About Sanjukta Basu

Hi, if this is your first time on my blog you may start browsing my 17 years of writing by clicking here. To know more about me and my life, continue reading.

Writer. Photographer. Lawyer. Pursuing PhD. TED Fellow, TEDx Speaker.

Contact Me For:

Legal counseling for women laws, personal, family, marriage, property law, Constitutional Law, Fundamental Right, Public Interest Litigation.
Workshop Resource Person / Consultant on on Social Media Communication.
Workshop Resource Person / Consultant for Gender Equality, Women Empowerment.
Public Speaking On Body Image, Self Love, Confidence Building.

Write to me at: sanjukta[dot]basu23 [at]gmail [dot]com or use the contact form below.

Sanjukta Basu, 46, is a writer, photographer, lawyer, feminist scholar. She has over 20 years of professional experience in various capacities and fields including as a journalist, editor, documentary photographer, development communications, lawyer, feminist researcher. She studied law from Delhi University, followed by M.A. in Women and Gender Studies, and a PhD in Women’s Studies. Her PhD thesis focused on online gender-based violence faced by women holding political opinions. The auto-ethnographic doctoral research deals with gender based trolling of Indian women, radical right wing politics and women’s political participation.

Sanjukta is a Columnist on various print and online media. She writes on women, politics, minority rights, and social issues.

An Author

Corruption, CBI And I (2020) is co-authored by Shantonu Sen Ex-CBI Joint Director and Sanjukta Basu published by Paranjoy Guhathakurta.

The book contains memoirs from Mr. Sen’s 33 years of service as a CBI Officer and Jt Director, contextualized with the modern day politics by me written in light entertaining language making it more a drama than a technical book on CBI and Corruption.

PhD Topic: Gender Trolling

Over the years I have become some sort of an expert on the subject of women and digital media. I am pursuing a PhD on Women’s political voice in the public sphere, digital media, and gender based cyber violence / Trolling. I am involved with various NGOs working on the issues. Here are some of my latest activities in this area:

Consultant – UNESCO and Center For Media Studies

I recently worked with Center for Media Studies as a Research Consultant on an UNESCO project titled, ‘Online Safety for Women Journalists’. My key role was to research and write a training of trainers manual on Online Safety and Gender Trolling along with workshop design. In addition, I also held one of the sessions each in the series of five workshops held during the project, and documented the workshop reports.

Speaking at CMS-UNESCO project on Online Safety for Women Journalist, New Delhi, March 2020.

Chair – Panel on Internet and the citizen’s space, Access and politics at the Digital Citizen Summit 2018 held on 1st and 2nd November at India International Center.

I designed, proposed, and chaired one of the Panel Discussions at the Digital Citizen Summit, 2018, New Delhi. The panel was titled ‘Fake News, Gender Trolling, Internet Shutdown in Kashmir, Democratic Media in Bastar. Read more here:

Speaker at the Netizens For Democracy Summit, Mumbai, 2019.

Workshops With Jagori, Azad Foundation on Social Media Ethics, Safety and Privacy issues.

Photography Work

Two of my photography projects are worth mentioning. Gender and Public Space and Women With Tattoo project.

Gender And Public Space

This work stems from my interest in using travel and photography to document how men and women use public space, and how the gender based space segregation or public private divide is at the root of women’s stunted access to health, education, economy and so on. Two main products have come out of this work over the years, Project SWBT and Where Are The Women – 5 Cities Tour.

Please follow the dedicated Instagram account for this work.

https://www.instagram.com/genderandpublicspace/

Women With Tattoos

This is a photo series I started in 2017 after I got my own first tattoo. The series aim to deconstruct the stereotypes around women with tattoos. It got some media popularity and was covered by The Hindu, Scroll among others. It is an ongoing series, you can view some of the photos here:

Biography

Since 2015, as a journalist Sanjukta has published almost 200 pieces of Reportages, Features, Interviews and Opinion Columns across various platforms both print and digital which includes HuffPost India, Firstpost, Daily O, The Wire, National Herald, among others. In her last editorial role with National Herald, she interviewed some of India’s key political leaders and social activists such as Prashant Bhushan, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Anjali Bharadwaj, Amitabh Behar, Sam Pitroda, Jagdeep Chhokar and more. She also ideated and published features, opinions, analytic pieces, and video chat shows.

One of India’s earliest bloggers and digital activists Sanjukta was awarded the TED Fellowship for blogging and digital activism in 2009. In October 2017, Femina Magazine listed her blog ‘This Is My Truth’ among the top 50 feminist bloggers in India. Women’s Web listed me among 11 top feminist bloggers in India. Sanjukta’s blog is a personal space to shares her life’s intimate stories with the public without fear or shame thereby blurring the line between personal and political making it a tool of feminist politics. In a span of 17 years, she has published over 700 posts on her blog on a wide range of topics. Her blogging and community activities have been mentioned on leading media houses, BBC World Radio, NDTV, Indian Express, The Hindu, Bangalore Mirror among others.

In 2020, she co-authored the book ‘Corruption, CBI and I’ with Ex-CBI Joint Director, Shantonu Sen, published by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. She has also contributed one chapter each in two anthologies, ‘Reconciliation’ by Westland Books, ‘Battling For India’ by Speaking Tiger Books based on her experience of traveling with activist Harsh Mander’s social Karwan e Mohabbat. Her photo-journalism series ‘Where Are The Women’ and ‘Women With Tattoos’ have been widely recognized both in India and abroad. Her photo documentary on Babar Ali’s School have been published in media and academic publications in over five countries including Canada, Sweden, United Kingdom.

Since 2005, as a public speaker she has delivered several TEDx Talks and spoken at other conferences, workshops, colleges and universities. She has also appeared on national and international media such as BBC World Service, Al Jazeera, India Ahead News as a political analyst and subject matter expert. She has also given guest lectures at media colleges and universities, including Delhi University, Jamia Milia Islamia, APJ School of Media and Communications, International Institute of Mass Media, Centre for Science and Environment, Feminist Approach to Technology.

In 2010 she started a social enterprise, ‘Samyukta Media‘ to enable NGOs, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises and other unlikely groups realize the power of social & digital media and benefit from the internet revolution.

In 2018, Sanjukta registered a complaint against the Times Now TV channel for making unfair allegations against her. In 2020, on approaching the Supreme Court by filing an intervention application, NBSA gave a verdict in her favour making her one of the rare citizens who took on a mighty corporate entity and won.

Sanjukta is also involved in various self-initiated and self-funded travel and photography projects – Single Woman Budget Traveller, Women With Tattoos to name a few.

Sanjukta is a Twitter influencer with a verified profile, nearly 45k Twitter followers, and average monthly Twitter reach of around 3 million impressions.

Journalist work / Opinion Columns

Many Pursuits, Many Journeys

Delhi Bloggers Community
(2005-2007)

Bangalore Bloggers Community

2007-2010
I started the Bangalore’s bloggers community and carried out many activities, like Bangalore Bar Camp, Blogathon. The Blogathon initiative was got large media coverage including NDTV.

Mutiny.In Editor.
(2007-2008)

Social Media Baithak
2010
Along with a communication expert from the United Kingdom, Abhay Adhikary and with my friend Swagat Sen, I organized a Social Media Baithak for non profit organization. It was one of the most unique initiative to help NGOs get online and use social media tools for their campaign. Well known photographer Naina Redhu covered the event.

Samyukta Media
2011
I started my own Social and Digital Media consultancy Samyukta Media for NGOs. It had a great start but back in 2011, I was ahead of time, nonprofits were still not ready to pay for the service. So the start up didn’t sustain. To know more about it’s mission and objectives, please read the public announcement launching Samyukta Media.

Karwan e Mohabbat

2017-2018

Sanjukta Basu was one of the core members of the Karwan E Mohabbat collective led by Harsh Mander. In 2017-2018 she travelled across India to document stories of hate crimes and express solidarity. Her Karwan experiences are published in two recently published anthologies ‘Reconciliation’ and ‘Battling The Idea of India’, and a forthcoming academic anthology on marginalization. More details here.