Angana P. Chatterji facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Angana P. Chatterji
Born	November 1966 (age 58) Calcutta, India
Citizenship	Indian
Education	MA (political science) PhD (humanities)
Alma mater	CIIS, San Francisco
Notable work	Violent Gods, Buried Evidence
Partner(s)	Richard Shapiro

Angana P. Chatterji was born in November 1966. She is an Indian expert who studies people and cultures (an anthropologist). She is also an activist and a historian who focuses on women's history. Her work often combines her research with her efforts to help people. She mainly focuses on issues in India.

Angana Chatterji helped start the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir. She was a leader of this group from April 2008 to December 2012. Today, she is a research scholar at the Centre for Race and Gender. This center is part of the University of California, Berkeley.

Early Life and Education

Angana Chatterji's father, Bhola Chatterji, was a socialist and fought for India's freedom. Her mother was Anubha Sengupta Chatterji. She is also related to Gooroodas Banerjee, who was a judge and the first Indian Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta.

She grew up in Kolkata, India, in areas where different groups sometimes had conflicts. Her family was diverse, including people from different castes and religions.

In 1984, Angana Chatterji moved from Kolkata to Delhi. Later, in the 1990s, she moved to the United States. She is still an Indian citizen but lives permanently in the U.S. She studied Political Science and earned both a Bachelor's and a Master's degree. She also has a PhD in Humanities from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). She later taught anthropology there. Her PhD research was about how politics affects the environment in Orissa.

Her Work and Research

Angana Chatterji has dedicated her career to studying and advocating for human rights. She often focuses on how history and geography shape issues like social class, gender, and religion.

Early Career and Environmental Advocacy

After finishing her studies, Chatterji worked as a research director. This was at the Asia Forest Network, a group that works to protect the environment. During this time, she also worked with several important Indian organizations. These included the Indian Institute of Public Administration and the Planning Commission of India.

In 1997, Chatterji began teaching at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). She taught about social and cultural anthropology. She worked with her colleague, Richard Shapiro, to create a new academic center. This center focused on understanding cultures after colonial rule.

Important Publications and Reports

Angana Chatterji has written many research papers, reports, and books.

• In 1990, she co-wrote a report about the rights of immigrant women in Delhi's poor areas.
• In 1996, she wrote about land rights for indigenous people and the Dalit community. This work also looked at unfairness based on social class.
• In 2004, she helped edit a special issue of Cultural Dynamics. It was about violence against women in South Asia.
• In 2005, she co-edited a book for the general public called Dark Leaves of the Present.
• In 2009, she published Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India's Present; Narratives from Orissa. This book explored Hindu nationalism in India.
• She also contributed to Kashmir: The Case for Freedom (2011) and South Asian Feminisms (2012).
• In 2013, she co-edited Contesting Nation: Gendered Violence in South Asia. She is also working on a book about land and justice.

Human Rights Advocacy and Tribunals

Angana Chatterji has been involved in many efforts to protect human rights.

• In 2002, she helped create a report about how some groups in India were funded by a U.S.-based organization.
• In 2005, she helped form the Coalition Against Genocide in the United States. This group worked to raise awareness and protest a visit by a political leader from India.
• Also in 2005, she helped organize a "People's Tribunal." This was a public hearing to collect stories about the rise of a Hindu nationalist group in Orissa. During the tribunal, some members of the group tried to stop the proceedings. The Tribunal released a report in 2006, warning about future conflicts.
• After conflicts between Hindu and Christian groups in December 2007, Chatterji spoke to a commission. She warned about more violence. She also wrote articles criticizing the groups when new conflicts happened in Orissa in 2008.

Research on Kashmir and Citizenship

Chatterji has done important work on human rights in Kashmir.

• In 2009, she was the main author of a report called Buried Evidence. This report found many unknown graves in Kashmir. The United Nations Human Rights Commission later confirmed these findings in 2011.
• In 2010, she joined the advisory board of the Kashmir Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School.
• In October 2019, Chatterji spoke to the U.S. Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs. She talked about human rights issues in Kashmir.
• In November 2010, her husband, Richard Shapiro, was not allowed to enter India. Many people believed this was because of Chatterji's work on human rights in Kashmir.

Recent Publications and Projects

Angana Chatterji continues to publish and lead projects focused on human rights and social justice.

Recent Books

• In October 2011, she contributed to the book Kashmir: The Case for Freedom.
• In April 2013, she co-edited Contesting Nation: Gendered Violence in South Asia.
• In 2019, she co-edited Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India. This book discussed how Hindu nationalism has affected India's government and society since 2014.
• In September 2021, Chatterji wrote BREAKING WORLDS: Religion, Law and Citizenship in Majoritarian India The Story of Assam. This book explains how citizenship laws are used to affect the rights of some minority groups, especially Bengali Muslims.

New Projects

In 2012, Angana Chatterji and Shashi Buluswar started the Armed Conflict Resolution and People's Rights Project. This project is based at the University of California, Berkeley.

• In 2015, the project released its first research report. It was about how women can get justice for violence during conflicts in India.
• In the same year, they published a book called Conflicted Democracies and Gendered Violence: The Right to Heal. This book included statements from important human rights leaders.