Ashwini KP is an Indian social activist, academician and teacher. In October 2022, she came into the limelight as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur (SR) from India and Asia.
Wiki/Biography
Ashwini KP was born in 1986 in Chikkaballapur, Karnataka, India (age 36 in 2022). After completing her education at Ladyhill Victoria Girls High School and Mount Carmel Central School, Bangalore, she enrolled in Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, in 2003, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History, Economics and Political Science in 2005. In 2006, she enrolled at St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore, where she graduated with a Master of Arts (MA) in Political Science in 2008. While pursuing her Master’s degree, she wrote and published a thesis titled Land and Caste Issues: A Case Study of Land Reforms in Karnataka. In 2008, she joined Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, where she received her Master of Philosophy in South Asian Studies in 2011. She started pursuing a PhD in South Asian Studies at JNU in 2011 and completed the course in 2015. As a PhD student, she wrote a thesis titled “International Dimensions of Dalit Human Rights: A Case Study of India and Nepal.”
family
Ashwini KP belongs to a Dalit family from Karnataka. Her mother’s name is Jayama.
Parents and siblings
Her father Prasanna Kumar is a retired officer of the Karnataka Administrative Service (KAS).
wife and children
Her marital status is unknown.
caste
Ashwini KP is a Dalit.
religion
Ashwini KP follows Buddhism.
Profession
social activism
Ashwini KP has been involved in the anti-caste movement with her family since her childhood. While studying at Jinan University, Ashwini participated in several anti-caste campaigns organized by the United Dalit Students Forum and Samyukta Dalit. Ashwini has been working as a volunteer with an NGO called Friends Charitable Trust since 2014. In 2017, she joined the international human rights organization Amnesty International and served as a senior campaigner until 2019. As a senior activist, she organized several campaigns demanding equal rights for adivasis and women living in Chhattisgarh and Odisha. In 2018, she participated in Dalit History Month organized by Project Mukti.
In 2019, she co-founded an NGO called Zariya: Alliance for Women’s Dignity and Equality with her friend Mariya Salim. From 2019 to 2020, she worked as a researcher at Project Mukti.
academician
Ashwini KP has authored and published in several research journals. In 2015, she published Mapping Social Exclusion in Higher Education: The Experience of Dalit Students. In the same year, she published another journal titled Social Exclusion in Nepal: The Hidden Reality of Marginalization of Dalit Women. On June 6, 2021, she published a journal titled “International Dimensions of Caste-Based Discrimination: A Global Perspective on Dalit Human Rights”.
teaching
Ashwini KP joined the Department of Political Science at St. Joseph’s College in 2015 and served as a lecturer there until 2016. From June 2016 to December 2016, she served as a visiting instructor in the Department of Political Science at Mount Carmel College. In 2019, she joined the Department of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s University as an assistant professor.
United Nations
On August 18, 2022, Ashwini KP applied for the position of United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. She wrote in her application,
I myself belong to a marginalized community, being a Dalit woman in India, and working on issues related to origin and occupational discrimination has always been part of my professional space, research and action and is not new to me. “
On October 7, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) announced at the 51st session in Geneva that Ashwini will become the sixth Special Rapporteur (SR) of the United Nations with a three-year term starting in 2022 Starting November 1st. stood out from two other candidates.
exist #HRC51the Human Rights Council appointed Ms. Ashwini KP #India As the new Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. pic.twitter.com/xC3Rb1Efw0
— United Nations Human Rights Council (@UN_HRC) October 7, 2022
In an interview after her election, Ashwini said that as a social representative, she would emphasize addressing global issues such as caste system, apartheid, religion-based violence, and equal rights for the LGBTQIA+ community. When talking about this, she said:
I will focus on apartheid, racism, regionalism, Islamophobia, discrimination against immigrants, and more. I will focus specifically on racism within the Indian diaspora in the United States and discrimination against migrant workers in West Asia. African women face racism differently than other women. The struggle of Muslim women is different. Therefore, I am very interested in studying gender issues in racism. When we are appointed special rapporteurs, we must choose a topic. I am very passionate about gender issues in racism. I am interested in understanding how racism affects women and people in the LGBTQ community, and focusing on the multiple layers of discrimination. “
Locals celebrate Ashwini’s appointment as UN secretary-general
Facts/Trivia
- Some sources say her name is KP Ashwini.
- In 2014, Ashwini KP visited the United Nations as part of the Indian Dalit delegation.
Ashwini KP (centre) during her visit to the United Nations in 2014
- In 2015, she served as an event organizer at the Discrimination and Exclusion Research Center of the School of Social Sciences of Jinan University.
- In 2016, Ashwini worked as an event organizer at the Center for Social and Criminology Research at Middlesex University in London.
- Ashwini KP is an Ambedkarite and follows the ideology of Dr. BR Ambedkar.
- As he has published several academic journals, Ashwini was selected to study at Columbia University in New York, USA.
- Ashwini claimed in an interview that she was threatened by a student while speaking about women’s rights in India during a lecture. She also said she faced discrimination throughout her life because of her caste. Talking about this, she said,
One student stood up and directly threatened me with “Neve Kallejali Hengirthira Nodtini” for talking about women’s rights, Dalit rights, Baba Saheb, Basavanna and Buddha’s ideas in class. Regardless of our family’s economic background, I had to face discrimination because I was Dalit and because of my caste. I lost opportunities in certain areas because of my caste. In all these places, caste was not the direct cause of opportunity fraud. “
- Ashwini follows a non-vegetarian diet.
Ashwini KP’s Instagram post
- Ashwini is passionate about painting, photography and traveling.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education