Seema Kushwaha is a lawyer at the Supreme Court of India. She represented Nirbhaya in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case.
Wiki/Biography
Seema Kushwaha was born on Thursday, October 2, 1986 as Seema Samridhi Kushwaha (37 years old, born in 2023) in the village of Ugrapur in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh. Her star sign is Libra. She attended school at Kalavati Rampyari School in Lachna town. Seema then attended Ajitmal PG College in Auraya. She obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree from Kanpur University in 2005 and a Bachelor of Journalism degree from Rajarhi Tandon Open University, Uttar Pradesh in 2006. She also obtained a Masters in Political Science. Subsequently, she moved to Delhi to prepare for the UPSC examination.
family
Parents and siblings
Her father is Baladin Kushwaha and her mother is Ramkuanri Kushwaha. Her father was a farmer and later became the Gram Pradhan of Bidhipur Gram Panchayat. Her mother is a housewife.
husband
Seema Kushwaha is married to advocate Rakesh Kumar Kushwaha.
Seema Kushwaha and her husband
Profession
As a lawyer
She started practicing in the Allahabad courts around 2006. In 2013, she started practicing in the Supreme Court of India. Prior to that, she had not fought any cases in court. She successfully got four criminals sentenced to death in the Saket court in 2013, the Delhi High Court in 2014, and the Supreme Court of India in 2020. Eventually, the criminals were hanged in Tihar Jail in Delhi on March 20, 2020.
Lawyer Seema Samridhi Kushwaha and Nirbhaya’s parents expressed their joy after the execution of the convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case
She represented the family of the 2020 Hathras gang rape victim in a case seeking justice for their daughter. In October 2021, she took up the case of businessman Manish Gupta, who died due to torture by police during a raid on a hotel in Gorakhpur.
As a politician
On January 20, 2022, she joined the BJP ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections.
Seema Kushwaha poses with BSP leader Mayawati after joining the BSP on January 20, 2022
Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, she quit the BJP and joined the BJP.
Facts/Trivia
- Seema is from a very small village in Etawah. She shared in an interview that her village is so small that if you search on Google, you can’t even find it.
- She was born in a family that didn’t approve of having a girl child. Even the birth of Seema was unacceptable to her family. She shared in an interview,
I am the youngest in the family. When my mom gave birth to me, a girl, everyone was unhappy except my dad and Bua. The elders and even my mom considered killing me, ‘What if we have another girl? ’ they argued. But Bua and dad intervened and I got a chance to live.
- Seema had shared that in her village, girls’ education was not supported and they were not treated the same as boys.
- Kushwaha’s father supported her from the beginning and helped her go to school. She shared in an interview,
I fought hard to go to school, which was 1 km away from the village. We had to walk through the jungle to get there, but we 7 girls somehow managed to make it to 8th grade. Later, all the girls in my class dropped out because the high school was 3 km away from the village and the villagers were against it. But I was stubborn.”
- She was the first girl in the village to complete school beyond eighth grade.
- In an interview, Seema shared an incident from her school days when she beat up a boy in school who tried to cause trouble for her. She said,
When a boy tried to make a vulgar comment, I would beat him up. A group of people gathered around and the guy started to apologize, but I said, “Mein chodungi Nahi Tujhe!” The word spread. These boys would say, “Bahut dangerous ladki hain, usse panga mat, Lena, woh seedhe maarne lagti hain.”
- She was the smartest student in the school and the captain of the NCC team. Her poor family background never stopped her from going to school. She said in an interview,
I didn’t care much about other things. I wore worn-out slippers, carried my bike on my back and rode my brother’s bike to classes. I participated in all the events. I gave speeches and was even chosen as the captain of the Lucknow NCC team, but again everyone in the village was against it. They said, “She will go to the city and ruin our reputation”, but my dad supported me. I took money from my brother and without telling anyone, I went to Lucknow. There, we won the competition and my name was in the newspaper, a small article about a village girl leading her team to victory. ”
- When Seema was in Class 10, her family wanted her to get married. She did not want to get married and went on a hunger strike for three days as she wanted to pursue further studies. Then, in 2002, Seema’s father died and her brother forced her to get married. With the help of a friend, she managed to get books and admission forms for the LLB course in Kanpur and left home.
- Seema was so passionate about learning that she even sold her payal and earrings to pay for her school fees. She even started teaching in a school to pay for college.
- Her struggle continued during college. She said in an interview,
I worked part-time jobs, sometimes even walked to class, and sacrificed food and sleep to become a lawyer.”
- She aspired to become an IAS officer and was preparing for the UPSC exam when the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case happened in 2012. She shared in an interview:
I had assisted several senior lawyers during my practice at the Allahabad High Court. I also appeared for the Civil Judge exam and was preparing for the IAS. However, I tried my best and reached out to the parents of the December 16 victims. I knew that law was my calling.”
- Seema Kushwaha believes that the status of women in developed cities like Delhi is very different from that in smaller cities. She shared in an interview,
The status of women lawyers in Mumbai or Delhi is not the same as in smaller cities. In Kanpur, we are not respected in courts and it is common for women lawyers to not get dates because of their gender.”
- Seema was living in a PG school in New Delhi and preparing for the UPSC exams when the Nirbhaya rape took place in December 2012. In an interview, Seema said she could not overcome the fear and anger she felt when she heard about the rape. She said,
My emotions were a mixture of fear and anger. Twelve girls from my PG left Delhi immediately because their parents were scared. I was devastated. I couldn’t help crying when I thought about her and what she had been through. As more details started to come out, something inside me was triggered. I wiped away my tears. I had fought for myself my whole life, but now was not the time to sit at home and cry — it was time to go out and fight back.”
- Before taking up Nirbhaya’s case in 2013, Seema took to the streets of Delhi and participated in protests seeking justice for Nirbhaya, protesting against this heinous crime.
This is a photo of lawyer Seema Kushwaha fighting for justice in the Nirbhaya case in 2013.
- She did not charge any fees while fighting the case for Nirbhaya.
- In 2014, Seema decided to take up Nirbhaya’s case and in an interview shared her conversation with Nirbhaya’s mother, she said:
When I spoke to my aunt, she told me, “I felt my daughter was not getting a fair trial. That’s when I promised her – ‘I will fight for Jyoti. I will take up this case, hum, Jyodenge, Nahi, Enhe.’
- She is the legal advisor to the Nirbhaya Jyoti Trust, an organization founded by Nirbhaya’s parents to help women who have been victims of violence find shelter and legal aid, and the Jyotiba Phule Foundation for Social Justice.
- Even after winning the Nirbhaya case, Kushwaha’s fight continued. She shared in an interview,
After they were hanged, I started receiving threats on social media. They insulted me, saying things like, “We will rape you worse than Jyoti did.”
- Seema Kushwaha not only fights against injustice against women but also against injustice against men. She said in an interview,
This may be the first case I take on, but it won’t be the last. I want to continue my activities to fight against gender-based crimes, not only against women but also men.”
- Seema Kushwaha is a role model for many women. She said in an interview that the fight has just begun and she will work hard to help every woman who is suffering. She said,
I have received over 500 messages from women, some sending me photos of the FIRs they had filed but to no avail, others telling me how they had been raped, harassed or assaulted without any justice. I am reaching out to all of them and saying, ‘Hum chodenge Nahi unhe’. The fight has just begun.”
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education