Japleen Pasricha, 29 year old founder and director of Feminism in India “smashes patriarchy for a living” in her own words. She procured her honours from Delhi University in German Studies and her Masters in the same from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Before launching Feminism in India in 2014 she worked in various places as writer and editor before establishing herself as a leading entrepreneur in the media industry. Based in Delhi, she is a feminist activist, a TEDx speaker and a UN World Summit Young Innovator. She is a fluent German speaker, a fervent traveller and loves riding through Delhi’s parks in her free time. Japleen shares with khalbali her journey and the various whys and hows behind her successful role as an entrepreneur.
Q. How long has Feminism In India been running for? How was it conceived?
A. Feminism in India started out as a Facebook page that curated feminist content from the Internet. It is now a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter handle, an Instagram account, a Youtube channel, and a WhatsApp broadcast list with unique content created everyday.
Q. Could you give our readers an insight into what inspired you attempt to bring about chnage through the written word?
A. I began the Facebook page when I began my own journey as a feminist. With my background being in German Studies and not Gender or Women’s Studies, I began to look around on the Internet for accessible resources on the feminist movement in India. All I found were academic articles which were dense, theoretical and mostly behind a paywall, or content from Western feminist platforms like Bitch Media and Feministing. Feminism in India thus, was created with a vision of having easy-to-understand, accessible, popular Indian feminist content on the internet written by Indian women for Indian women.
Q. When you first started did you think you would be where you are today?
A. Oh, no. The Facebook page, created on March 2013, initially contained curated content from all over the Internet, as well as my own opinion pieces. Slowly other people began to start engaging with the page and building up a nascent digital feminist community. So when
I put out my plans of creating a website, I immediately began receiving offers from people who wished to contribute to the website. The overwhelming response gave me courage. Since 2014 the website has grown exponentially, with a minimum of four articles published daily, in English & Hindi, on diverse topics under the feminist umbrella, with an ever-expanding writer community.
Q. What message do you want your readers to take away from your publication?
A. The main idea is to increase the representation of women and marginalized communities on the internet – their stories and their histories. We amplify these usually unheard stories using digital storytelling techniques, pop culture references, and new media. I want to talk to fellow feminists in a language that they understand not just throw jargonised words at them. If they read an article and it causes them to stop an think, I would consider that I have succeeded in my role as an activist.
Q.What is a core value that you thought was inherently needed for a feminist website to flourish in India?
A. In a diverse country like India you always run the risk of accidentally undermining other peoples’ struggles when talking about your own. In a bid to prevent such appropriation and to center the voice of the marginalized, our editorial policy only allows people who occupy a marginalized position to comment on the issues and lived experiences of that community. There are very few publications that actually take this into account but I feel it is very important when it comes to maintaining your reader’s trust and the growth of your publication, particularly a feminist one.
Q.What do you pride yourselves on? A. As I mentioned I take the content I publish very seriously so with the publication, men will not speak for women, upper-castes will not speak for lower-castes and cis-heterosexual people will not speak for the queer community. For too long, dominant communities have controlled the narratives and the stories of marginalized communities.Individuals belonging to a marginalised group are alienated and silenced. We, at FII, aim to challenge this and provide equal opportunity for all to voice their narratives for themselves.
Q. What are some of the challenges that you have faced as an entrepreneur?
A. There are a lot of things that actually might not go the way you planned when it comes down to the real thing. In general each article that comes through has to be checked for facts, often we receive articles which either do not check out or are vague and hence end up not getting published. Also running a feminist website in India, will get you trolled and that is fine upto a point but there have been occasions albeit rare where we have had to talk ourselves out of unwanted situations. Lastly it is always a challenge to keep a balance between activism and business. FII does not run ads on site and we are supported most of the time by donations from our readers. One of the ways in which we overcome such issues is by partnering with other feminist allies like Zubaan Books and we help each other out. I feel it is not just important but also advisable to stick together if you believe in similar ideas.
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