Disclaimer: Our advisors are esteemed leaders who believe that HfHR’s work is important and valuable, and have placed their trust in us by joining this team. They do not necessarily endorse all our statements and positions, and similarly, we do not necessarily endorse all their statements and positions.
Harsh Mander
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Harsh Mander, human rights and peace worker, writer, columnist, researcher and
teacher is Chairperson, Centre for Equity Studies, devoted to the analysis and
development of public policy and law for justice and rights of disadvantaged
groups.
To counter rising hate violence and lynching, he leads the national initiative called
the Karwan e Mohabbat www.karwanemohabbat.in or Caravan of Love, for
atonement, solidarity, healing, conscience and justice.
He is a PhD from Vrije University in Amsterdam. His thesis was titled Vulnerable
People and Policy Development in India: Designing State Interventions for
Hunger, Homelessness, Destitution and Targeted Violence.
He is visiting faculty in the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany
and Vrije University, Amsterdam, Holland.
A prolific writer, his 30 books include: ‘Under Grey Smoggy Skies: Living
Homeless on the Streets of India’s Cities’; ‘A Matter of Life and Death: The
Unfinished Journey to Secure Healthcare for All’; ‘Partitions of the Heart:
Unmaking the Idea of India’; ‘Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and a State That Failed
Its People: India’s Covid Tragedy’; ‘Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and
Indifference in New India’; and ‘Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle against
Hunger’.
As Member of the Indian Prime Minister’s National Advisory Council from June
2010-12, he helped draft many social rights legislations including the National
Food Security Bill.
He was Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food
case for twelve years from 2005-17, during which time he investigated starvation
deaths, and reviewed implementation and directed public policy reform for
advancing the right to food and nutrition in several states in India.
He was a Richard von Weizsacker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin in
2021-22. He was member and chairperson of the Advisory Board of Human
Rights Initiative of Open Societies Foundation from 2018-21. He was also Council
Member of Progressive International.
He helped initiate a number of initiatives for homeless people, including street
medicine and recovery shelters in many cities and over 60 residential schools for
homeless children.
He has made many significant interventions in India’s highest courts. For instance:
his petition to decriminalize beggary was allowed, which ended begging as a
crime after nearly a hundred years
his petition in the Supreme Court resulted in the reopening for investigation
of over 2000 criminal cases related to the Gujarat carnage of 2002 which
had been closed without trial.
a series of his interventions in the Supreme Court as Commissioner led to
orders making homeless shelters a legal duty for all state governments.
he petitioned against the detention of undocumented people deemed to be
‘foreigners’ in jails in inhuman conditions in Assam for nearly a decade;
he petitioned for food and livelihood security of migrants during the covid
pandemic
The Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg awarded him their
inaugural Human Rights Award 2022. The Peace Research Institute Oslo has
included him in its 2022 shortlist of people recommended for the Nobel Peace
Prize
He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of York in 2024.
Aakar Patel
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Aakar is a syndicated columnist who has edited English and Gujarati newspapers. His books include 'Why I Write', a translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s Urdu non-fiction (Tranquebar, 2014), 'Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here', a study of majoritarianism in India and Pakistan (Westland, 2020), 'Price of the Modi Years', a history of India after 2014 (Penguin Random House, 2021), 'The Anarchist Cookbook', a guide on why and how to protest (HarperCollins, 2022) and the novel 'After Messiah' (Vintage, 2023). He is Chair of Amnesty International India.
Rev. Abhi Janamanchi
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Rev. Abhi Janamanchi currently serves as senior minister of Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, Maryland. Born and raised in Southern India, Abhi moved to the United States in 1994. He is a third-generation member of the Brahmo Samaj with ties to Unitarian Universalism, a North American progressive religious movement.
Abhi has an undergraduate degree in physics from Andhra University and did graduate work in quantum mechanics at the same university. He graduated from Meadville Lombard Theological School in 1998 and was ordained the same year by the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Illinois. Before being called to Cedar Lane in 2013, Abhi served congregations in Clearwater, Florida, Madison, Wisconsin, and Park Forest, Illinois.
Abhi has been actively involved in international interfaith and multicultural work for three decades, including serving as president of the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF), as an Executive Committee member of the Faith Community Advisory Council of Montgomery County (FCAC), and as a founding member of the Tampa Bay Interreligious Council.
Abhi received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater Meadville Lombard in 2018. He is the co-editor and co-contributor of two books: Falling into the Sky: A Unitarian Universalist Meditation Anthology and Katha Sagar: Ocean of Hindu Stories. His Unitarian Universalist-Hindu faith and his Indian heritage continue to guide, challenge, and inspire him in his life, activism, and ministry.
Dr. Anand Teltumbde
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Besides being a scholar and practitioner in his formal disciplines of Technology and Management, with an illustrated corporate career spanning four decades at top management positions, and a decade as an academic, he maintained and excelled in his parallel career as a civil rights activist, writer, columnist and public intellectual right since his student days.
An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and PhD in Business Management, he is a fellow of many professional institutions. He published nearly two dozen research papers in reputed international journals and worked on editorial boards of some of them. He also had a stint in academia as Professor of Management at IIT, Kharagpur and thereafter as Senior Professor and Chair, Big Data Analytics in Goa Institute of Management, wherein he launched India’s first post-graduate programme in Management based on Big Data that is ranked among the top programmes right from its inception.
He immensely contributed to the civil rights movement in India as one of its founding pillars and contributed theoretical insights through his voluminous writings into most issues. He participated and led many fact finding missions and peoples’ struggle. He is General Secretary, Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), and a Presidium Member, All India Forum for Right to Education. A prolific writer, he has already published more than 30 books on contemporary issues, numerous papers and articles and wrote a column Margin Speak for a decade in Economic & Political Weekly before being arrested in the infamous Bhima-Koregaon case.
Father Anand Matthew
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Father Anand Mathew is an interfaith peace activist from Kerala based in Varanasi currently. He came to Varanasi in the 1970s as a member of the Indian Missionary Society to serve the rural poor. He embraced Varanasi’s multiculturalism and eclectic spirituality. Ordained a priest in 1987, he later co-founded his theatre troupe to spread social consciousness through street plays, stage dramas and puppet performances. He has directed more than 50 documentary films on socio-cultural issues, written and directed 28 stage plays and street plays for value education and social awareness and coordinated more than 8500 performances all over India. He is also the convener of Sanjha Sanskriti Manch, an alliance of social activists based in Varanasi and Director of Vishwa Jyoti Communications, a centre for media, art and culture which is committed to promotion of human rights, primary education, communal harmony, community building, and development through low-cost media.
Though anchored in Christianity and a believer in Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of cosmic consciousness, Father Anand draws from a broad swath of spiritual traditions to reach his fellow citizens, including Hindu mythology and Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence and civil resistance.
During COVID lockdown in India, through his various initiatives, Father Anand helped distribute food packets and essential items to more than 96,000 poor migrant workers, Muslim weavers, daily-wage earners and nomadic groups and promoted health awareness. He has also provided psychological help and spiritual support to the needy.
Dr. Anantanand Rambachan
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Dr. Anantanand Rambachan is Professor of Religion, Philosophy and Asian Studies at Saint Olaf College. He is also co-president of Religions for Peace. Rambachan has been involved in the field of interreligious relations and dialogue for over 30 years, as a Hindu participant and analyst. He is the author of several books including The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity (SUNY Press, 2012), Theology of Liberation: Not-Two is Not One (SUNY Press, 2014), Essays in Hindu Theology (Fortress, 2019). His writings include a series of commentaries on the Ramayana. The British Broadcasting Corporation transmitted a series of 25 of his lectures around the world.
Apoorvanand
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Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi university. He is a literary and cultural critic.
Dr. Balmurli Natrajan
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Dr. Balmurli Natrajan is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Community and Social Justice at William Paterson University of New Jersey, USA. His research is on group formation and social inequality, especially caste and race. Murli’s journey to anthropology has been from the high seas as a marine engineer on Indian merchant navy ships, and as a software developer in corporate America.
Dr. Natrajan’s books include Culturalization of Caste in India: Identity and Inequality in a Multicultural Age which explains the persistence of caste in India today, and a co-edited volume - Against Stigma: Studies in Caste, Race and Justice Since Durban (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2009) which is a comparative study of caste and race. Other scholarly and popular publications include – busting the myth of a vegetarian India, on the politics of beef, on authoritarian populism and vigilante culture, on anti-caste solidarity and myths about caste, and on the unionization of domestic workers in urban India. Currently, he is completing a collaborative book titled Toilet Theory - which is on how technology and social policy shapes human behavior. Murli is also actively engaged in solidarity work on South Asia in the USA.
Faisal Khan
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Faisal Khan is a Gandhian activist. He is the National Convener of Khudaikhidmatgar (Servants of God) India. He has been associated with the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) for the past 15 years, working for communal harmony and people’s empowerment. He has helped establish Sabka Ghar (The People’s House) in Delhi and Kanyakumari, dedicated to all those killed in the name of Religion, Caste, Gender, Race and Boundaries.
Dr. Khalid Anis Ansari
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Dr. Khalid Anis Ansari is an academic activist working as an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Arts & Sciences at Azim Premji University. His broad research pertains to social and cultural theory, postcolonial modernity, sociology of caste and religion, and minority studies. Khalid acquired his Ph.D. from the University of Humanistic Studies (UvH), the Netherlands, where his doctoral work explored the conceptual relationship between pluralism, democracy, and internal minorities through the case study of the anti-caste Pasmanda-Muslim movement in India.
Khalid advocates and engages passionately with the democratic and anti-caste social movements. He has published and lectured widely in reputed academic and popular spaces. Since 2021, he has been a research partner with the Simagine International Research Consortium and visiting scholar at the US-based advocacy and policy collective South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). E-mail: khalidanisansari@gmail.com, Twitter: @KhalidAAnsari4
K.P. Ramanunni
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K.P. Ramanunni is a Malayalam language novelist and short-story writer from Kerala, India. His first novel Sufi Paranja Katha (What the Sufi Said) won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1995 and the novel Daivathinte Pusthakam (God's Own Book) won the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award in 2017. He has been advocating for many years that practicing Hindus must oppose Hindu nationalism.
Dr. Linda Hess
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Dr. Linda Hess is a scholar of mystical/devotional poetry of North India, especially the 15th-century poet Kabir. She translates and writes about the poetry in its literary, religious, social, and performative contexts. Her publications include The Bijak of Kabir (with Shukdev Singh, 1983 and 2002 (Oxford University Press, New York); Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Performs the Poetry of Kabir (2009, Seagull Books, Calcutta); and Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India (2015, Oxford University Press in the USA and Permanent Black in India). She has also written about the 16th-century poet Tulsidas and the Ramlila of Ramnagar, an annual 30-day outdoor traveling performance in Varanasi that dramatizes the Rāmcharitmānas. Linda taught in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University for 21 years, retiring in 2017.
Mallika Sarabhai
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Mallika Sarabhai has been one of India’s leading choreographers and dancers for over four decades. In constant demand as a soloist and with her own dance company, Darpana, she has been creating and performing both classical and contemporary works. She has also produced over 3000 hours of television work talking about issues of the environment, women, communal harmony and violence, using the most popular genres of TV. She has a Ph.D. in Organisational Behaviour and has been honorary Director of Darpana Academy of Performing Arts for 40 years.
She first came to international notice when she played the role of Draupadi in Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata for 5 years, first in French and then English, performing in France, North America, Australia, Japan and Scotland.
Always an activist for societal education and women’s empowerment, Mallika began using her work for social change. In 1989 she created the first of her hard-hitting solo theatrical works, Shakti: The Power of Women. Since then Mallika has created numerous stage productions which have raised awareness, highlighted crucial issues and advocated change, several of which productions have toured internationally as well as throughout India.
In the mid-90s Mallika began to develop her own contemporary dance vocabulary and went on to create short and full-length works which have been presented in India and over 50 other countries.
Over the last 18 months she has motivated hundreds of people through her many webinars and interviews, and through Darpana’s project Nritya Parichay to bring mental health and self-esteem to thousands of marginalized youngsters. She is currently also teaching a course on India’s plural cultures to Ahmedabad University undergraduate students.
The government has appointed eminent danseuse Mallika Sarabhai as the chancellor of Kerala Kalamandalam, deemed to be university for art and culture based in Thrissur.
She was honored by the Government of India with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in India, in 2010 in recognition of her invaluable contribution to the arts.
Martin Macwan
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Born in 1959, Martin Macwan completed school with Psychology and Law, and awarded D.Litt. by ITM University at Gwalior. Engaged for past four decades in action with community to ensure eradication of caste discrimination and violence. Set up and has been part of setting up public institutions including Navsarjan Trust, Dalit Shakti Kendra, Dalit Foundation, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, to name the major ones.
Martin Macwan has been involved extensively with the Dalit movement at the grassroots, national, and international levels. As National Convenor of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) 1999 and 2001, he led the Indian Dalit contingent to the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) in Durban.The U.S.-based Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights presented him its Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2000. In the same year, Human Rights Watch named him one of the year's five "outstanding human rights defenders.
Martin’s current passion is the Dalit Shakti Kendra, primarily a vocational training centre serving economically and socially marginalized youth. DSK also provides personality development, leadership skills, social and political education, and a space for self-reflection and growth. A central part of the DSK’s philosophy is a redefinition of the word “Dalit”, thereby including Dalits from various economic, social and religious backgrounds.
Medha
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Medha is a poet, writer, journalist and campaigner, as well as Assistant Professor of Hindi in Satyavati College, University of Delhi. The feminist study of the Bhakti movement and Hindi literature of the post-colonial period is her speciality. In the wake of the economic liberalization of the early 1990s, Medha became involved in the movements of water-forest-land across the country. As a journalist, she writes in the mainstream media on alternative politics. Medha edited 'Samayik Varta,' a monthly magazine of alternative politics, started by the eminent socialist thinker Kishan Patnaik. She was also employed in Hindustan Times.
Medha founded a unique venture, Bhaktiversity, which she considers a revival of Bhakti movement. The Bhakti movement was pan-Indian and struggled with feudalism, brahminism, patriarchy, casteism, linguistic domination and all kinds of hierarchical tendencies, while preserving the beauty of diverse India. BhaktiVersity is committed to making real the love at the core of the Bhakti movement and also Sufi, Adivasi and other diverse Indian Traditions.
Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi
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Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi is the biographer and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. He is a research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois. He continues the work of his grandfather, trying to bring the world together through understanding and cooperation. Since September 11, 2001, he has addressed the issues between the West and the world of Islam.
Swara Bhasker
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Swara Bhasker is an award-winning actress from the Hindi Film industry popularly known as Bollywood starting her career in 2010, Swara got a break in the super hit film Tanu Weds Manu and went on to feature in many blockbusters like Raanjhanaa, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo, and Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Her solo starter films like Listen Amaya, Nil Battey Sannata, and Anaarkali of Aarah have been both critically acclaimed and some like Nil Battey Sannata have been major hits as well.
Swara’s choice of films and roles has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is expected from Bollywood heroines and Anaarkali and the blockbuster hit Veere di wedding are proof of the same. She also has starred in originals on Streaming platforms like Bhaag Beanie Bhaag on Netflix and Rasbhari on Amazon Prime Video.
Swara is known to be a rare voice from Bollywood for her willingness to engage in political and social issues. She has consistently spoken out for social justice causes, been a vocal critic of the growing majoritarian violence and persecution of minorities in India, and was active in the recent CAA NRC protests and a supporter of the Farmers protest.
One of the most viciously attacked and targeted figures on social media, Swara has maintained the importance of building alliances and solidarity across causes in the quest for a more just society.
Dr. Syeda Hameed
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Syeda Saiyidain Hameed is a feminist and writer, widely recognized for her engagement in public affairs and social issues, especially concerning women. She was a member of the Planning Commission of India from 2004-2014. She was a member of the National Commission for Women from 1997 to 2000.
Dr. Hameed was born in Kashmir. She completed her BA from Delhi University in 1963, and traveled to Wisconsin and Hawaii, in the United States of America, to complete her MA. She completed her Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Alberta, Canada in 1972.
In 2000 she wrote the first report ever on Muslim women, Voice of the Voiceless: Status of Muslim Women in India.
She has engaged with several Indian and international civil society organizations in initiating path-breaking changes. She is the founder of organizations such as Muslim Women’s Forum, Women’s Initiative for peace in South Asia (WIPSA), South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), and the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation.
Teesta Setalvad
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Teesta Setalvad is a senior journalist, academic and educationist who has worked with several Indian publications since 1983. Since 1993, she along with colleague-husband, Javed Anand launched Communalism Combat (a journal that has received kudos for its analysis and quality journalism) and Sabrang for its alternate approach to Exploratory MediaToday their web portal www.sabrangindia.in is well recognised. Setalvad is respected for her pioneering analysis and coverage of social violence against marginalised sections and has received the Padma Shri award from the President of India for Service in Public Affairs in Maharashtra. The fact that this academic base is accompanied by path breaking legal interventions, be it Gujarat from 2002 onwards, against Hate speech, since 1993 to date and the Citizenship Crisis in Assam and all India from 2017-2024 (to date) Setalvad and her organisation based in several stares have intervened in courts of law to ensure substantive justice for all survivors.
Setalvad is a founder Trustee and Secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (www.cjp.org.in) that is known for its pioneering human rights work in the courtroom, advocacy and training. (cjp.org.in) The NRC Citizenship Crisis, the Implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2002, Criminal Justice Reform, Hate Watch are some of the key projects of CJP apart from KHOJ (India’s only Education for a Plural India programme).
The Peace Mapping (Prevention of Violence Project has been evolved since 2008 with a wide network of grassroot level workers and software professionals. The Hate Hatao App that is a new initiative has been launched by CJP to hold to account those who spew hate.
Setalvad is well recognised for her analysis and coverage of social violence against marginalised sections and has received the Padma Shri award from the President of India for Service in Public Affairs in Maharashtra. Setalvad is also an educationist working on issues related to pluralism and democratic values in the curriculum especially related to the teaching of history and social studies. KHOJ Education for a Plural India programme is an innovative approach to middle school learning in conflict resolution and peace education.She is also the recipient of over two dozen international and national awards, including the Nuremberg Human Rights Award.
Journalist since 1983 (Reporter with The Daily & The Indian Express; Senior Correspondent with The Business India: Since August, 1993 Editor Communalism Combat ,Bombay, Educationist, Social and Human Rights Activist Secretary, Citizens for Justice and Peace, Mumbai, Director, KHOJ, Education for a Plural India Program. Path-breaking strides in explorative and analytical Indian journalism through Communalism Combat and web portal www.sabrang.com. Her writings can be read in the archives section of www.sabrang.com. Educator and Researcher in History and Social Studies since 1994; Curricular Writing and Teaching in the Classroom, running KHOJ India’s Education for a Plural India Project that has over the years since its inception, impacted over 40-50,000 Indian children. A lot of the pioneering work by KHOJ, led by Teesta Setalvad is reflected on the web portal www.khojedu.net. Authorship & Production of Alternate History and Social Studies Text books and Supplementary Materials in use in Municipal Schools and Private Schools as Supplementary Material Authored Multi-Media.
In 2015, Tullika Books published Beyond Doubt A Dossier on Gandhi’s Assassination, edited by Teesta Setalvad. In 2017, her work Teesta Setalvad – Footsoldier of the Constitution published by Leftword has already been translated into Punjabi, Hindi, Marathi and Tamil apart from its original in English. She is presently working on three other books.
T.M. Krishna
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T. M. Krishna is a Carnatic music vocalist, writer, activist and author. As an activist, he has championed a number of causes connected to the environment, the caste system, communalism, religious reform, and reform of social practices. He has written three books, ‘Voices Within: Carnatic Music — Passing on an Inheritance‘ (2007), ‘A Southern Music — The Karnatik Story‘ (2013) and more recently ‘Reshaping Art‘ (2018). Apart from this, he has written extensively in the media. His forthcoming book Sebastian and Sons traces the history of the mridangam-maker and the mridangam over the past 100 years. He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2016 for ‘his forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions’.