Dr Sanjukta Basu

Activist, Artist, Atheist, Blogger, Concerned citizen, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Explorer, Idea generator, Job-seeker, Journalist, Life mentor, Photographer, Single, World traveler, Writer/Editor

Dr Sanjukta Basu is a feminist scholar, journalist and communications and advocacy specialist with nearly 20 years of experience. Also a writer, photographer and blogger. Sanjukta studied B.A. LLB, and started her career in 2003 as a legal researcher. Over the years, she shifted her interests to digital communications, advocacy, campaigns, and journalism. She has worked with some of India's leading nonprofits. In 2016, with years of industry experience, she went back to the university and successfully pursued a Master’s degree and PhD in Women's Studies. Her PhD thesis titled, “Indian Women’s Political Space on the Internet: A Case Study of Gender Trolling” is a path-breaking study which examined the phenomenon of right-wing political trolling from the perspective of women who faced it by documenting their experiences of violence, trauma, anxiety and fortitude. The autoethnographic study examines how in its early years, internet offered women the spatial ability to articulate and express their political and existential “self” which then got adversely impacted by trolling. The research puts the auto-ethnographer's 'self' at the centre and branches out to similarly situated women creating bonds of care and empathy and builds a shared collaborative narrative. Her other research interests include digital media, women and gender, far-right politics, and spatial justice. As a Journalist/Editor Basu has written over 200 articles including original reports, features, interviews, opinion columns, and photo documentaries for platforms such as Firstpost, Huffington Post India, India Times, The Wire, Daily O, Women's Web, Grazia Magazine, Global Voices and National Herald. As a creative writer, Basu has co-authored the political auto-biography, ‘Corruption, CBI and I’, with Ex-CBI Joint Director Shantonu Sen, published by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Authors Upfront. She also contributed a chapter each in two political non-fictions, and an academic volume. She also wrote positive impact stories for nonprofit organization Azad Foundation, a training manual for Centre for Media Studies-UNESCO. Basu’s photography works include journalistic, documentary, events and artistic wedding photography. Her photo series on TED Fellow Babar Ali’s school in Murshidabad, West Bengal have been published by media houses across the globe, reaching audiences in France, Canada, Sweden, Germany, UK and more. Her photography project “Women with Tattoos” which breaks the gender-stereotypes against tattooed women gained widespread media attention and accolades. In 2021, Basu spoke at the “Tattoos and Taboos, Unpacking the Changing Nature of Contemporary Tattoo Culture in India” event by Bangalore International Centre in collaboration with Museum of Art & Photography. Her travel and photo documentary project “Where Are the Women” which deals with the question of gender and public space in five Indian metro cities was published as a series on Firstpost, and has since gained recognition in both nonprofits and academic circles. Basu is one of India’s earliest bloggers and digital activists. Her personal blog, This is My Truth, started in 2005 as a tool of feminist politics blurring the lines between public and private and has since then published over 700 posts gaining close to a million views. Between 2005 to 2009, Basu led the Bloggers communities in Delhi and Bengaluru to numerous social-political activities which gained public and media attention. In 2009, she received the TED Fellowship for her blogging activities. In 2017, Femina Magazine recognized it as one of India’s the top 50 women-led blogs and Women’s Web listed Basu amongst India’s top 11 feminist bloggers. She is also a mini Twitter influencer with over 40k followers and formerly a blue tick verified profile. Her followers include leading political leaders, journalists, film stars and other artists. Basu is a prolific speaker, with three TEDx talks, and over two dozen other talks at national and international conferences such as Digital India Summit, Delhi, Jstor and Ithaca Summit, Bengaluru, and universities, including Delhi University, Jamia Milia Islamia, IGNOU, Apeejay Institute of Mass Communications, GL Bajaj Institute of Management and Research, and Northumbria University, Newcastle, United Kingdom. In 2024, Sanjukta presented her research papers at several academic conferences, Social Media and Society Conference, July 2024, at London College of Communications, the British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS) Annual Conference, September 2024, King’s India Institute, King’s College London, and New Media and Its Publics Conference, April 2024, SRM University, Andhra Pradesh, India. Basu was awarded for her work in the field of “Feminist Journalism” by Indian Council for UN Relations on the occasion of International Women’s Day Celebrations, 2024.

Helping people tell their stories and spreading knowledge to fill the narrative gaps in public imagination. Philosopher Immanuel Kant said that it is the duty of everyone with knowledge and reason to go out in public and share it. Kant believed that human beings are born with a sense of right and wrong but they live under a self-imposes immaturity and are never sure of their thinking. Liberation from the self imposed immaturity or tutelage is enlightenment which can happen when they gain knowledge and reason from someone they see as knowledgeable. By public use of reason we can gain enlightenment. It's also true for public stories. By telling our stories we can challenge public imagination. We can fill the knowledge gaps and narrative gaps. That's what I like to do the most through my written words.

Write. Build. Share. Inspire. From the dawn of civilization women have been removed from their own stories. They were not allowed to read or write, discouraged from speaking about themselves in public. They remained objects of the male gaze, male creativity, male poetry and what not. Thus, for the longest time they did not have the means to represent themselves in the public sphere. Though we have come a long way with over 300 years of speaking up on women's rights and their place in the world. Still, even today, women's access to public sphere is fraught with innumerable challenges. My idea worth sharing is that women must enter and reclaim their space in the public sphere through their life narrative. Philosopher Hannah Arendt said that human beings are born equal but also distinct, and our distinctness is conveyed through our speech and action in the public realm. We gain our specific humanity only when we insert ourselves in the world through our narratives. This is our second birth, she said. I had my second birth when I started writing about my personal life on a public blog. I gained my life's identity, meaning and purpose through my writings on my blogs, micro blogs and other platforms. I carved out a space of my own in the world through my writing. I call upon all women to reclaim your story by writing about it. Write about your experiences, feelings, success, failures, fear, shame, pride, vanity, write about everything without fear or shame. Do not second guess about, "Who will read my story? Why would anybody care? Won't they think I am vain or attention-seeking or this and that...?" Just lose all inhibitions and write. One woman's story, no matter how dark or embarrassing, is another woman's hope and inspiration because despite all the darkness you endured, you survived to tell the tale. This is the 21st century, everything else have been thought of and tried. The only thing yet to be done is your life. It's your most original idea and project. Own it, build it, write about it and etch yourself in the world.

Academic writing, creative writing, digital communication, feminism, feminist research, gender research, life narrative, politics, public speaker, qualitative research, storytelling, women's rights

Something extraordinary happened which catapulted me into the bandwagon of some of the greatest mind, a group I always thought I don’t belong to. Because you know, I didn't have foreign degrees or PhD, I didn’t go to Harvard, I am no IITian, IIMite or ISBite, I am no school topper, I never won a medal or a trophy for academics. I am very ordinary compared to my fellow TED Fellows. Then what makes me special? Why I deserve to be here? What did I do? Honestly, I don't know except that I was just being me all my life and that got me this far. If there is anything about me that I am proud of, it's my identity in all its imperfection and that’s what inspires people. My thanks to friend Md Tauheed who nominated, inspired, encouraged & insisted me to apply for TED, I wouldn't have otherwise.

...dancing, singing Bollywood numbers, cooking, laughing, breaking silence, listening, talking