Angana P. Chatterji
Encyclopedia
Angana P. Chatterji is an anthropologist and feminist historian, born and raised in Calcutta, India. She has worked as an advocate for human rights with communities, organizations, government and citizens groups, and government and donor agencies. Her research work focuses on India and South Asia, in the "biopolitical governance and identity politics; nationalisms, self-determination, and gendered violence; development, globalization, and cultural survival". She joined the faculty of California Institute of Integral Studies
(CIIS, San Francisco) in 1997, where she is now full professor. As of October 2011, the Academic Vice President of CIIS has recommended her termination to a Faculty Hearing Board, and an investigation has been underway since early 2011 . Presently, she is suspended and disallowed from teaching at CIIS.
Angana Chatterji is a co-convener of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. She has worked on the issues of militarized governance, gender and identity, and self-determination in Indian-administered Kashmir. Other than Kashmir, she has also worked on Hindu nationalism
and communal violence in Orissa. At CIIS, she has also done research work on the issues of "hyper-nationalism, diaspora, and identity politics" in the United States.
activist against British colonialism. She is the great great granddaughter of Gooroodas Banerjee
, the first Indian Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta
and an eminent judge.
She was raised in the communally-tense suburbs of Narkeldanga and Rajabazar in Calcutta, in the late 1960s and 1970s. Her family consisted of mixed caste parents, grandmothers, and Muslim and Catholic aunts.
Chatterji moved from Kolkata to Delhi
in 1984, and then to the USA in the 1990s. She retains her Indian citizenship and is a permanent resident of the United States. Her formal education comprises a BA
and an MA
in Political Science
. She also holds a PhD
in the Humanities from CIIS, where she later became a professor. Her life partner is Richard Shapiro, an associate professor at CIIS in the same department as Chatterji. Shapiro is also under suspension and investigation at CIIS, and his termination has also been recommended by the Academic Vice President of that institute.
. It is no longer housed here and Chatterji has no affiliation with the University of California, Berkeley. During the same period, she also worked on various specific assignments mandated by the Indian Social Institute
and the Planning Commission of India.
Chatterji joined the faculty of the CIIS
in 1997, and is now a full professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology there. Her social and academic activism is related to anthropology, since she examines issues of class, gender, race, religion, and sexuality as they are formed by background (history) and place (geography). She employs experimental methodologies including genealogy
, archaeology and applied participatory research. At CIIS, she worked wtth her colleague and domestic partner Richard Shapiro to create a new academic center focused on postcolonial anthropology. After 9/11, Chatterji convened a series of public peace and justice panel discussions at CIIS.
's slums and resettlement colonies. In 1996, based on participatory research on indigenous and Dalit
land rights issues and on caste inequities, she self-published a monograph Community Forest Management in Arabari: Understanding Socioeconomic and Subsistence Issues. In 2004, She co-edited with Lubna Nazir Chaudhury a special issue of Cultural Dynamics (a Sage Publications journal) entitled "Gendered Violence in South Asia: Nation and Community in The Postcolonial Present" In 2005, she co-edited a book with Shabnam Hashmi entitled Dark Leaves of the Present which was non-scholarly and intended for the general public to read. In March 2009, after 6.5 years of collaborative and theoretical research, she produced a study on Hindu nationalism entitled Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India's Present; Narratives from Orissa, published by Three Essays Collective, which received favourable reviews in popular periodicals, and has been reviewed by American Ethnologist.
, she is working on two forthcoming titles: Land and Justice: The Struggle for Cultural Survival and a co-edited volume Contesting Nation: Gendered Violence in South Asia; Notes on the Postcolonial Present.
(NBA, "Save the Narmada Movement"). The movement campaigns against the building of a series of thousands of dams on the Narmada river in western India, as part of the Sardar Sarovar Project, which have resulted in the displacement of rural communities. Chatterji wrote on the issue, criticizing the project. She also organized or participated in actions in solidarity with dam-affected peoples, such as visits to the Narmada, one of which included questioning from the Gujarat police. She also participated in a three-day fast in front of the World Bank
in Washington D.C. in 2004. In 2004 she and Harsh Mander
led an inquiry commission on the experiences and struggles of persons affected by the Indira Sagar dam, one of the 30 mega-dams on the Narmada.
Following work in Delhi slums (1989–90), Rajasthan (1990), and Arabari in Medinipur, West Bengal
(1993–96), Chatterji began working in the eastern Indian state of Orissa
in 1995 with communities on forest land reform and community governance of land. With Ashok Babu and Vasundhara, she worked with, and initiated, processes with village groups in Orissa
for sustainable governance of local resources, in ways that support women's leadership.
, when she worked in relief camps and the 2002 Gujarat violence
, she started focusing her work on the rise of Hindu nationalism
(Hindutva
) in Orissa
. She wrote several articles on the topic, including Orissa: A Gujarat In The making (November 2003), which warned about the impending Hindu majoritarian violence against minority Christian groups in Orissa, largely of Dalit and Adivasi descent, and Muslims.
In 2005, she co-convened a People's Tribunal to record testimonials on the experiences and concerns of different stata of people on the rise of the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar
in Orissa. In this, Chatterji worked with Indian People's Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights, with Mihir Desai, Retired Chief Justice K.K. Usha of Kerala, Sudhir Pattnaik, Ram Puniyani, Colin Gonsalves
and others. In June 2005, as the People's Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa was ongoing, Sangh members disrupted the Tribunal's proceedings. Angana Chatterji claimed that the Sangh Parivar activists threatened to rape and parade the women members of the Tribunal. The Tribunal released a detailed report in October 2006, warning of future violence.
After the outbreak of violence between the Hindu and Christian groups in December 2007, Chatterji testified to the Panigrahi Commission against the Sangh Parivar groups, and warned of further violence. She wrote articles criticizing the Hindutva groups, when fresh religious violence broke out in Orissa after the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda
in August 2008. In December 2008 she testified before a U.S. Congressional Taskforce on International Religious Freedom regarding the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Orissa, and submitted recommendations to the taskforce shortly after.
In March 2009, she published Violent Gods, which documents the "Hindu nationalism's brutality" in Orissa, including the violence of 2007 and 2008. The historian and activist K. N. Panikkar
described it as "by far the most outstanding work on the subject".
service organizations in India by Maryland-based India Development and Relief Fund.
In 2005, she helped form and worked with the Coalition Against Genocide
to raise public awareness and protest the visit of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi
to the United States as an honored guest. She co-authored the report, "Genocide in Gujarat The Sangh Parivar, Narendra Modi, and the Government of Gujarat". The Coalition's activism led to Narendra Modi being denied visa to the United States. Chatterji's work triggered strong responses from the Sangh Parivar and its supporters in India and US.
, at the invitation of Parvez Imroz
, a human rights lawyer and a civil rights activist in Srinagar. In April 2008, the two co-founded and co-convened the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice (IPTK), which aims to document and internationally publicize the human rights abuses and state violence in the Indian-Administered Kashmir. The Tribunal also sought to document the state of juvenile justice, prisoner rights, the use of landmines, illegal detentions, and minority issues. It also aimed to analyze the conditions in Kashmir wrought by the present of Indian military, and the alleged subjugation of movements for self-determination.
In June 2008, Chatterji and Imroz alleged harassment and intimidation by the Indian security forces. In July of the same year, she wrote about the "mass graves" in Indian-administered Kashmir. Chatterji was legally charged by the Kashmir Police with inciting and acting against the state for her work on the mass graves. In July 2008, Chatterji and Imroz were invited by the Human Rights Subcommittee of the European Parliament to testify on the mass graves in Indian-administered Kashmir. In April 2009, Chatterji was featured in MTV
-Iggy's media public-awareness campaign on Kashmir, describing the work of the Tribunal and the struggle in militarized Kashmir.
During the 2008 Kashmir unrest, she accused the Indian state of using violence against the non-violent protestors, and submitted a collaboratively researched letter to Dr. Philip Alston
the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. The dossier documented a "list of 51/52 civilians reportedly killed by Indian military and paramilitary forces; and a list of reported attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and vehicles." In February 2009, the Tribunal sent a memorandum to the new Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah
, asking for the state government's attentiveness to the alleged disappearances, fake encounter killings, torture, gendered violence, the rights of former militants and landmines.
When the 2009 Shopian rape and murder case triggered fresh protests in Kashmir during May–July, the Tribunal released a report, criticizing the state's failures to secure justice for the women, their family, and the community. On December 30, 2009, the Majils-e-Mashawarat, the citizens group leading the protest of the rape and killing of the two women, approached the Tribunal to conduct an inquiry into the case. The Tribunal took up the investigation in January 2010.
On 12 November 2009, Chatterji was invited as a speaker during the Kashmir Initiative, a series of speaking events organizd by the Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
.
On 2 December 2009, the Tribunal released a report titled Buried Evidence: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-administered Kashmir, detailing its verification of 2700 unknown, unmarked, and "mass graves", holding more than 2,943 bodies across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara districts. The report received extensive national and international news coverage. On 6 June 2010, the Tribunal released a brief on the alleged fake-encounter killings of Shahzad Ahmad, Riyaz Ahmad, and Mohammad Shafi in Kupwara district, titled "Fake Encounters and State Terror in Kashmir. Chatterji presented the findings of the "Buried Evidence" report before the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir (APPG-K) of the U.K. Parliament on 16 June 2010, urging "international and independent investigations into the issue of fake encounters, disappearances, and unknown and mass graves" and asked the U.K. Parliament to "reintroduce and pass the Early Day Motion #433, introduced in the House of Commons... on December 10, 2009, based on IPTK’s report". In 2011, the State Human Rights Commission of Jammu and Kashmir corroborated the IPTK's report.
During the upheaval of the summer of 2010, the Tribunal held a press conference on June 29, releasing a statement analyzing the political context of the protests, noting that within the last six months in Indian-administered Kashmir. It criticized the approach of the Indian state as "aggressively militaristic", and accused the Government of not engaging the civil society or the "pro-freedom leadership". It also submitted an appeal to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, giving details of 51 civilian deaths. In response to the arrest of Advocate Mian Qayoom, President of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association in Srinagar, the Tribunal also released a statement on July 15, noting the "permanent 'state of exception' in Kashmir" and raising concerns that national security laws, such as the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978, are being "used arbitrarily in Indian-administered Kashmir to repress dissent without due cause or process".
On August 30, 2010, Chatterji was announced as a member of Advisory Board of the Kashmir Initiative at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy of Harvard Kennedy School.
In November 2010, Chatterji's life partner, Richard Shapiro, was denied entry into India by immigration authorities at the Delhi airport, and was forced to return to the United States. Though no official reason was given to Shapiro by the authorities for his entry denial, many suspect that he had been denied due to Chatterji's work on human rights issues in Kashmir.
In October 2011, Verso Press published the book Kashmir: The Case for Freedom, of which Chatterji is a contributing authors.
California Institute of Integral Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...
(CIIS, San Francisco) in 1997, where she is now full professor. As of October 2011, the Academic Vice President of CIIS has recommended her termination to a Faculty Hearing Board, and an investigation has been underway since early 2011 . Presently, she is suspended and disallowed from teaching at CIIS.
Angana Chatterji is a co-convener of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. She has worked on the issues of militarized governance, gender and identity, and self-determination in Indian-administered Kashmir. Other than Kashmir, she has also worked on Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India...
and communal violence in Orissa. At CIIS, she has also done research work on the issues of "hyper-nationalism, diaspora, and identity politics" in the United States.
Personal life
Angana Chatterji is the daughter of Anubha Sengupta Chatterji and Bhola Chatterji. Her father, Bhola Chatterji (1922–1992), was a socialist Indian independenceIndian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
activist against British colonialism. She is the great great granddaughter of Gooroodas Banerjee
Gooroodas Banerjee
Sir Gooroodas Banerjee, KCIE was a Bengali Indian judge of the Calcutta High Court. In 1890, he also became the first Indian Vice-Chancellor of University of Calcutta...
, the first Indian Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
and an eminent judge.
She was raised in the communally-tense suburbs of Narkeldanga and Rajabazar in Calcutta, in the late 1960s and 1970s. Her family consisted of mixed caste parents, grandmothers, and Muslim and Catholic aunts.
Chatterji moved from Kolkata to Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
in 1984, and then to the USA in the 1990s. She retains her Indian citizenship and is a permanent resident of the United States. Her formal education comprises a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
and an MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
. She also holds a PhD
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in the Humanities from CIIS, where she later became a professor. Her life partner is Richard Shapiro, an associate professor at CIIS in the same department as Chatterji. Shapiro is also under suspension and investigation at CIIS, and his termination has also been recommended by the Academic Vice President of that institute.
Academic career
Between 1989 to 1997 (after graduation), Chatterji served as director of research at the Asia Forest Network, an environmental advocacy group which was briefly housed at the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. It is no longer housed here and Chatterji has no affiliation with the University of California, Berkeley. During the same period, she also worked on various specific assignments mandated by the Indian Social Institute
Indian Social Institute
The Indian Social Institute [ISI], founded in 1951 in Pune , is a Jesuit inspired centre for research, training and action for socio-economic development and human rights in India...
and the Planning Commission of India.
Chatterji joined the faculty of the CIIS
California Institute of Integral Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...
in 1997, and is now a full professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology there. Her social and academic activism is related to anthropology, since she examines issues of class, gender, race, religion, and sexuality as they are formed by background (history) and place (geography). She employs experimental methodologies including genealogy
Genealogy (philosophy)
In philosophy, genealogy is a historical technique in which one questions the commonly understood emergence of various philosophical and social beliefs by showing alternative and subversive histories of their development...
, archaeology and applied participatory research. At CIIS, she worked wtth her colleague and domestic partner Richard Shapiro to create a new academic center focused on postcolonial anthropology. After 9/11, Chatterji convened a series of public peace and justice panel discussions at CIIS.
Research and publications
Chatterji's publications include research monographs, reports and books. In 1990, she co-published a report on immigrant women's rights in DelhiDelhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
's slums and resettlement colonies. In 1996, based on participatory research on indigenous and Dalit
Dalit
Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...
land rights issues and on caste inequities, she self-published a monograph Community Forest Management in Arabari: Understanding Socioeconomic and Subsistence Issues. In 2004, She co-edited with Lubna Nazir Chaudhury a special issue of Cultural Dynamics (a Sage Publications journal) entitled "Gendered Violence in South Asia: Nation and Community in The Postcolonial Present" In 2005, she co-edited a book with Shabnam Hashmi entitled Dark Leaves of the Present which was non-scholarly and intended for the general public to read. In March 2009, after 6.5 years of collaborative and theoretical research, she produced a study on Hindu nationalism entitled Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India's Present; Narratives from Orissa, published by Three Essays Collective, which received favourable reviews in popular periodicals, and has been reviewed by American Ethnologist.
, she is working on two forthcoming titles: Land and Justice: The Struggle for Cultural Survival and a co-edited volume Contesting Nation: Gendered Violence in South Asia; Notes on the Postcolonial Present.
Land struggles
In 1989, Chatterji became involved with the work of the Narmada Bachao AndolanNarmada Bachao Andolan
Narmada Bachao Andolan is social movement consisting of tribal people, adivasis, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the Narmada river, Gujarat, India....
(NBA, "Save the Narmada Movement"). The movement campaigns against the building of a series of thousands of dams on the Narmada river in western India, as part of the Sardar Sarovar Project, which have resulted in the displacement of rural communities. Chatterji wrote on the issue, criticizing the project. She also organized or participated in actions in solidarity with dam-affected peoples, such as visits to the Narmada, one of which included questioning from the Gujarat police. She also participated in a three-day fast in front of the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
in Washington D.C. in 2004. In 2004 she and Harsh Mander
Harsh Mander
Harsh Mander is an Indian social activist and writer. He came into prominence after 2002 Gujarat riots and heads "Aman Biradari" which work for communal harmony. He became member of National Advisory Council of the UPA government in 2010 and special commissioner to the Supreme Court...
led an inquiry commission on the experiences and struggles of persons affected by the Indira Sagar dam, one of the 30 mega-dams on the Narmada.
Following work in Delhi slums (1989–90), Rajasthan (1990), and Arabari in Medinipur, West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
(1993–96), Chatterji began working in the eastern Indian state of Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
in 1995 with communities on forest land reform and community governance of land. With Ashok Babu and Vasundhara, she worked with, and initiated, processes with village groups in Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
for sustainable governance of local resources, in ways that support women's leadership.
Hindu nationalism
Influenced by the 1984 anti-Sikh riots1984 anti-Sikh riots
The 1984 Anti-Sikh pogroms / riots or the 1984 Sikh Massacre was a sikh genocide there was four days of violence in northern India, particularly Delhi, during which armed mobs killed Sikhs, looted and set fire to Sikh homes, businesses and schools, and attacked gurdwaras, in response to the...
, when she worked in relief camps and the 2002 Gujarat violence
2002 Gujarat violence
The 2002 Gujarat violence describes the Godhra train burning and resulting communal riots between Hindus and Muslims. On 27 February 2002 at Godhra City in the state of Gujarat, the Sabarmati Express train was attacked by a large Muslim mob in a conspiracy. But some authentic sources deny the claim...
, she started focusing her work on the rise of Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India...
(Hindutva
Hindutva
Hindutva is the term used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavādis.In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva...
) in Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
. She wrote several articles on the topic, including Orissa: A Gujarat In The making (November 2003), which warned about the impending Hindu majoritarian violence against minority Christian groups in Orissa, largely of Dalit and Adivasi descent, and Muslims.
In 2005, she co-convened a People's Tribunal to record testimonials on the experiences and concerns of different stata of people on the rise of the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar
Sangh Parivar
The Sangh Parivar refers to the family of organisations of Hindu nationalists which have been started by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or are inspired by its ideas. The Sangh Parivar represents the Hindu nationalist movement. It includes the RSS and several dozen smaller...
in Orissa. In this, Chatterji worked with Indian People's Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights, with Mihir Desai, Retired Chief Justice K.K. Usha of Kerala, Sudhir Pattnaik, Ram Puniyani, Colin Gonsalves
Colin Gonsalves
Colin Gonsalves is a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India. He is also the Founder Director of Human Rights Law Network . A pioneer in the field of public interest litigation in India, he has successfully brought a number of cases dealing with economic, social and cultural rights...
and others. In June 2005, as the People's Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa was ongoing, Sangh members disrupted the Tribunal's proceedings. Angana Chatterji claimed that the Sangh Parivar activists threatened to rape and parade the women members of the Tribunal. The Tribunal released a detailed report in October 2006, warning of future violence.
After the outbreak of violence between the Hindu and Christian groups in December 2007, Chatterji testified to the Panigrahi Commission against the Sangh Parivar groups, and warned of further violence. She wrote articles criticizing the Hindutva groups, when fresh religious violence broke out in Orissa after the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda
Murder of Swami Lakshmanananda
Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati and four others were murdered in August 2008 in the Orissa state of India. Swami Lakshmanananda was a Hindu monk and a highly revered spiritual leader who lived a life dedicated to tribal welfare...
in August 2008. In December 2008 she testified before a U.S. Congressional Taskforce on International Religious Freedom regarding the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Orissa, and submitted recommendations to the taskforce shortly after.
In March 2009, she published Violent Gods, which documents the "Hindu nationalism's brutality" in Orissa, including the violence of 2007 and 2008. The historian and activist K. N. Panikkar
K. N. Panikkar
K. N. Panikkar is an Indian historian, associated with the "Marxist school" of historiography.Panikkar was Professor of Modern Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University . Prior to joining JNU, he taught at University of Delhi. In 2001, he was appointed as the...
described it as "by far the most outstanding work on the subject".
Diasporic Hindu Nationalism in the USA
In 2002, Chatterji worked with the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate in the production of a report on the funding of Sangh ParivarSangh Parivar
The Sangh Parivar refers to the family of organisations of Hindu nationalists which have been started by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or are inspired by its ideas. The Sangh Parivar represents the Hindu nationalist movement. It includes the RSS and several dozen smaller...
service organizations in India by Maryland-based India Development and Relief Fund.
In 2005, she helped form and worked with the Coalition Against Genocide
Coalition Against Genocide
The Coalition Against Genocide is a coalition of about 40 organisations mostly based in the United States and Canada, including, among others, the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate and Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, as well as individuals, who aim to respond to the 2002 Gujarat...
to raise public awareness and protest the visit of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi
Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi is the current Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat.He was born in a middle class family in Vadnagar; and is a member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since childhood, as also an active politician since early in life. He holds a masters degree in political...
to the United States as an honored guest. She co-authored the report, "Genocide in Gujarat The Sangh Parivar, Narendra Modi, and the Government of Gujarat". The Coalition's activism led to Narendra Modi being denied visa to the United States. Chatterji's work triggered strong responses from the Sangh Parivar and its supporters in India and US.
Indian-Administered Kashmir
In 2006, Chatterji began working with organizations in the Indian-administered KashmirKashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
, at the invitation of Parvez Imroz
Parvez Imroz
Parvez Imroz is a controversial human rights lawyer and a civil rights activist in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir. He is founder and President of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society that works to build local alliances between Kashmiri civil society groups...
, a human rights lawyer and a civil rights activist in Srinagar. In April 2008, the two co-founded and co-convened the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice (IPTK), which aims to document and internationally publicize the human rights abuses and state violence in the Indian-Administered Kashmir. The Tribunal also sought to document the state of juvenile justice, prisoner rights, the use of landmines, illegal detentions, and minority issues. It also aimed to analyze the conditions in Kashmir wrought by the present of Indian military, and the alleged subjugation of movements for self-determination.
In June 2008, Chatterji and Imroz alleged harassment and intimidation by the Indian security forces. In July of the same year, she wrote about the "mass graves" in Indian-administered Kashmir. Chatterji was legally charged by the Kashmir Police with inciting and acting against the state for her work on the mass graves. In July 2008, Chatterji and Imroz were invited by the Human Rights Subcommittee of the European Parliament to testify on the mass graves in Indian-administered Kashmir. In April 2009, Chatterji was featured in MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
-Iggy's media public-awareness campaign on Kashmir, describing the work of the Tribunal and the struggle in militarized Kashmir.
During the 2008 Kashmir unrest, she accused the Indian state of using violence against the non-violent protestors, and submitted a collaboratively researched letter to Dr. Philip Alston
Philip Alston
Philip G. Alston is an international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-Chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice...
the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. The dossier documented a "list of 51/52 civilians reportedly killed by Indian military and paramilitary forces; and a list of reported attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and vehicles." In February 2009, the Tribunal sent a memorandum to the new Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah
Omar Abdullah
Omar Abdullah , born 10 March 1970 in United Kingdom, is an Indian Kashmiri politician and the scion of Kashmir's 'first family', the Abdullah family who became the 11th and the youngest Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir after forming a government in coalition with the Congress party, on...
, asking for the state government's attentiveness to the alleged disappearances, fake encounter killings, torture, gendered violence, the rights of former militants and landmines.
When the 2009 Shopian rape and murder case triggered fresh protests in Kashmir during May–July, the Tribunal released a report, criticizing the state's failures to secure justice for the women, their family, and the community. On December 30, 2009, the Majils-e-Mashawarat, the citizens group leading the protest of the rape and killing of the two women, approached the Tribunal to conduct an inquiry into the case. The Tribunal took up the investigation in January 2010.
On 12 November 2009, Chatterji was invited as a speaker during the Kashmir Initiative, a series of speaking events organizd by the Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is research center concerned with human rights, and is located at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University....
.
On 2 December 2009, the Tribunal released a report titled Buried Evidence: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-administered Kashmir, detailing its verification of 2700 unknown, unmarked, and "mass graves", holding more than 2,943 bodies across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara districts. The report received extensive national and international news coverage. On 6 June 2010, the Tribunal released a brief on the alleged fake-encounter killings of Shahzad Ahmad, Riyaz Ahmad, and Mohammad Shafi in Kupwara district, titled "Fake Encounters and State Terror in Kashmir. Chatterji presented the findings of the "Buried Evidence" report before the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir (APPG-K) of the U.K. Parliament on 16 June 2010, urging "international and independent investigations into the issue of fake encounters, disappearances, and unknown and mass graves" and asked the U.K. Parliament to "reintroduce and pass the Early Day Motion #433, introduced in the House of Commons... on December 10, 2009, based on IPTK’s report". In 2011, the State Human Rights Commission of Jammu and Kashmir corroborated the IPTK's report.
During the upheaval of the summer of 2010, the Tribunal held a press conference on June 29, releasing a statement analyzing the political context of the protests, noting that within the last six months in Indian-administered Kashmir. It criticized the approach of the Indian state as "aggressively militaristic", and accused the Government of not engaging the civil society or the "pro-freedom leadership". It also submitted an appeal to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, giving details of 51 civilian deaths. In response to the arrest of Advocate Mian Qayoom, President of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association in Srinagar, the Tribunal also released a statement on July 15, noting the "permanent 'state of exception' in Kashmir" and raising concerns that national security laws, such as the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978, are being "used arbitrarily in Indian-administered Kashmir to repress dissent without due cause or process".
On August 30, 2010, Chatterji was announced as a member of Advisory Board of the Kashmir Initiative at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy of Harvard Kennedy School.
In November 2010, Chatterji's life partner, Richard Shapiro, was denied entry into India by immigration authorities at the Delhi airport, and was forced to return to the United States. Though no official reason was given to Shapiro by the authorities for his entry denial, many suspect that he had been denied due to Chatterji's work on human rights issues in Kashmir.
In October 2011, Verso Press published the book Kashmir: The Case for Freedom, of which Chatterji is a contributing authors.
External links
- Articles by Angana Chatterji
- International Tribunal on Justice and Human Rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir
- Angana Chatterji's Profile from the California Institute of Integral Studies