The team at QAMRA has the privilege of hosting Anuja Gupta, Rajesh Srinivas and Rumi Harish in conversation with Kaushiki Rao. Their conversation will touch upon the various methods employed in recording history, building solidarity through collective and community memory, the transformation of remembrance of personal grief into a political act, and the politics of remembering—what is left out, inducing a collective amnesia, and the challenges thus entailed.

Bio of speakers:

Anuja Gupta, founder and Executive Director of RAHI Foundation, is one of India’s leading experts on the issue of incest/child sexual abuse. In 1996, Ms. Gupta started the pioneering non-profit RAHI (Recovering and Healing from Incest) Foundation, India’s first incest and child sexual abuse response organisation and a support centre for women survivors. Ms. Gupta is a feminist activist and a trauma informed educator, trainer and therapist. She has worked in the human rights and development sector for almost 30 years, was a member of AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) and was involved in drafting the first petition against Sec 377 IPC in 1994, amongst other interventions in the field of queer rights.

Kaushiki Rao is a feminist, queer affirmative therapist based out of Bangalore. She has spent many years practising different approaches to queer intimacy in her life, and its intersection with memory and queer futures.

Rajesh Srinivas is the Executive Director of Sangama, an organisation based in Bangalore, dedicated to protecting the human rights of sexual minorities, sex workers, and people living with HIV.

Rumi Harish is a trans-man, musician and human rights activist based out of Bangalore. He is working with the Alternative Law Forum (ALF) as a research consultant.