Inlaks Shivdasani Fellowship for Social Engagement 2022: Anjali Menon, Ashwini Wooike and Harsh Bora
The Inlaks Shivdasani Fellowship for Social Engagement debuted in 2022. The fellows for the principal year are, Anjali Menon, Ashwini Wooike, Harsh Bora, Taukeer Alam, Saurabh Kumar and Vardini Sukumar .
The fellowship will give young professionals the opportunity to work with a mentor of their choice on a socially relevant theme and contribute to issues of public importance. The fellowship aims to increase participation in public life among young people while encouraging them to challenge the status quo.
In a two-part post series we will be introducing this year’s fellows. This week we have Anjali Menon, Ashwini Wooike and Harsh Bora.
Anjali Menon
Anjali Menon is a writer, and a visual artist based in Bangalore. Her areas of interest include, gender, storytelling, sexual violence, personal narratives, and accessibility. Through this fellowship, she is working with narrative research methodologies and storytelling and aiming to produce a long-form narrative that explores the nuances of sexual violence and trauma. Her work revolves around producing alternative narratives that centre the lived experiences of people.
Ashwini Wooike
Ashwini Wooike is a rural legal practitioner from Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. She is working with marginalized groups in scheduled areas on land issues, tribal rights and women’s rights. She is the founder of Netrutva Foundation, which works to secure a dignified livelihood for the marginalized in scheduled areas.
Through this fellowship Ashwini will be undertaking empirical research on "A study of factors affecting Gram Sabha in achieving empowerment and self-governance through implementation of PESA and FRA” in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, which will be produced as a report.
Harsh Bora
Harsh Bora is a criminal lawyer practicing in Delhi. He has a decade’s experience in civil liberties work. Most notably, he was involved in the 1987-Hashimpura massacre case, which secured the conviction of 16 policemen for “targeted killing” of unarmed persons. His interest lies in issues of false prosecutions, excessive incarcerations, custodial violence, and police brutalities against marginalised groups.
During this fellowship he intends to litigate criminal cases of abuses of policing powers like false prosecutions and custodial violence. Since knowledge sharing is a key component of his work, he will also produce a litigation resource manual for other lawyers, activists etc.
