Abha Bhaiya

Founder

Founder of Jagori Rural Charitable Trust · Founder of Jagori

Abha Bhaiya is the founder of Jagori Rural Charitable Trust [1] and Jagori (1984)[2], Indian non-profits working on women & children, human rights and rural & agriculture from Sidhbari.

Abha Bhaiya (born 1948) is an Indian feminist activist, trainer and writer. She was a co-founder in 1984 of Jagori, a Delhi-based feminist resource, training and documentation centre, and in 2002 founded the Jagori Rural Charitable Trust in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. She has been active in the Indian women's movement since the late 1970s.

Early life and education

Bhaiya was born in 1948 in Jaipur, Rajasthan, into a conservative Marwari family, and has said that her early awareness of gender discrimination came from observing the different treatment given to her brother.

She took a master's degree in philosophy at the University of Delhi, and between 1969 and 1971 studied at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, an experience she has described as showing her that the oppression of women was systemic rather than individual. In 1973 she completed a further postgraduate degree at the Delhi School of Social Work.

Career

From 1974 to 1976 Bhaiya worked as a programme officer with Rural Development Advisory Services in Hyderabad, organising in slum communities. In 1980 she was among the founders of Yugantar, described as India's first feminist film collective, and in 1981 she co-founded the women's organisation Saheli in Delhi.

In 1984 she founded Jagori with Kamla Bhasin as a feminist training and documentation centre; the organisation runs nari adalats, or women's courts. In 1983 she helped establish SANGAT, a South Asian network of feminist activists and trainers, and in 1995 co-founded the Nishtha Trust, which provides health services in Sidhbari, Himachal Pradesh.

In 2002 she established the Jagori Rural Charitable Trust in Himachal Pradesh, together with a feminist retreat called Tara, and the rural programme has since extended to around 150 villages. Between 2006 and 2010 she worked as a technical adviser on gender for the German development agency GIZ in Kabul, Afghanistan. She has served on the board of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society, and in 2013 was among those who launched the One Billion Rising campaign in India with Eve Ensler.

Recognition

In 2007 the edited volume Women's Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia, of which Bhaiya was a co-editor, received the Ruth Benedict Prize.[3][4][5][6]

Jagori Rural Charitable Trust

Jagori Rural Charitable Trust works to create a just and equal society in rural Himachal Pradesh. Its programmes span adolescent leadership and scholarships for marginalised girls, community justice initiatives (Nari Adalats) and campaigns against gender-based violence, and sustainable livelihoods work including regenerative agriculture, women's self-help groups, and climate resilience preparation for high-risk villages.

Jagori

Jagori is a Delhi-based women's rights organisation working on violence intervention, feminist research and safer-cities advocacy, including the Safer Cities initiative run in partnership with UN Women and the Delhi government. It runs a women's helpline, training and resource programmes, and community education to advance women's rights and safety across urban India.