I will agree with them. And that skill to listen with patience is what my craft is all about.
But I think what bound us closer was also our discipline of sociology, wouldn’t you say so? Our journeys within the discipline of sociology, as students and as teachers, mentees and mentors, influenced our approach to integrating feminist theory with sociology, particularly in pedagogic practices.
RD: I agree. My journey to feminist theory has been an interesting one. As we discussed earlier, I was first introduced to gender in sociology in an undergraduate course titled “Women and Society”. The course largely addressed the place of women in Indian society and the challenges they faced. It played out like a slightly advanced high school social sciences course. Each topic led to discussions – my classmates relaying their gendered experiences as largely upper caste, upper class, urban, English-speaking women in India which I labelled ‘sob stories’ at the time. Even though these experiences resonated with me and I was deeply cognisant of how unfair Indian society was to women, I didn’t see the point of rehashing it in every class. This was the idea I had of feminist sociology going into a master’s programme several years later. I was dead set, as we discussed, against taking a course that I believed would be a repeat of this. After being intimidated by sociological theory, I found myself enjoying it. However, in my limited experience, feminism did not fit – all the theory courses I had taken up to that point were devoid of women. The CFT course shifted my views on the potential of the feminist perspective in sociology. Significant in that shift is how feminist sociology allows us to build theory beginning with lived experience. The everyday experiences I called ‘sob stories’ now have a central place in my doctoral investigations into tech worker experiences of Diversity Equity and Inclusion in India.
GC: That is so heartening to hear! I remember our conversations while you were designing and teaching a course on Gender and Sexuality.
RD: Yes! Our discussions when you were helping me design it… The first course I ended up teaching was a final-year undergraduate course in Contemporary Sociological Theory. The following year I was invited to design a syllabus and teach Gender and Sexuality. As excited as I was to teach this course, things didn’t quite turn out as I expected. The students thought the course wasn’t teaching them anything that they did not already know. The internet, and social media, in particular, were already ‘teaching’ them gender and they felt like there was nothing more to learn. My own Instagram feed was a testament to the high volume of gender and sexuality discourse. TV shows and movies added to this ‘education’. I hoped the nuance of academic readings would bring more interest to class discussions. It sometimes did, but more often remained elusive. A related challenge was disrupting the idea of what theory itself was. These students had already taken sociological theory courses before and theory as they knew it, was full of abstractions – concepts and frameworks. The feminist theory that speaks of lived experiences became hard to reconcile with the idea of the theory they came into the course with and made feminist theory seem “less theoretical”. I remember explaining my rationale to them mid-semester, requesting them to be patient. By the end of the semester, many came around to the logic of the course we designed.
Leaving undergraduate teaching to teach high school was thus a conscious decision. I was excited about having a chance to introduce sociology as a discipline to students for the first time and in doing so, attempt to widen the conceptualisation of theory from the very beginning of their experience.
GC: Yes, I remember that conversation, too, of deciding to teach sociology at the high school level. It was wonderful that you did that.
RD: While we’re on the subject of pedagogy, I wanted to ask you your thoughts on pedagogical intimacies. I know that you’ve been giving a lot of thought to the challenges it presents in the Indian context.
GC: Yes, pedagogical intimacy is particularly important to consider these days. Classroom hierarchy between student and teacher is a challenge in the Indian classroom that manifests, for instance, in forms of address. We, as feminists, would like to break these hierarchies as much as we can. The general use of Sir and Ma’am are colonial practices that have taken root in our systems. We have almost no vernacular equivalents of these terms. Particularly for our classrooms in institutions of higher education. In the feminist classroom, we attempt to move away from these hierarchical forms of address but this often becomes awkward and uneasy. Many students, particularly those who come from less privileged or conservative backgrounds at public universities, find it very difficult to address teachers by their first name. Their cultural conditioning is too deep. Others think addressing teachers by their first name is a sign of disrespect. But the #metoo movement in Indian academia also made me self-conscious of my own practices. I stopped using terms like ‘dear’ or ‘sweetie’ that I would casually use to address my students. In fact, the institution I am now in mandates the use of first names as forms of address for faculty members. Some students find it liberating, others take time or choose not to. I am learning to largely leave it to students to decide, according to their comfort level. It’s a gradual process. I do feel that pedagogic intimacy of feminist classroom practices requires a fine balance of arriving at sisterhood and solidarities while maintaining a necessary distance in the relationship.
RD: I remember you asking us to call you by your first name, which I found intriguing. I had worked in corporate jobs in multinationals for a few years before I started my Master’s and had lost the habit of any kind of formal address, so it took me only a short while to feel completely comfortable with it. However, I remember many of my classmates flat out refusing to address you as anything but Ma’am. On my first day teaching at a private undergraduate programme, I mentioned a preference to be addressed by my first name. The students, who were very privileged, seemed quite comfortable with it as it appeared to be part of the institutional culture. I suspect that the age of the faculty also played a role. Most of my colleagues were in their late twenties and early thirties.
GC: Yes. One has to be careful and mindful of context while adopting either very traditional modes of address or the given modernist ways of breaking these. What I have learnt is to respect the possibility of developing unique pedagogical intimacies based on sharing lived experiences but also knowing the boundaries of the space.
RD: Let me move to something else. You have a special sense of sociological theory, and your classroom brought in interesting ways of connecting with theory. What has been your journey into sociological theory? Do you want to talk about that a bit?
GC: My natural affinity for existential questions always led me to philosophy. I remember going with several ideas for my doctoral thesis to sociologists, and the question they would ask is: but what is sociological about this? It confused me. I still maintain that there is no sociology without philosophy. I recollect my early choice to major in sociology. I thought of it as a ‘whole’ discipline, one which would allow me to engage effectively with questions of the self and the world. Unfortunately, I had a disdain for empirical sociology, especially the way it is practised in India. Even today, we think sociological theory is not our cup of tea. Despite our massive oeuvre in shaping post-colonial theory, we shy away from theory at multiple levels, particularly in the classroom. We reduce sociology to a descriptive discipline. Anyhow, my own interest in theory drove my sociological imagination. Within theory, I found the questions of structure and agency very gripping. I was keen on both macro and micro theory. While I was deeply fascinated by the positivist dream, I was more convinced by the interpretivist argument. The phenomenological and ethnomethodological schools appealed to me because their focus on everyday worlds gave me a handle over the processes of social formation. In India, and I suppose this is true in different measures everywhere, theory is perceived as a male, often masculine, activity. The pursuit of theory is also set up on a casteist hierarchy; theory is placed at the top of the pecking order, restricted to a chosen few. I find myself, on the one hand, fighting for theory against the demands of application and on the other, struggling to make space for theory to become open, inclusive, less esoteric and mystified. In my attempts to integrate feminist theories into sociological theories, I often begin in the classroom.
RD: But you taught us sociological theory, especially Classical Sociological Theory, without bringing gender or patriarchy into it. You mentioned wanting us to learn the grammar of the discipline…
GC: Yes, in my classrooms on sociological theory, both classical and contemporary, I prefer the old-fashioned way of teaching it without gender per se. I teach the historical, conceptual and methodological grammar of the discipline with academic enthusiasm, before unpacking it critically. I remember saying, always, that to break something, you have to know how it was made.
But let me speak a little about the challenges of a feminist theory classroom. In my gender theory classroom, I dip into the interdisciplinary canon of women’s studies, teaching texts that reference philosophy, economics, literature, legal theory, and even science. My pedagogic practice is continuously being crafted. I shift in and out of disciplinary boundaries. This is difficult and strenuous. But the intent is to always demonstrate how gender and patriarchy, the two conceptual tools of feminist theory, actually bend canonical theories within disciplines. I never let go of the conversations with the discipline(s). In my major collaborative efforts, curated as edited volumes, I have bent the theoretical, methodological, and substantive aspects of disciplinary canons.
RD:Your positions in feminist theory have also evolved from classical to contemporary feminisms. How do you incorporate these perspectives both inside and outside the classroom?
GC: In the early years, my practice of feminism was blissfully classical, I would take great joy in synthesising liberal, Marxist and radical feminisms. This was quite comfortable, in a sense, for my relatively privileged social identity and location. In the last decade and a half, I had to push myself out of my comfort zones. I gradually shifted to what I see as contemporary feminisms that were presented as challenges to the stable subject of feminism: woman. And to a singular and universal narrative of feminism. I recall the heated debates around Muslim women’s voices, the subsuming of Dalit women’s questions, the resistance to queer women’s issues, and the opacity on issues of disability that characterised the women’s movement in the earlier millennium. All of these voices found their way into the movement and our theory. I can’t imagine any practice of feminism today, without a robust intersectionality- with all its limitations. I do get bothered at times by the growing identitarian politics- and cancel cultures- that come out of intersectionality. These can impede solidarity or even the human possibility of connections beyond identity. However, we must confront complexity, both theoretical and political, to move forward. For me personally, a diverse classroom has been a learning playfield. I have learnt to craft a democratic, non-hierarchical classroom where we can question and confront our privilege. It is in the classroom that I have learnt to question mine. In trying to ‘hand over the mic’, I find myself totally silenced at times. I am learning to inhabit that space of silence. I am at that stage in life where I have begun wondering if all we can do is offer each other feminist friendships that hold up each other, cultivate compassion for ourselves and the other, and develop the ability to hug. I remember how you resisted the hug, as I did too when I was younger. The hug seems like such an artifice, such a performative gesture, and yet, I find it an important way in the expression of solidarity.
RD: Interesting! I think that by the time I was introduced to feminist theory, the focus was already on the contemporary. We were exposed to the classical through the feminist movement, but it wasn’t engaged with as much. I found intersectionality an especially powerful analytical framework, though it has been co-opted and misrepresented these days. I mentioned social media before in the context of teaching gender studies, but I can see the place it also plays in furthering polarising ideologies that fuel cancel culture. This is not forgetting the role of social media in making academic concepts and ideas accessible to a much wider audience. I know we talk about the need to strike a balance between the reality of complexity while maintaining solidarities but I also recognise it’s easier said than done. Holding on to hope is, after all, vital and feminist!
I became interested in feminist pedagogies and the feminist classroom space when I recognised the positive effect the CFT classroom had on me. Once I began teaching, I too wanted my classroom to be as inviting and participative. I noticed, especially with high school students, that a non-hierarchical classroom greatly impacts the investment students make in the discipline and raises their expectations of their own abilities. I was regularly amazed by their fresh perspectives and how they slowly learned to frame them sociologically. I think friendships develop organically when students are able to share their thoughts without fear of ridicule, believing that they matter (and they do!). I certainly felt that way in your classroom and our continued interactions that first began in academic work eventually evolved into a feminist friendship. As for the hug, I consider it a part of my education in feminist sociology!
GC: Lastly, given that we both work in feminist science and technology studies, shall we share what have been our learnings from each other?
RD: Yes, but you go first!
GC: So my very early interest in the questions of truth making and method, combined with the existential questions of the meanings and expression of life and death, led me to engage with science, art and religion. The historical separation between the three in Europe, that we inherited as colonial societies and cultures, did not sit well with me. Academically, I pursued the critical study of science from feminist, postcolonial and sociological perspectives. My doctoral work, which sadly I never get to teach, was a study of the role of intuition in scientific creativity. I argued that intuition, as a feminised epistemic category, is both marginalised and appropriated in the narrative of how science is done. I closely looked at the figure of the Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who famously said that the elegant theorems he solved were written by the goddess of Namakkal on his tongue! Such was the power of his belief. I was curious about how religion, art and science come together in narratives such as these. I was not engaged in Feminist Technology Studies (FTS), but in the 80’s of India, concerns with reproductive technologies did lead to some critical reflection on technology and gender. It is from you, and with many of my other students, that I have learnt to engage with technology, particularly digital technologies. I must say that my understanding of digital technologies and how they reproduce structural biases has been informed by readings that you introduced me to while doing your MPhil dissertation. Yes, I do teach critical science and technology studies, feminist too, from within the sociological domain, by looking at the intersections of the sociology of science and the sociology of knowledge. I find it useful to route it through my disciplinary training, thus inviting others to look into their disciplines. The hegemony of science and scientific knowledge has spread across disciplines and cultures in alarming ways. It is important to develop critical thinking on the science question in feminism and prevent it from falling into the polemical divide of pro or anti-science movements. Science and technology are both liberating and oppressive for women. Don’t you think so?
RD: Absolutely! So much of my rather dark MPhil on the nature of gendered hate campaigns on Twitter addressed the spaces of resistance. Right now, so much of the mainstream discussion around Generative AI is techno-optimistic and social scientists are often accused of being relentlessly critical. However, this criticality is largely rooted in a place of hope. We’re just pointing out that techno-solutionism is not the solution. My interest in FTS began when I took the Feminist Science Studies course you taught during my MPhil. The course was my introduction to the sociology of scientific knowledge and was a strong influence which informed my future work. I think the initial draw was the chance to question something that was locked away and held above questioning. For the MPhil, my knowledge of FSS was the starting point for my exploration of technology studies. In early 2018, the critique of technology, especially Big Tech, really took off. I was in an interesting place, armed with the theoretical and epistemological knowledge to navigate these discourses and I am grateful to have a chance to explore them further in my PhD.
RD: Before we sign off, is there one idea that you want to explore in the near future?
GC: I think the question of faith and feminism is an important one, especially in today’s context where religion is at its toxic best! Women’s practices in and around religion have been historically transgressive and can be extremely instructive. At my age ( though I was always inclined towards these questions) I feel an urgency, political and personal, to delve deeper into these questions. We must learn to deploy faith, as we do reason, in shaping a better world. But a faith guided not by traditionalism but one shaped by the search for deeper meanings and purpose.
[1] ’Om Swaha’, a street play conceptualised by the feminist group Stree Sangharsh and written by Maya Rao and Anuradha Kapoor. It aimed to engage communities following a surge in dowry-related deaths in the late 1970s.
[2] ‘Mulgi Zhali Ho’, a play written by social activist Jyoti Mhapsekar in 1983 which talks about the secondary status of women in society.
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Gita Chadha is currently Professor at the School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University (APU), Bengaluru and an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Archives, National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru. Email: gita.chadha@apu.edu.in / gita_chadha@hotmail.com
Rhea D’Silva is a PhD candidate at the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, studying Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, policy and practice in the Indian IT industry. Email: rhea.erica.dsilva@gmail.com / rhea.dsilva@monash.edu