Podcasts about south asians

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the full SBS Gujarati radio program aired on 17th july 2026, featuring Sushen Desai. - સાંભળો, 17 જુલાઈ 2026નો SBS Gujaratiનો સંપૂર્ણ રેડિયો કાર્યક્રમSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the latest Indian news from SBS Gujarati. - ભારતના સમાચાર સાંભળવા ઉપર આપવામાં આવેલા ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરો.SBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear ore podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. This Thursday APEX Express proudly presents “South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement.” This episode highlights Sandhya Jha, a pastor, founder and former Executive Director of the Oakland Peace Center, and racial, housing, and labor justice activist. In the first half of the episode, we discuss Sandhya's life, their path into organizing, and what they're up to now. The second half is dedicated to their recent project with the South Asian American Digital Archive's Archival Creators Fellowship Program. This episode was interviewed, produced, and edited by Swati Rayasam   Follow @Sandhya Jha on Facebook and check out Sandhya's website https://sandhyajha.com/    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Listen to the episode live on KPFA 94.1 in San Francisco, 89.3 in Berkeley, and online at KPFA.org.  References throughout the Show and Links: Without Fear Consulting Interfaith Alliance Oakland Peace Center Book – Blueprint for a Revolution Book – The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad Podcast – Bending Toward Justice: Avatar the Last Airbender for the Global Majority The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action – ASATA Bay Area Solidarity Summer South Asian American Digital Archive Archival Creators Fellowship Program Sandhya Jha's project, you can listen to all of the oral histories here. Solidarity Forever Online Exhibit Arab Resource and Organizing Center Block the Boat No Tech for Apartheid  University of California Labor Center Equality Labs California Trade Justice Coalition NAFCON – National Alliance for Filipino Concerns Filipino Community Center Madhvi Trivedi Patak Transcript ​[00:00:00]  Miata Tan: Hello and welcome! You are tuning in to APEX Express—a weekly radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I'm your host, Miata Tan. Tonight we're revisiting an episode from our archives, first aired January 5th, 2023. We're bringing it back this week in honor of South Asian American Heritage Month. This one centers Sandhya Jha — a pastor, organizer, and founder of the Oakland Peace Center — in conversation with APEX producer Swati Rayasam. The first half traces Sandhya's path into organizing, from a labor campaign at Johns Hopkins to two decades of interfaith and racial justice work. The second half digs into Sandhya's project with the South Asian American Digital Archive, where she spent a year interviewing South Asian workers inside the labor movement — collecting stories that don't usually make it into the archive. Here's Swati Rayasam in conversation with Sandhya Jha. [00:01:00] Swati Rayasam: I'm really excited actually today to talk to Sandhya Jha, who is a really close friend of mine. Hi Sandhya. Hi there. Sandhya is, a Pastor is a consultant and has been working on this really amazing project with the South Asian American Digital Archive that will get into later in the episode. But yeah, Sandhya I'm just really excited to learn more about you and to hear more of your story and, let's just dive in. [00:01:26] Swati Rayasam: Absolutely. [00:01:27] Swati Rayasam: We should first talk a little bit about how we know each other, you have this long organizing background. I've been in the Bay Area for the past seven years and I would be totally lying if I said I have not historically been, or I'm not even currently an active fangirl of yours. You are literally a pastor. You are a movement worker, how did you get involved in organizing? [00:01:53] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. So I am the product of my parents who were generous, compassionate [00:02:00] people who thought about the world beyond themselves, but were never involved in organizing or activism or anything like that. I think for anybody who comes from immigrant backgrounds, it's hard to tell our stories without naming who we come from. Right. And so my father was Sunil Kumar Jha from the village of Tildanga in West Bengal. My mother, who is still alive is Jeanette Campbell Jha. She is from Glasgow. So I come from a mixed religion and mixed race home. My parents chose not to name me Sandhya Campbell Jha not to give me that kind of grounding, but I was called Sandhya Rani Jha, which is a lot to live up to, well, yes, Rani does mean Queen. But it was actually handed down to me, part of the reason they wanted that middle name was it was my aunt's name, Durga Rani Upadhyay and she was the one who really [00:03:00] brokered my mother's acceptance into the Indian family and I think that there was something about being accepted on the Indian side of the family and not for many, many years on the Scottish side. That caused my parents and particularly my mother to double down on making sure I knew who I came from and who I came from was my people in the village of Tildanga. [00:03:23] Sandhya Jha: I grew up in Akron, Ohio, so we immigrated to this country when I was a toddler, in the late 1970s, which was a complicated time for Asian immigrants to be in the Midwest because it was a time that the rust belt was rusting and there was a growing sense that we were the reason. But also I grew up alongside folks who were trying to figure out how to put food on the table. So I think that landscape shaped me in a lot of ways. And I also come from people who grew up in poor working communities. And[00:04:00] when I went off to college, there was an organizing campaign. The board of directors of the university had created a for-profit corporation with the exact same board. [00:04:15] Swati Rayasam: Oh wow. [00:04:16] Sandhya Jha: So that the universities could subcontract all of their catering, all of their custodial work to this… basically Shell corporation. [00:04:28] Swati Rayasam: Are we telling on the university? [00:04:29] Sandhya Jha: Mm, Yeah. Why not? It was Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and I think that's relevant because the tension between Black communities next to Johns Hopkins Medical School and the school itself were very real because this was part of a very long history of exploiting community members. So the workers were organizing, and you know, I had read about activism, I cared about it. I paid as much attention as I could for a high school student. But when I got to college, this organizing [00:05:00] campaign was going, and the workers were really clear, Hey, college kids who are excited about this, we do have a role for you. It's to fill the crowd. It's to cheer us on. It's to when we ask you communicate to the university that our well-being matters to you because they will listen to you in different ways. But the campaign centered the workers and was really clear with us about what our role was because we were the folks with all the privilege by getting to be there, right? We had tons of privilege and it was a really good lesson for me. I am so grateful. The first organizing campaign I was a part of was a labor campaign that understood what it meant to center the people who were the most impacted by injustice and I think that shaped the rest of my career. [00:05:46] Swati Rayasam: And that's so special too because I think for many people who come into organizing, and I will definitely cop to this myself, like coming up and organizing through high school and college level organizing. When you are a student, nobody ever [00:06:00] tells you that actually you are the least useful kind of organizer that exists. Right. You are in this incredibly enclaved community. Your oppressor, the university, all they have to do is wait for you to graduate institutional memory will not keep you. Yeah. Right. And I think that it is, it's this perfect storm of, you have actually sometimes cool ideas, sometimes very rudimentary ideas, but you also have this turnover issue and you have this sense of self import, which often comes with your teens, early twenties. Yep. As you're just figuring all of that out. So Yeah, self differentiation, right? It's a narcissistic phase in our development. . [00:06:46] Swati Rayasam: It absolutely is and I think that's so important, and I can't imagine how my life would be shaped if I didn't have to spend a lot of time unlearning the self import and narcissism that I had gained through student [00:07:00] organizing. [00:07:00] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. No, I am really, really grateful for it. [00:07:02] Sandhya Jha: My first job outta college was working for a member of Congress, which sounds super fancy and pretentious, but, a member of congress from Akron, Ohio. So put that all in perspective. His name, believe it or not, was Tom Sawyer. Oh, wow. What I loved about Tom was back in those days, he believed very strongly that 80% of legislation was nonpartisan and that was the part that he spent most of his time on. He would weigh in with his party, when they were dealing with that 20% pretty consistently. But he was more interested in the stuff that everybody could agree on and I remember for about 15 years after I worked for him, I looked back and found myself thinking that was so naive. How did he not understand where we were about to head with the divisions between the political parties? But at this point in my life, I realize the people I respect most in organizing work keep pointing out that the binary of [00:08:00] left and right actually doesn't serve us very well. One of my biggest heroes in the movement right now is the Reverend Dr. William Barber, [00:08:07] Swati Rayasam: Hometown hero of mine. Yes. [00:08:09] Sandhya Jha: Poor People's campaign from North Carolina. And he always talks about how it's not about right and left. It's about right and wrong. And it turns out that when we engage in organizing with the awareness that there are huge swaths of things that most of us are well served by, we can do better organizing. And that was actually how Tom was legislating. And at a certain point I realized that my deep passion was around racial justice, but the distinct experience I had in a multi religious household was an awareness of how religion was being used as a weapon. I had an obsession. Every paper in college I wrote was about the Christian coalition, this right wing, organizing body in the nineties. So a friend of mine [00:09:00] said, You know, there's an interfaith organization working against the Christian Coalition. And it was called the Interfaith Alliance. Her mom had been a superintendent in Washington state in eastern Washington and was a pretty conservative person by my standards. [00:09:18] Sandhya Jha: But, Dr. Chow believed in multiculturalism and believed in teaching evolution. And the Christian coalition had organized to push her out of her position as superintendent and the Interfaith Alliance of Washington State had supported her in that time. [00:09:38] Sandhya Jha: And so Liz said, you know, they've got a national chapter, a national office. And that's where I ended up, cutting my adult organizing teeth which was great because talk about learning lessons for our current moment where religion is being weaponized in ways that are anti-trans, that are anti-queer, that are anti-women, that [00:10:00] are anti reproductive rights, that are anti-immigrant and refugee. I am really grateful to have experienced the power of multi-faith organizing, around a lot of those same issues. So that was what I did in the early two thousands and then I went to seminary and public policy school, and then I ended up out here pastoring a congregation of 10 people in a building of 40,000 square feet. [00:10:29] Sandhya Jha: And long story short, that's how the Oakland Peace Center was born, was out of this dream of cultivating deeper collaboration among nonprofits who were dedicated to a shared cause. The Oakland Peace Center, which is a collective of 40 different nonprofits committed to dismantling the root causes of violence in our community. I was the founder of that organization and it was when I was pastoring First Christian Church of Oakland that I asked the handful of folks who were members of that church, what they wanted to [00:11:00] contribute to the community, and they said they wanted to contribute peace in the midst of violence. And for a dozen folks to have given birth to a space that in non pandemic years, saw over a hundred thousand people do things like the Lawyers for Black Lives Conference and to do Kingian non-violence training and to be a part of food and clothing distribution, to participate in all the very diverse ways that we can create peace is pretty impressive. [00:11:30] Sandhya Jha: And a couple of years ago, I left the Oakland Peace Center because a colleague of mine said, Anybody can run a non-profit. We need you to do what you're actually good at, and what she meant by that was we need more people of color doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work that is actually grounded in power analysis. That isn't just how do we be nicer to each other in the workplace, but how do we recognize the ways that systems of white supremacy [00:12:00] unconsciously often shape the culture of our workplaces? And what do we do to dismantle that white supremacy culture so that we can be building nonprofits and institutions of higher education and faith organizations, and even corporations that are dedicated to our full liberation, our liberation, the lands liberation. [00:12:23] Swati Rayasam: I mean coming, especially from the place that you come in grassroots organizing and in faith based organizing, what is it actually to transition into this kind of consulting space around racial justice and really interface with a lot of people that I feel like as organizers, we don't really talk to? [00:12:42] Sandhya Jha: One of my favorite things about this shift in my work is I love getting to work with folks who don't think of themselves as organizers, who, it turns out are organizers, Right. I think we sometimes create a cult of here's what an organizer looks like, you [00:13:00] have to be a Martin Luther King or a Cesar Chavez and what I love is getting to work with moms and with teenagers and with folks who think of themselves as caring, compassionate, individuals, and when I go into an organization and work with their handful of folks who care about this issue, the DEI team, I get to teach them how to strategically organize. I get to teach them how do you create culture shift over time? I get to teach them how do you figure out who your allies are? How do you figure out how to move people who are neutral? It turns out that there are a lot more organizers out there than we realize if we don't create one definition of what an organizer needs to look like. [00:13:45] Swati Rayasam: I have been reading this political scholar Eqbal Ahmed, who really talks about the way the burden is on those of us who are deeply committed to movement work, narrow definition people, the burden is really on us to try and [00:14:00] create a liberatory future that feels both achievable. Mm-hmm. and safe for everybody. Because when people engage in mass struggle and in revolution, there are people who are a hundred percent willing to put their lives on the line. People who are willing to die for the cause. And we absolutely need those people. And there are many people along the spectrum who, if you can create a future that feels like it's within their grasp, they will come with you. [00:14:30] Sandhya Jha: Yep. I teach a lot of organizing classes and have gotten a chance to teach alongside my beloved colleague BK Woodson at Allen Temple Baptist Church, they have a leadership institute there. And one of the books we use is Blueprint for a Revolution by Srđa Popović. And I feel like I learned a lot as we read that book together and thought about how to apply it to the work we're doing in Oakland. They talked about how by engaging in nonviolent direct action, [00:15:00] they created space for elders to be a part of their work and youth to be a part of their work and families to be a part of their work. By making the movement playful. They gave people hope and gave people courage because dictators are terrified of being mocked. [00:15:17] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. And I think by being really restrictive or narrow about who we view as actually valuable organizers. And I think labor movements teach us this a lot, right? We really cut ourselves off at the knees on our ability to build a network or to be in touch with the general population, many of whom are more connected than we ever give them credit for. [00:15:41] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Yep. it's part of why I love labor organizing. I talk with a lot of people who are disenchanted with organizing who ask me how I can have stayed involved for the past 25 years. And why I've been able to stay in it is cuz I'm organizing alongside workers and they have [00:16:00] full lives. And the work that they're doing in the movement is so that they can live their full lives. And there's something about having that perspective and recognizing the why all the time instead of getting lost in the weeds of the what. Is so important in this work. I think that has been a big theme of my organizing life is how do we build to the greatest common denominator? As my friend BK often says how do we build towards those shared values that often get erased when we are engaged in the right versus left debate. [00:16:39] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that it is so important and I also think that it's really hard in this moment of what feels like constant trauma and re trauma. [00:16:51] Swati Rayasam: And to some extent especially when we're talking about the left right dichotomy there are real concerns [00:17:00] about safety. Yep. And there are real concerns about security and who you are in community with and who you can find even the smallest level of acceptance from to ensure that you won't have violence visited upon you. And I think that these conversations of united front organizing, Right. trying to bridge across difference mm-hmm. for a shared goal, for a shared liberatory future Yep. Are really important. And they feel kind of impossible to achieve right now. [00:17:31] Sandhya Jha: It's interesting cuz I think that in many ways that is true. There are a lot of conversations that I think people with privilege expect, people who are marginalized to engage in. And those expectations are unfair, what I found very frustrating was the number of people with a lot of privilege who would be like, Ugh, I just can't talk to those people. And I'm like, Then who's going to? Exactly. and so I do think that some of this is about being willing to have [00:18:00] hard conversations in the places where we have privilege and recognizing who's at actual risk and showing up in ways that are protective of who is at risk. But that doesn't mean walking away from people who aren't where we are. Right. Because the fact of the matter is everybody's on a journey. And I have watched at the same time some of the disposability culture in movements write off people without giving them any way to address harm, repair harm, and find a pathway back into community. [00:18:41] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that's why, at least I am feeling really hopeful about, what I've seen over the past couple of years, this really important track into transformative justice and restorative justice, to acknowledge that there is harm that has happened, there are harms that happen every day between people. [00:19:00] And also we are all on our own journey to unlearn the things that we have been taught either directly or indirectly by our upbringing, by our environment and that you cannot easily dispose of people and that people are able to come back into community. Now that comes with a very important caveat that like they recognize the harm. Mm-hmm. that. They have done or how they've been party to it, that they acknowledge that there is healing work that needs to be done both with the person that they harmed and also probably in internally. [00:19:35] Sandhya Jha: Well, and the community, folks who don't do RJ on a regular basis tend to skip the community aspect. Yeah. That there is actually repair that needs to be done with community and there's work community needs to do to figure out how to re-embrace reabsorb people who have done harm in ways that still protect the person who's been harmed. [00:19:55] Swati Rayasam: Exactly. In ways that do not erase the harm that has happened, but [00:20:00] acknowledge, contextualize it and say, Okay, we are patching this and we are working to move forward in step with each other. Absolutely. [00:20:09] Sandhya Jha: Can I just say that one of the other things that I think you and I have in common is a real passion for bringing joy back into the work of Justice I quote Fabiana Rodriguez a lot on this particular thing, because I was at an event she was doing eons ago, and she looked out at us and most of us were activists and she said, Listen, y ‘all you keep inviting people to a struggle. I'm on your side and I don't wanna join a struggle. I want to join a party. And that was like a call to arms for me when I heard her say that. I was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. We are so much more fun. Like, I've hung out with people who are anti-trans and anti queer and anti-immigrant and anti refugee. They are not fun people. No, no. We have all of the best parties. So I don't know why we don't [00:21:00] capitalize on that more. So I think the role of joy and justice is so important. And this is why I was so excited to have you on the podcast that I launched recently. [00:21:11] Sandhya Jha: Right. Bending Towards Justice Avatar the last Airbender for the Global Majority. [00:21:15] Swati Rayasam: So literally like bringing it together. Two of my favorite things right, is like TV shows, wholesome TV shows like Avatar, The Last Airbender that I deeply love and organizing. Yes. All the work that I love. And I think it's true You know, what is actually really the important work is to work to build toward a future that is desirable Yep. That people want to be a part of. Yeah. That people can see happen. Yeah. And I think that is a lot of the difficulty that I have seen in some organizing circles. We are so well versed in what we are against and all of the things that are bad that so many people have a really hard time seeing or visioning or communicating [00:22:00] what it is that we are fighting for. Yeah. Right. And it's not enough to say, I'm fighting for a world where we can all be safe. Right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm fighting for a world where we can all take long naps in the middle of the day if we'd like to do that. Right. Yeah. But like really building and visioning that future of like, in this world in which we are all safe, there will be harm that happens. How do we deal with that? Yeah. What do we do with that? How do we make sure that it is able to keep everybody safe and also able to account for the times in which it is not able to keep everybody safe. [00:22:38] Sandhya Jha: Visionary does not have to mean naive. And we need it to be visionary. And sometimes I forget to do the visionary stuff. I've got a colleague, Dave Bell, he's a farmer who is also an anti-racism trainer and we do a lot of work together. He's a white guy who lives in White Swan, Washington, on the reservation and I remember being at a training with him and I [00:23:00] was all fired up and I was so excited about the conversations we were having and the people were really ready to do the hard work and roll up their sleeves. And Dave says to them, I would like to not have to do this work. And I'm like, What is he talking about? This is amazing. We're doing such good work. And he says, I would like for us not to have to talk about racism all the time. I would rather be farming. I would rather be, taking care of the cows in my field. [00:23:26] Sandhya Jha: I would rather be talking about my pottery work that I'm doing badly but learning how to do, I would rather be doing anything than have this conversation. But I don't get to be on the farm with the wheat, with the cows, with my bad pottery until we figured out how to do this anti-racism work. And it was a really humbling moment for me because I also get into that like I'm an organizer, that's my identity space. And it was this reminder of Dave's doing this. So he gets to live in a world where he gets to hang out in the fields and he [00:24:00] gets to, love on the cows. There's something about being reminded that we're doing this so that eventually we don't have to do it. That I think is actually visionary in its own way and it's important. [00:24:12] Swati Rayasam: Moving into a little bit more of the grit of like why I asked you to be on the show today. I met you originally when I moved to the Bay Area when you were the executive director of the Oakland Peace Center because At that time I was doing organizing work with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, which is a 20 year old bay area based organization, that was really founded around the Laki Reddy Bali Reddy sex trafficking. Yep. Caste and labor exploitation case that happened in Berkeley in 1999. And I was just so thrilled to be around and have in community so many rad desis. And you also did work with ASATA, right. Historically and are actively doing work with us. [00:24:56] Sandhya Jha: Absolutely. One of the places I think I invested the most [00:25:00] energy in where we got to spend a lot of quality time in the kitchen was one of the projects, Bay Area Solidarity Summer, an organizing institute, camp, however you wanna refer to it. [00:25:10] Swati Rayasam: Political education, Summer camp. [00:25:12] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. For young South Asian Americans who are committed to activism. What I think was the most beautiful part of that program when I was involved in it, and it's still the case today, is for young South Asians who think that they're the only ones who care about justice issues, who haven't met other people, who are South Asian, and identify as justice seekers first to meet each other and realize that there are people just like them. Then to look around and realize that those of us who are usually 10, 15, 20 years older than them are also committed to the work and have been doing it for decades. And then for them to get exposed to the long history of radical visionary organizing and activism of South [00:26:00] Asians here in the US and also in the homelands of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and diasporic countries all over the world. [00:26:13] Sandhya Jha: There's something about realizing, Oh, you have contemporaries, oh, you have elders, oh, you have ancestors. Mm-hmm. Especially in the face of the model minority lie that so many of us have had imposed on us, this lie that all we are all we're supposed to be is cogs in this larger capitalist machine that are non disruptive, which is why we're allowed to survive. And if we are non disruptive enough, we might even be able to be comfortable. And to discover that there's more to our story than that is so exciting and I love, love, love being a part of that. [00:26:52] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that is like fundamentally one of the most important kind of activities that [00:27:00] happens in the ASATA universe, I was a kid who also grew up thinking that there were no other South Asians like me, or there were no other folks who were interested in justice. I spent a lot of time doing, reproductive and queer justice in the south; I always think about what would it have meant if I came in, BASS for 18 to 24 year olds. Yep. what would it have meant if I had come in at a fresh 18 and been able to basically be apprised of the fact that I have this history Yeah. That it's not just me. And that actually, immigration and white supremacy and neo-colonial culture has created this project of assimilation that all of our parents have been in on, in a way to survive Yeah. And to be safe. And I tell my, I tell my mom that a lot because she's always a little surprised about the organizing work that I do. And I was just like, Your job was to survive. My job is to liberate. Yeah. [00:28:00] You know? Yeah. And I could not do that if you were not so focused on creating that environment for me. [00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: I love that. [00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: we'll drop in the show notes, but, BASS – Bay Area Solidarity Summer is solidaritysummer.org. So we'll put that in the show notes as well as ASATA, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action is ASATA.org. And yeah, I think that is a really good segue into how we got involved in this amazing project. [00:28:31] Swati Rayasam: You're tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3, KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org. [00:28:43] Swati Rayasam: I think it was Fall 2021 that you and I were talking. Yep. And you were telling me that you were involved in this amazing archival fellowship project. Is run by the South Asian American Digital Archive and [00:29:00] that you were going to do your project about labor. Mm-hmm. and South Asians. Yep. And my immediate, incredibly naive response was, how many South Asians are there in labor? [00:29:12] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. And it's not naive. It's interesting cuz I think that this project actually emerged out of my favorite part of BASS, which was when the young adults would ask what their opportunities were in the world of justice. And I would say, you know, there's a place for us in labor justice. It had never crossed most of their minds. Right. We don't think of ourselves as having a role especially in formalized unions. And so SAADA, the South Asian American Digital Archives has an archival fellows project. And the whole purpose of it is to diversify their archives and collect the stories that are usually overlooked in the telling of South Asian American stories. [00:29:56] Sandhya Jha: And they have done a great job over the years of collecting the [00:30:00] stories of informal organizing, like the Punjabi Taxi Drivers campaign, the Bangladeshi Nail Workers Campaign. Those were informal labor organizing campaigns. That have been really well archived and they're amazing stories. I wanted to make sure that the next generation of South Asian activists knew about the South Asians who were actually part of the formal organized labor movement. [00:30:30] Sandhya Jha: And so I spent this past year interviewing, maybe a half a dozen or so South Asian American workers. Generally, not always, but mostly what would be classified as low wage workers who found a pathway into formal organizing bodies, unite here or the building trades or any number of the formal unions that keep [00:31:00] the labor movement alive across the country today. And I'm really proud of the fact that we do have South Asian workers who have moved up the ranks to be official organizers or to be at negotiating tables. And so that's part of the story I thought it was worth us telling. [00:31:19] Swati Rayasam: And I am, I'm so excited that we get to dive deeper into this project and I really love your framing too, around the three large bins that you have, solidarity, spirit and struggle. [00:31:34] Swati Rayasam: Right? Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:35] Sandhya Jha: I started out with certain assumptions about what I was going to learn, partly because I've been doing labor solidarity work for 25 years at this point. I really thought I knew what I was gonna hear. And what I discovered was there were these consistent themes across, the interviews. that there were these notions of, Oh, what's meaningful to me is [00:32:00] getting to organize across cultures, getting to organize with people who, on the surface and even deep down are very different than me, but we share this vision of what our lives can be. And so that solidarity message I found really powerful. Also, and admittedly because I come out of a spiritual background, was probably looking for it. I was really struck by how many of the interviews ended up talking about the role of spirituality and shaping people's values. And in a couple of instances, organizers said, what my religion taught me was that religion needs to be challenged. And building up that muscle was what helped me challenge systems of injustice in other places. But others said that their journey with their faith tradition was what guided them into the work of labor organizing. [00:32:52] Sandhya Jha: And then that third bucket of struggle, I think is the lived experience of how [00:33:00] hard it is to take on oppressive systems of capitalism, how hard it is to take on decks that are stacked against us and what it means to have somewhere to turn in the midst of those struggles. I will say there were also a couple of lessons I was surprised by because my South Asian identity is so central to my organizing work, I was expecting to collect stories of people who were proud South Asians, who were also proud to be involved in the labor movement. And I assumed that they would see connections between those things because I certainly do. But what I discovered is for the most part, they were like, Yeah, I'm South Asian. I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but it's not super relevant to my organizing work. My organizing work is about [00:34:00] our cross-cultural solidarity. And that was something I hadn't been expecting that emerged as I did those interviews. Interesting. And I'm really grateful that the South Asian American Digital Archives likes telling all of the stories because I think I promised them that what they were going to get was, we're proud to be South Asian organizers. And what I got was, yeah, we're South Asian, we're proud to be organizers. And the that SAADA is like, yeah, that's part of our story too. [00:34:28] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that's, that I think is incredibly important. We have this really, amazing series of audio clips from your SAADA interviews that really represent a lot of the themes that you were highlighting about solidarity, spirit, and struggle. And I'm just really excited to play them as we talk through these larger themes in your larger project and the experience of South Asian labor organizers. [00:34:55] Swati Rayasam: This clip is from somebody that you and I both know, which [00:35:00] is Prem Pariyar. I was so thrilled that Prem was a part of your project. I think Prem is an incredible organizer, so yeah tell our listeners a little bit about Prem. Prem [00:35:09] Sandhya Jha: It was pretty exciting to get to work with him you know, he moved here from Nepal and in Nepal he had been a Dalit activist and he came to the United States and had this notion that in the United States there is no caste and he was disabused of that notion very quickly as a restaurant worker dealing with anti Nepali bias in Indian restaurants, dealing with caste bias in Nepali restaurants, well dealing with Caste bias in all the restaurants. [00:35:35] Swati Rayasam: Hey, everyone, Narrator Swati here, I just wanted to put in an explanatory comma, a la W Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu to talk about some terms you just heard. Sandhya referenced that Prem was a Dalit activist and also talked about Caste bias. For those of you who don't know, Caste is a violent system of oppression and exclusion, which governs social status in many south Asian countries, although it is [00:36:00] most commonly associated with India. It works on an axis of purity and pollution, and it's hereditary. At the top of the caste system are Brahmins, by the way Sandhya and I are both Brahmin, and not even at the bottom, but completely outside of the system are Dalits who were previously referred to by the slur untouchable and Adivasis who are indigenous to South Asia. [00:36:25] Swati Rayasam: Despite being “illegal” Caste bias, Caste Oppression, Caste apartheid, are still prevalent, both in South Asia and as Sandhya references, in the United States. It manifests in many ways that people experience racial injustice, via socioeconomic inequality, systemic and interpersonal violence, occupation, and through the determination of marriage and other relationships. You can learn more at EqualityLabs.org and APEX currently has a show in the works that delves into this more deeply. Now. Back to Sandhya [00:36:58] Sandhya Jha: What is [00:37:00] delightful to me is Prem went on to get an MSW and is building out amazing mental health resources for Dalit communities for the Nepali community. Seeking to build out a program where there are more and more people in Nepal who are trained with MSW skills. [00:37:21] Sandhya Jha: I met with one of his professors from CSU East Bay where he got his degree and she said, You know, that the entire Cal State system is adding caste to its anti-discrimination policies thanks to the work he started at CSU East Bay. And it was really beautiful to hear that because the focus of my conversations with him were more around how his experiences in the restaurants led him into the solidarity work with nail salon workers. [00:37:53] Swati Rayasam: To just, kick back to the caste abolition work that Prem has been doing, that caste abolition work [00:38:00] at CSU East Bay has been such critical work in these ongoing conversations around caste that have been in the South Asian community primarily, but have been percolating elsewhere. [00:38:13] Swati Rayasam: You know, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Cisco systems Yep. For caste discrimination in their workplace and there have been all these conversations around caste and tech work and interplay that with the no tech for apartheid work. Right. That has been happening in Palestinian liberation circles. Yeah. And really building that solidarity movement. So I think that Prem is an absolute powerhouse Yeah. In that regard. But yeah, let's listen to this clip. [00:38:42] Prem: During that time, I got connected with other community organizer, like workers group. I got connected and so I was connected with nail salon workers, who were exploited at their workplace and with them, [00:39:00] I got to go to the capital in Sacramento. And so I thought I need to advocate for the restaurant workers. that was my first experience, like working with other workers and with the assembly members and like other other policy makers I shared what is happening what kinds of discrimination happening at the workplace. So I advocated for the restaurant workers at that time. I shared my stories and I supported the rights of nail salon workers. I was there to support them and they supported me as well, and it was wonderful. And finally that advocacy worked. And the bill was drafted and it was passed finally. And so it was huge achievement at that time. [00:39:49] Swati Rayasam: I love that. I think that is such a perfect story of when you win, we all win. [00:39:56] Sandhya Jha: And what I also love about it is he goes on [00:40:00] to talk about how he has remained in relationship with those nail salon workers. That they show up for each other, that they take each other food, that they show up to each other's baby showers and birthday parties, and there's this sense of community that emerges out of this shared struggle. And so that's a cross-cultural campaign. They were mostly Vietnamese. There were some Bangladeshi nail salon workers, but it was mostly people from a different culture than his. [00:40:27] Sandhya Jha: But somebody at the Asian Health Services program that he was at, saw his gifts, saw his passion, and he really responded to that in exactly, the most powerful way. I can imagine. [00:40:38] Swati Rayasam: And I think one of the nice things as well about that is that person at Asian Health Services connected Prem in and the Nail Salon Worker group, California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, Prem came from Nepal, I'm not sure, but the extent to which his organizing background and how comfortable he was in the US organizing space around labor [00:41:00] issues was probably significantly less that worker group took it upon themselves when they saw Prem come in to say, Oh, you are advocating on behalf of restaurant workers. Great. Why don't you join us? Let's help support and so the nail salon workers saw Prem, saw solidarity with Prem and said, It is our responsibility mm-hmm to bring you into this space to connect you in and to move in, struggle together. Yeah. Toward our shared goals of safety, of health, of rights. Yep. [00:41:35] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. [00:41:36] Swati Rayasam: So, we have this clip from Daljit, tell me a little bit about Daljit. Daljit [00:41:42] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Daljit was an attorney who now reads tarot for people because she needed a break from the toxicity of that career and how it was taking her away from her family. Daljit is a deeply spiritual person and, [00:42:00] as I mentioned before, this theme of spirit showed up in some really beautiful ways in some of the interviews. I loved the way she understood her Sikh tradition as foundationally being connected with the land and foundationally connected with the people who work the land. [00:42:15] Daljit: Agriculture is our culture and the religion that I was born into, Siki, the founder of that faith was a farmer. And so a lot of the scripture, the analogies, the metaphors, the poetry, the music, the songs, the boon, the traditional folk songs, that can be taunting and teasing banter, all that stuff the land is the framework for that. And my most favorite line from the Guru Granth Sahib, our holy book, is, [speaks Punjabi] and that basically means that, the waters our guru, the airs our father, but our mother is Earth. And that's the greatest of all , and that's adherence to ecosystem. That's the [00:43:00] indigenous Cosmo vision that should be paramount. And that's what I try to teach my children. And so I think that's what I was taught as a kid without necessarily being able to pinpoint it, but it was just infused throughout our songs, our music, our food, the Harvest, there's two times a year that our celebrations, whether it Baisakhi or Lohri. It's so connected to the harvest and what is coming out of the soil or not. And you're connected to the cycles of nature. [00:43:28] Swati Rayasam: The connection between nature land, spirituality the way that it shows up in so many faith backgrounds and so many faith organizers, I think is really, really beautiful. [00:43:41] Sandhya Jha: And I love that Daljit Kaursoni who was raised in this tradition, has found her way to Buddhism and is raising her kids with those connections, but without ever losing this grounding in the liberation of the land, the liberation of the [00:44:00] people. [00:44:00] Sandhya Jha: And for that to be a key element of her spirituality, even as her spirituality evolves, I think it's pretty powerful. Tafadar [00:44:08] Sandhya Jha: One of the other people I got to interview ,Tafadar, he's a Bangladeshi American in the building trades and is a deeply committed Marxist. For me, this was a particularly exciting interview because I'm Bengali, so from West Bengal, before partition, Bangladesh and what's now West Bengal, were one state. And so it was fun to get to talk with him and to say, Hey, this is our legacy as Bengalis is radical worker organizing. [00:44:40] Sandhya Jha: And I remember saying to him, Some people in the building trades are not super excited to be working with brown people. And some people in the building trades are a little biased against women. And as a very, very progressive South Asian? How do you navigate that [00:45:00] space? [00:45:00] Sandhya Jha: And he said, Here's the thing is, yeah, I organize alongside some moderate to conservative white folks from New Jersey and he said, but in the building trades, if that moderate to conservative white guy from New Jersey decides he doesn't like my feminist politics, or he doesn't like my brown skin, if he decides that's a reason not to train me, he might die. And it was really interesting because even though I've been doing labor justice work for a long time, it was one of those moments I was like, Oh, right. Your work is very dangerous and you all have to rely on each other whether you like each other or not. That is the magic of organizing that no one ever talks about. This is why we can do cross class, cross-cultural work because literally you have to trust each other with your lives. Right. That was a really clarifying moment for me. And it was one of those interesting moments where I was like, [00:46:00] Solidarity is not a romantic thing. Uh, it is very much a matter of life and death. [00:46:05] Sandhya Jha: And I think that is really important and that exact thing that you brought up, you don't even have to necessarily trust somebody. Right. But you do need them. Yep. Right. And like that really clear understanding that like your fates are intertwined and it is truly in everybody's best interest. If you are trained well, irrespective of whether or not at lunch, I'm interested in sitting anywhere near you. I think that's really great. [00:46:32] Sandhya Jha: One of the things that was really exciting about talking with Tafadar was the reminder that labor organizing and formal union organizing at its best can be in solidarity with other movements really worker justice and housing justice and racial justice are inseparable, on some level. And so, one of the most inspiring stories I got to hear across all of these interviews [00:47:00] was a campaign that brought together folks across the anti- gentrification, the immigrant rights, and the labor justice movement. [00:47:14] Tafadar: It's ironic, building affordable housing with deadly exploitation. And, um, to do this, the de blassio administration, they embark on massive major rezonings of poor areas to relax the local zoning laws to be able to bring in these developments. And a couple of years ago, my, my union in local 79's. Took a very sharp turn towards a community organizing approach because labor can't win on our own, and that's the perspective that all of labor should adopt. In order to fight against the sweatshops in our industry. We united with a lot of community organizations in the South Bronx. [00:47:53] Tafadar: We formed the South Bronx, Safe Southern Boulevard Coalition. And along with these groups, we [00:48:00] protested and did a whole lot of activism, lobbying, community organizing to stop the rezoning of Southern Boulevard, which is a massive stretch in the South Bronx, while the De Blassio administration had succeeded in another part of the Bronx where there's like massive displacement still underway right now. And we were determined to stop it there. And it was a beautiful thing that we can unite because on our end as labor, we had to prevent all these trash companies from coming in and exploiting workers. And we were working with these tenants who are afraid of being displaced. And people generally, we do need revitalization of our neighborhoods. We do need investment. We do need things to be changed and made better. For us. If it's not for us, if it's done without us, then eventually we're not even gonna be here anymore. So we had that alliance going on and not only did we manage to stop that rezoning, we also educated the local city councilman on why his position was wrong and supporting the rezoning. And he eventually completely flipped this [00:49:00] position. And now chairs the land use committee of the city council from the perspective that we educated him on, which it's just been a very interesting dynamic. But, there's a lot of rezoning battles all over the city that's like the main front of anti gentrification struggles. And I've been watching those kinds of campaigns go on since I began organizing about 15, 16. I've seen very different approaches to them, but I've never seen any model really work until that one kicked in where Labor and the community came together. So that was one of my favorite campaigns because of that lesson that we were able to concretely put into practice and set as an example for not only for community movements all over New York City, but also for Labor. [00:49:43] Sandhya Jha: I think this hit me in particular because I've done so much work around antis displacement in Oakland, and my experience has been. [00:49:53] Sandhya Jha: That while for most of us on the ground, the connection between housing justice and labor justice is really clear. When you [00:50:00] start getting into the technical policy issues and the funding issues, the folks who are running labor and housing justice or affordable housing, struggle to find ways to collaborate. And it's been one of my consistent heartbreaks for at least a decade at this point because I work at the intersection of those things and sometimes I despair of us being able to find ways to move forward together. And so to hear a story like this one and to be reminded at core, those justice issues can and must be we already knew, must be, but actually can function together to build a better community. That was actually really life giving for me to hear. [00:50:45] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. And I think the point that Tafadar as well brings in the clip of just saying we knew that we could do this, but we knew we couldn't do this without community organizing. Right? Yeah. That labor couldn't do this alone. Yeah. [00:51:00] And I think that is a lot of what, when we talk about solidarity politics, it's not just a backdoor way of inclusion for inclusion's sake, we have to all do this. Actually, it is integral that all of us are involved in any of these campaigns because it impacts all of us. And because we are not going to win with only a single constituency and in the very same way that, Tafadar was identifying that labor couldn't do that alone. in community organizing spaces that you and I have been in mm-hmm. , like we are constantly talking about how we cannot do any of this without labor. Yep. And I think a beautiful example of that is the Block the Boat campaign yeah that the Arab Resource Organizing Center, started back in 2014 and then again during 2021 to block the Zim ship from the port of Oakland. And like this community organization [00:52:00] AROC could not do that without working with the longshoreman to collaborate with the port workers. And I think that when we see the marriage of community organizing and labor organizing, that is when we get the power of grassroots organizing. [00:52:16] Sandhya Jha: Something I wanna mention about the SAADA Fellowship that I was really grateful for: two things. First off, they did a really good job of making sure we got trained in grassroots oral history. So they took really seriously what it meant for this to be justice work. And they made sure we had exposure to methodology that was gonna lift up and honor and foster the voices of people whose stories don't get heard often enough. And that was a really big deal to me. The other thing is they made sure that we had an advisory board, people who are in this [00:53:00] work who could help us, figure out who to talk with, who could help us build out an event strategy. And you helped me build out my advisory committee. Anibel Ferris-Comelo who is with the University of California Labor Center, [00:53:14] Swati Rayasam: Prem Pariyar, a Nepali Dalit restaurant worker, organizer pushing for Caste as a protected category with Equality Labs, a Dalit feminist organization, and a social worker supporting the mental health needs of his and many other South Asian communities in Alameda county. [00:53:31] Swati Rayasam: Will Jamil Wiltchko with the California Trade Justice Coalition, Terry Valen who I did a lot of organizing with at the beginning of the pandemic, around the struggles that seafarers were facing with the onset of COVID-19. And he's the organizational director of the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco. The president of NAFCON which is the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns and just an all in all amazing organizer [00:53:57] Sandhya Jha: the last thing I wanna mention [00:54:00] is SAADA also helped me set up a digital exhibit with Art by Madhvi Trivedi Patak and I wanted to give them a shoutout because they're an incredible artist, but also they grew up in a working class family and didn't get exposed to what it looks like to do labor justice. And so as they developed the artwork to go with the digital exhibit, they got to experience the possibilities of labor solidarity that they hadn't gotten to experience as a child. And so I really loved that Madhvi was a part of this project as well [00:54:38] Swati Rayasam: All of the clips that you shared really identifying, again, these like huge fundamental pillars of solidarity and spirit and struggle. these clips were amazing. They are so rich and so layered with all of these people's varying and different experiences. Really showing in [00:55:00] all of these different walks of life at all of these ages with all of these experiences, that all of these people have this unified and shared identity in struggle, in spirit, and in solidarity for liberation. [00:55:14] Sandhya Jha: And one of the things that I think is worth celebrating is whether they see it as part of their South Asian identity or not. People who do identify as South Asian now have this resource that says there's a home for you in the labor movement. Yes, there are. There is a value to your voice. There is a value to your wisdom, there's a value to your experience in the labor movement. [00:55:36] Swati Rayasam: I think it's a beautiful project. Sandhya, I think it has been an amazing amount of work I've watched you do over the past year. These stories are so wonderful. I really encourage people to check it out. Where can they find your project? [00:55:49] Sandhya Jha: The website's www.saada.org/acfp [00:56:00] /exhibit/solidarity-forever. We'll put that in the notes. We'll definitely put that in the show notes. [00:56:05] Swati Rayasam: I just wanna make sure that we replug your podcast Bending Toward Justice Avatar, The Last Air Bender for the Global Majority and you can find that at tinyurl.com slash ATLA podcast, Capital P (tinyurl.com/ATLAPodcast). And then the last thing that I also wanna make sure that we plug is Without Fear Consulting. [00:56:27] Sandhya Jha: I love working with folks who know that their organization could be a little more liberative, and are, just not quite sure where to start. I love working with a team of folks who want to be about the work of incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into the DNA of their organization and I love setting them up so that they can keep doing that long after I'm working with them. So please do find me withoutfearconsulting.com. If you're interested in that. [00:56:58] Swati Rayasam: Amazing. Sandhya [00:57:00] Jha, Pastor, Racial Justice consultant, podcast host, archivist, singer songwriter, amazing cook. You can do it all. I think you deserve a nap. it has been amazing talking to you. I am so glad to be able to hear about your project and also to hear a lot more about your life. [00:57:23] Sandhya Jha: Yay. Thank you so much. [00:57:25] Miata Tan: That was Swati Rayasam in conversation with Sandhya Jha. As Swati mentioned, you can learn more about her work in the show notes at kpfa.org/program/apex-express. Speaking of Swati — she's currently working on an episode marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11, out in early September. It'll cover the work of the South Asian Coalition, a national network of organizations working together on South Asian American movement building. Keep an eye out for that one. This episode originally aired January 5th, 2023 — we're re-airing it this week in honor of South Asian American Heritage Month. This is APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, airing every Thursday evening at 7pm. Thank you for tuning in tonight. APEX Express is a proud member of Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. A network focused on long-term movement building, capacity infrastructure, and leadership support for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders committed to social justice. Learn more at AACRE.org This program produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's episode was produced by Swati Rayasam. Get some rest y'all. The post APEX Express – 7.16.26 – South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement appeared first on KPFA.

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

IANR 2628 071126 Line Up4-6pm INTERVIEWS (Guest host Chetan Dave in for Jawahar)Here's the guest line-up for Sat, July 11, 2026 from 4 to 6pm CST on Indo American News Radio (www.IndoAmerican-news.com), a production of Indo American News. We are on 98.7 FM and you can also listen on the masalaradio app.By Monday, hear the recorded show on Podcast uploaded on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Radio Public and Breaker or go to our website and click on the IANR link. Our Podcast has been rated #2 among 100 Podcasts in Houston by feedspot.com and rated in the Top 20 Apple Podcasts in 13 countries by Podstatus.com. In 6 years and with over 1,000 Podcasts, we get thousands of hits each day.TO SUPPORT THE SHOW, SELECT FOLLOW ON OUR FREE PODCAST CHANNEL AND YOU'LL BE NOTIFIED OF NEWUPDATES.4:20 pm Cricket is of course immensely popular among South Asians and the sport has been taking the nation like a storm with many organizations leading the charge. Now, the American Cricket Council headquartered in New Jersey with offices at TV Asia, has announced a national initiative to develop cricket at the school and collegiate levels in the US through the Cricket Hall of Fame, Inter-School Championship, the Intercollegiate Super Cup, and a Super League tournament. To tell us more about this is Jatin Patel, a sports visionary and Hall of Fame inductee.4:50 pm The shooting death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican citizen, by ICE agents on Tuesday, July 7 in Houston's East end has sparked local protests by hundreds and national outrage as once again ICE is seen using ruthless tactics to pursue immigrants they suspect of being illegal. Although Houston Mayor Whitmire has so far not confronted ICE over the incident, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare has indicated he will conduct an independent investigation. We asked State Rep Gene Wu, who was a former Prosecutor, to comment on the killing and the response.5:20 pm With a growing population of aging Baby Boomers living longer and needing more help in their Senior Years, several neurological disorders such as – Myasthenia Gravis, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's - are becoming more noticeable. Health professionals are rushing to respond to by developing better techniques to control these through medications, therapy and home care and initiating research to better understand what causes the disorders. We turn to Dr. Angela Goins, an Asst. Professor at University of Houston Downtown for answers. OUR APOLOGIES THAT THIS GUEST WAS NOT RECORDED DUE TO A TECHNICAL GLITCH DUE TO LOSS OF POWER TO ONE PC.Also stay tuned in for news roundup, views, sports and movie reviews.TO BE FEATURED ON THE SHOW, OR TO ADVERTISE, PLEASE CONTACT US AT 713-789-NEWS or 6397 or at indoamericannews@yahoo.com Please pick up the print edition of Indo American News which is available all across town at grocery stores. Also visit our website indoamerican-news.com which gets 90,000+ hits to track all current stories.And remember to visit our digital archives from over 18 years.  Plus, our entire 45 years of hard copy archives are available in the Fondren Library at Rice University

What happens to intimacy, nostalgia, and creative power when a world-class filmmaker decides to step away from the camera and help reimagine their masterpiece for the live stage?  In this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I sit down with award-winning filmmaker, writer, and director Ritesh Batra. Celebrated globally for his masterpiece debut feature film, The Lunchbox, Ritesh has spent the last decade crafting incredibly delicate, human-centered stories. Now, he has brought that same quiet magic to the theater stage, serving as the book writer and co-lyricist for the highly successful musical adaptation of The Lunchbox.Ritesh shares unique process of rewriting a beloved indie film for a live theatrical medium. He shares why he deliberately avoided rewatching his own movie to allow a fresh, organic confluence of creative energy to take over with his collaborators. He also shares his personal philosophy on "artistic fingerprints"—explaining why true success in any creative field requires leaving your own distinct, irreplaceable mark rather than chasing past commercial formulas or letting executive gatekeepers dictate the narrative.  Ritesh shares insights on:• Nostalgia & Friction: Why he prefers focusing his storytelling on the compelling friction of characters "left behind" by rapid societal changes rather than those keeping up with them.  • Stage vs. Screen Intimacy: How the live stage provides a unique canvas to showcase unspoken connection and stillness in ways the cinema camera cannot.  • The Fingerprint Philosophy: Why elite artists must own their distinct perspective, and how to protect your creative power in a system obsessed with past commercial formulas.  • Songs Hidden in the Seams: The organic process of discovering musical numbers hidden in the quiet, empty spaces between film scenes.  • Overcoming the Fear of Collapse: Navigating the intense vulnerability of a production's first week and learning to trust your internal compass.  Whether you're a filmmaker, a theater lover, a creative professional navigating a highly public career, or someone looking to practice deeper mindfulness and trust in your everyday life, Ritesh's thoughts on artistic conviction provides an invaluable blueprint.  If you enjoyed this, please hit that subscribe button, leave a comment, and share this video with someone looking to realize and transform their own vision! --------------------------Chapters-00:00 Introductions02:40 Nostalgia, Change, and Telling Stories of Those Left Behind05:41 Translating the Intimacy of The Lunchbox to the Stage08:04 An Organic Transformation: Working with the Lazours10:09 Finding Songs in Between the Seams of the Story11:43 The Writer's Medium: Curating the Confluence of Creative Energy14:35 Discovering New Skills and Instincts in Musical Theater16:32 Sponsor Breaks - TRAVELOPOD and LOTUS LANE COFFEE17:31 Managing a Public Career: Owning Successes and Failures21:14 Leaving Your Fingerprints Over Everything You Create25:10 Wielding Artistic Power and Collaborating with Actors27:56 Thriving on the Unknown: Ritesh's Operating Mantra29:55 Lessons from Parenting and the Cost of Creative Focus31:42 Quick Hitters: Greatest Fears, Mingling, and Hamnet33:07 Cultivating Trust in Yourself and the Unseen End Goal35:18 Conclusions & Shoutouts#RiteshBatra #TheLunchbox #IndieFilmmaking #SouthAsianRepresentation #Storytelling #TrustMeIKnowWhatImDoingShoutouts:✉️ Mitra Kalita for making this incredible connection happen!

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

What happens to elite sports analytics, player development, and leadership when the data-driven games of the NBA and NCAA are purposed for human relationship building?  In this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I sit down with Queens University of Charlotte Assistant Men's Basketball Coach and Game Plan Strategy Coordinator, Amit Tailor. As a prominent South Asian coach pioneering the integration of data analytics, video film, and AI workflows in hoops, Amit has spent years developing world-class talent at every level, including milestone coaching stints with the Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets, USA Basketball, and Clemson University.  Amit opens up on high-stakes scouting, detailing how modern tools use AI to manage recruitment pipelines and why his guiding operational principle is "if everything is important, then nothing is important".  Representing a new wave of Indian Americans in professional sports, Amit challenges traditional cultural archetypes within the South Asian diaspora and outlines a powerful blueprint for true resilience, sports leadership, and South Asian representation.Amit shares insights on:• The Schemes vs. People Paradigm: Why elite coaches compete with basketball schemes but ultimately win games with authentic human connections.  • The Data & Video Marriage: How pairing performance metrics with positive visual reinforcement accelerates split-second adjustments behind the bench.  • Overcoming 17 Rejections:  Why long-term perseverance and optimism are vital• The South Asian Sports Box: Why families need to unlearn strict career boxes tied to traditional earning potential and empower their kids to dream bigger.  •  Be Seen, Not Heard: Crucial professional positioning advice received from Oklahoma City Thunder Head Coach Mark Daigneault while working under legend Billy Donovan.  Whether you're a coach seeking to optimize your team's tactical strategy, a professional navigating a highly competitive industry, or someone looking for the mental armor to overcome career rejections, Amit's sports career journey is key listening.If you enjoyed this deep dive, please hit that subscribe button, leave a comment, and share this video with someone looking to scale their own vision!--------------------------Chapters00:00 Introduction & The Data-Driven Game01:35 Welcoming Queens University Coach Amit Tailor02:57 Game Planning the Unexpected Blowouts of New Parenting04:04 The Culture Shift: Tech, Data, and AI in Relationship Building06:36 Translating Game Plans & Identifying Player Superpowers08:58 Real-Time Video Analysis & Giving Feedback Behind the Bench12:29 What Casual Basketball Fans Miss: Spacing & Floor Balance15:24 Sponsor Break - Travelopod, Lotus Lane Coffee, Timberdog16:54 Leading India Rising: Managing Egos, Drama, and Adversity19:03 Core Philosophy: If Everything Is Important, Nothing Is Important21:16 Modern Athlete Reinforcement: Positive Clips vs. 1988 Michael Jordan23:50 Overcoming Stereotypes & Navigating 17 Job Rejections25:28 Unboxing Diaspora Families: Earning Potential vs. Dreaming Bigger31:46 Quick Hitters: Chicago Bulls Heyday, MJ, and Coaching Idols34:12 Final Advice for Future Coaches: Opportunity Is Not a Lengthy Visitor-------------------------#AmitTailor #BasketballAnalytics #CoachingStrategy #BrownBallers #NCAABasketball #TrustMeIKnowWhatImDoingShoutouts:

Growing up, we didn't see enough people who looked like us on screen and the representation we did get was often stereotypical and wasn't one we recognised ourselves in which is why this episode means a lot to me as I sit down with the cast and director of a new British South Asian film called Never Had a Chance. Never Had A Chance is an award-winning British Asian film set in the heart of the Punjabi community in Hounslow, West London. It is directed by Jazz Bhalla and stars Tina Sharma and Amar Chaggar. The film follows Ravi (Amar Chaggar), a young man navigating the weight of his past while trying to build a future. When a new connection offers a glimpse of something more stable and meaningful, he finds himself at a crossroads but those closest to him threaten to pull him back into the life he's trying to leave behind.In this episode we talk about:

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBSGujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. Over the past few years, a series of popular uprisings across the world have been described by mainstream media as “Gen-Z Uprisings” – movements led by young people and described in western media as generally being against government corruption. These movements have been most notably visible in our own media due to their use of technology, including platforms like Discord and TikTok, and internationally consistent adoption of pop culture symbolism, like the flag of the “straw hat pirates,” a black flag depicting a grinning jolly roger wearing a straw hat. The flag is the banner of the protagonists of the long-running hit anime series One Piece whose adventures often find them coming to the defense of marginalized communities around their world. But these movements didn't come out of nowhere (or the internet for that matter). Understanding their origins – and the elections that have resulted from their successes – can shed light both onto the international struggle against authoritarianism and the challenges we face building an alternative. In this episode we are looking at two countries, Nepal and Bangladesh, where popular uprisings in the summer of 2024 and fall of 2025 have led to elections this year. In this episode, we are joined by two US based organizers, Sharmin Hossain and Samir Shrestha, whose work as part of South Asian diasporas has rooted them in movement work here in the US while maintaining relationships and solidarity abroad. Sharmin Hossain is a Bangladeshi Muslim organizer from Queens, New York, who is currently the Organizing Director for 18 Million Rising. To learn more about 18 Million Rising, check out their site at www.18millionrising.org. Follow Sharmin on all platforms at @sharminultra Samir Shrestha belongs to the indigenous Newari tribe of Nepal, where he was born. He has spent the last 18 years involved in movement work here in the US. To learn more about The Ruckus Society and request a training, visit: www.ruckus.org/training-action-support/training-requests/ To learn more about Convergence Magazine and the Block and Build Podcast, follow them at @_convergencemag and @blockandbuildpod. Check out Covergence's work at www.convergencemag.com. Transcript Swati Rayasam: [00:00:00] welcome fellow travelers to Apex Express. It's been a minute, but in case you don't remember, my name is Swati Rayasam, and I'm gonna be your conductor tonight. I have been very excited about this week's episode for a few months because tonight Apex is featuring Convergence Magazine's Block and Build podcast. Block and Build is creating a roadmap for the movement that's working to block the impacts of [00:01:00] rising authoritarianism while building the strength and resilience of the broad front that we need to win. And both the team at Convergence and the guests for tonight's show are close comrades and friends of Apex. On this episode, Cayden Mak, podcast host and editor-in-chief of Convergence, is joined by Samir Shrestha and Sharmin Hossain, two US-based organizers from the South Asian diaspora, Nepal and Bangladesh respectively. Sharmin and Samir will talk about the history and continued struggles of the international Gen Z uprisings, which have only really made a blip in Western media coverage. They'll discuss the history of those movements and the political conditions which created them, as well as help us understand how Americans can be in meaningful solidarity with people's movements abroad. Without further ado, I'll hand it over to Cayden. Cayden: Over the past few years, a series of popular uprisings across the world have been described by mainstream media as the Gen Z uprisings, movements led by young people and described in Western media as [00:02:00] generally being against government corruption. These movements have been most notably visible in our own media due to their use of technology, including platforms like Discord and TikTok, and internationally consistent adoption of pop culture symbolism. but these movements didn't come out of nowhere, or out of just the internet, for that matter. Understanding their origins and the elections that have resulted from their successes can shed light both onto the international struggle against authoritarianism and the challenges that we face building an alternative. In this episode, we're looking at two countries in particular, Nepal and Bangladesh, where popular uprisings in the summer of 2024 and fall of 2025 have led to elections this year. I was recently joined by two US-based organizers, Sharmin Hossain and Samir Shrestha, whose work as part of the South Asian diaspora has rooted them in movement work here in the US while maintaining relationships and solidarity abroad. Sharmin Hossain is a Bangladeshi Muslim organizer from Queens, New York, who's currently the organizing director for 18 Million Rising. Sharmin, thanks so much for joining us today  Sharmin: Thank you for having me. I love Convergence.  Cayden: Thank you. [00:03:00] And, Samir Shrestha belongs to the indigenous Newari tribe of Nepal, where he was born. He spent the past 18 years involved in movement work here in the US, and Samir, it's really good to see you this morning.  Samir: So good to see you too, Cayden.  Cayden: Well, to start us off, let's try and set some context Sharmin. I'm wondering if you can give us kind of a quick gloss of the 2024 uprisings in Bangladesh, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party were ousted from power. What are the sort of themes of the protests, and then the way that the state responded, and where are we kind of now? Sharmin: Wow, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to talk about my country and all the amazing things that happened, because I think the Global South really forges, like, new possibilities as far as, like, what we can do and, and consolidate as far as power goes. So today is actually March 26th, and it's Bangladeshi Independence Day, coincidentally. Cayden: Happy independence Day.  Sharmin: Happy Independence Day. I find it very serendipitous for us to delve into this layered and complex history, um, of the student movement. So [00:04:00] the Bangladesh student protests of July 2024, were deeply rooted in systemic inequalities that the young working class and the poor faced. Nearly 32 million young people were actually out of the workforce, or education in a population of a country of 170 million. So that's a pretty significant number. And so that issue was a focal point for widespread discontent in the country. In July of 2024, the High Court of Bangladesh actually reinstated a quota system for government jobs after an appeal was made when the then-ruling Hasina government abolished the quota system, um because in 2018 she faced a lot of pressure from student protesters. But this quota system is really interesting, and it represents a lot. It reserved 30% of government jobs for descendants of freedom fighters. And in Bangladeshi history, that's a very complex and layered identity. Millions of our [00:05:00] ancestors actually fought in the liberation war against the US-backed Pakistani military, and the Bangladeshi Liberation War, and genocide in Bangladesh actually resulted in the death of over three million people who sacrificed for the birth of our nation. And so for the Hasina government, the quota system was actually what she used to appoint a lot of her loyalists and her supporters to high levels of government, the military, and it basically created the political ecosystem for the Awami League, her party, to maintain dominance. And the Awami League actually was the party that once led the liberation struggle, and over the course of 15 years, we actually saw how much they consolidated power through political repression, the Digital Security Acts that was surveilling and targeting freedom of speech, as well as the corruption and fear that they [00:06:00] stoked against their opposition. And these government jobs, like most of us, it represents many things. It represents the government's responsibility to take care of poor people, um, economic and political opportunity, and it also represents, like, the corruption and the authoritarian rule of the Awami League, and how they were rigging elections, and how the court systems, and even entrance exams for the Bangladeshi civil service, were actually regularly leaked and compromised. And so -within that background, that's when you have the Students Against Discrimination movement take the streets in July demanding fair access to government jobs. And things actually got violent really fast. Within seven days, nearly 174 people were murdered, and thousands were injured. There was an indefinite curfew, social media blackouts, and then a military occupation with shoot on sight orders. And of course, the bullets that were raining upon, Bangladeshis were US, [00:07:00] arms. So students were terrorized by these vigilante groups that were collaborating with the Bangladeshi police. And these student groups were actually organized by the Bangladeshi Awami League. These student groups were notorious for repressing student elections, sexually assaulting students, um really threatening people that were running for student elections. And so there's already this, like, vigilante ecosystem that exists within the campuses that was weaponized during the student protests. And then you have a climax moment on July 14th. Sheikh Hasina went on television accusing the students of being Razakars, and Razakars are collaborators of the Pakistani army, and it's a very derogatory term in Bangladesh, and it refers to people who support the Pakistani military's operation to suppress the Bangladeshi Liberation War. They're also accused of heinous crimes. And so when students were accused of being Razakars, it, like, [00:08:00] lit a fire. Millions took the streets that day, and they were like, “Oh, hell no.” Like, “How dare she disrespect us?” While there's thousands of people who are on the streets, blood, everywhere. Rickshaw wallas are having to pull students into hospitals. There's just so much violence happening on the ground. And so on that National Day of Action, July 15th, clashes happen. Multiple deaths are live-streamed, and one of them, Abu Sayeed, he was a university student at Rangpur University in northwest Bangladesh, really galvanized the country because we watched this student, who is not armed, surrender and get sh- shot, by the Bangladeshi police. And we know what these spontaneous moments of violence do to the public, right? It usually always sets fire to another wave of social protests and action. And so then millions start marching to Sheikh Hasina's home, and [00:09:00] really, her brutal and arrogant response sealed her fate. And the protesters, and at this point, this is a populist movement, millions of people that are rickshaw wallas, working-class people, students, teachers, are taking the streets, marching towards her house. And they demand her resignation. And on August 5th, within 36 days of the movement, she resigns and flees to India, our neighboring country. Over 1,400 people have been killed, under her brutal repression. And so that's some of the background of the student movement, and we can talk more about some of the dynamics of it. Cayden: Yeah, that's super helpful, and I think reflecting on the ways in which also the sort of, like, escalation on the part of the government is, I think, a really important story here, for sure. Samir, I'll also now turn it to you. What should our listeners know about last fall's uprisings in Nepal, which also ousted the sitting government of, K.P. Oli and his, his party and how they led to [00:10:00] elections, earlier this month, in March of this year?  Samir: Thanks, Cayden, and Happy Independence Day to you, Sharmin. I am somebody who was born and raised in Nepal, and am spending most of my life in the diaspora now, and I wanna name the limitations of, uh, my understanding of what's going on in Nepal because of me not being on the ground organizing with the masses. And, I wanna honor the work that's been happening in Nepal, on the ground one of the big things that, that's really n- is important to name is, like, it's only been 20 years since we abolished monarchy. Uh- Mm-hmm. … uh, 2006, right? That is a big thing for us to understand. And the party that was in power, and has been in power since, was the party that has been organizing our movements, and that is the organized left in Nepal, and, like, really betrayed our people once we, once they got into power, right? And, like, started kind of veering towards the right once they got in power. So 20 years later The economic conditions of our people on the ground are really dire. There's no jobs available. People are migrating. A lot of our folks, one of the biggest source of economy and source of money for our, [00:11:00] our people back home is, like, migrant work, uh, in Dubai and, traveling to Dubai, Qatar, and working under very bad conditions. So one- that's one of the big things that's also been informing,, lot of the consciousness of the- our young people in Nepal, right? And then one of the other things that's named really important is, so since the election, since 2006, the Communist Party, the Congress Party, and the Maoist Party have been, they're the only ones who have been in power for the last 20 years, and these are all old upper caste men, even though they were the ones who were leading the movement and were organizing at left. But these were s- the representation and the leaders in these parties were all upper caste, caste Arya people, which is the dominant caste in Nepal, right? And that's a very important layer to name. And that really informed, I think, a lot of the ways they showed up after we won. And, and that's one, one big question that we always have in the left, right? What do we do after we- Yeah … abolish monarchy? What do we do after we win? And we haven't figured that out too, as does any other movements, right? And 20 years later, the frustration is on the very high, against the status quo. And then we, and there [00:12:00] was a lot of, like, obviously there was a lot of inspiration from Bangladesh, like Indonesia, and, like, the uprisings there. And, like, this one, uh, thing started trending the young people started organizing around Nepo babies. There's like, you know, “Yeah, you don't have access to we do, you're gonna take our access away from social media while your kids, and people who have connections to you and have, access to you are just posting about the life, the lavish life they're living abroad and in my homelands,” right? So that's one of the places where it started. And once that started, there was online campaign. And there was already conversations around banning social media in Nepal, and they were- Hmm … finding, like, different ways around it, and that really escalated the way people really responded to the situation, is like once they started organizing around Nepo babies and how they were, like, getting momentum around that, that's when exactly the social media ban went into effect, right? And that's a really important name because, like, one of the biggest pet peeves for me as a diaspora person has been this idea of people only started the uprising and took the streets because of the social media ban. [00:13:00] But just- Hmm. Mm-hmm … all these other things really added up to it. That was just the, just the point of escalation, right? So fast-forward, people started organizing on Discord. Uh, also the irony of it is that was one of the apps that was banned, uh, in Nepal as, uh… And people started organizing in Discord. And also wanna name the reality of, like, the only people who had access to Discord are also, like, privileged folks like us- Sure like younger, upper middle class people. So we were not really getting folks from outside Kathmandu and from our villages and from rural areas, right? So they didn't really have any say in what the organizing would look like. So it happened very, organically, very decentralized. So there was a call for people to show up at Maitighar which has been a popular protest space in Nepal, for a very long time. And it was like at the, at the center of Kathmandu. So there was a call out september 8. A lot of folks came out, and then people from outside Kathmandu that couldn't make it to Kathmandu started coming in big numbers. And the goal of the protest was peaceful protest, right? [00:14:00] And one of the things that happened, don't quote me on this, but my understanding of it from, talking to people there is, like, a lot of political parties who had, who were the opposition from the Communist Party at that time started infiltrating the protest, and the protest started becoming, quote-unquote, “violent,”, which was not, uh, what the young people wanted. So fast-forward, that led to 19 deaths on the first day of the protest, which led to the home minister resigning, at the end of the day. But Oli, the prime minister, is so arrogant and really didn't figure out the power of young people and, like, how they could keep mobilizing and organizing. He decided to just downplay them and say, “I'm not resigning,” which led to more heightened escalated protests the second day, where people started marching to the parliament buildings and started burning down buildings. And people started, people got to a lot of, like, the political parties' political party leader home and started burning them, and, really started, holding them accountable. And also , there was videos of clips of, like, people torching into people's homes and, like, [00:15:00] Sher Bahadur Deuba, who has been in power for the last 20 years in different, ways, who's one of the, considered one of the most corrupt leader in Nepal, from Nepali Congress party, got attacked by the protesters. So fast-forward, more escalation led to, like, 52 more deaths, and the Oli party finally decided to resign at the end of that night, and that's, that's when curfew was impo- imposed by, the army. So that led to, like, a total of 72 deaths. I wanna name, like, in just the two days of mobilization, two days of organizing, because sometimes in the left we don't understand. We talk about the similarities of our struggles but we don't really talk about the conditions that led to it and, like, the level for the risk that our folks leveraged, to be able to topple the government, right? So I just wanna name that out loud and honor that part of, like, how the, how people, like, really leveraged risk. And then fast-forward, people started organizing. The conversation kept going on on Discord, and then there was, like, a town hall style meetings happening on Discord where, like, I think 7 to 8,000 people were on it. And also I still wanna name again, the people who didn't have access to the internet and [00:16:00] phones were not able to part- participate in that. And decided Susila Karki, who was a chief justice 10 years ago, a woman, who also joined protesters during the first day of them mobilizing in the street. They decided, they voted, to hold her as the interim prime minister for now. And There was also one other layer is like a lot of people wanted Balen Sah, who is our prime minister now, but constitutionally if he was part of the interim government, he wouldn't be able to run for prime minister. So that was like a strategic decision that, uh, like he made, and the movement made around not electing him as part of the interim government. So one of the big responsibilities of the interim government was to hold elections in six months, which honestly I was not very-  Cayden: That's hugely ambitious. Samir: It is hugely ambitious, right? And also the reality is it happened, and also there are questions around, yeah, were we able to hold elections in a way where everybody had access to it, right? And that is a big question that I'm still asking, I'm still sitting with. But there were like record numbers that showed up to the polls, but [00:17:00] we haven't really, like we still really don't have answers around what accessibility looked like for people to show up at the polls. And fast-forward now, the Rastriya Swatantra Party which emerged at like a, at a very popular party in 2022, won with majority. And we just sworn in our new Prime Minister Balen Sah yesterday, we can talk about more later. Cayden: Well, thank you for summing up, both of you for summing up- Pretty long, complex histories fairly quickly for us. I've been thinking about the way that, like, Western media largely reports on these kinds of uprisings as if they come out of nowhere. And, like, we know as movement people that rarely, if ever, like, do they truly come out of nowhere. So, like, yeah, I wanna dig into what the longer arc of these stories really is. And I, I really wanna talk about, I guess, like, the specific texture in both Bangladesh and Nepal about how these protest movements position themselves against the government, against, like, other social forces, and, like, how kind of, like, other social phenomena acted on and shaped [00:18:00] these movements as well. Sharmin: I love that question 'cause it allows us to see, like, also the rich history of our, like, respective areas, and how much, like, young people have always been at the forefront of so many revolutionary struggles. And we often, um, you know, uh, post social media era like to make generalizations that this never existed before. But actually, you know, in Bangladesh, students are the most incredibly organized force that has shaped much of our history since 1947. The 1969 uprisings against Ayub Khan, the 1971 Liberation War, and then the , 1987 protests against the military dictator Ershad. And then later, our return to democratic governance in 1990 and the road safety protests of 2018, which actually laid the groundwork for so much of the student, frustration with the government not being able to keep students safe because of road safety issues and [00:19:00] just, the general mismanagement of transportation and, public resources. And so the campus has always been a key space for the pulse of the nation. But it's also a key space for goons and vigilante groups to organize their forces. So the Bangladesh Awami League has their faction, the Chhatra League, and then there's, you know, the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is the right-wing Islamist group of Bangladesh that has been growing, has their faction, the Chhatra Shibir. And then the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which, you know, has been in opposition to the Awami League, also has their goons on campuses. And so one of the major, trends you'll see during these moments is how these factions are actually weaponized to make sure that the violent state apparatus is deployed within public spaces. And, you know, you asked about, like, missteps and some of the things that political formations, might forget to plan for or think [00:20:00] about. And, you know, one of the things that I, I'm sure Samir can relate a little bit is, like, a lot of these student organizations, you know, students against discrimination, there was a group of men who claimed leadership of the student movement and formed, a party, the National Citizens Party. And you notice quickly the contradictions of their formation. All the women leaders were either asked to leave or they left because of what an undemocratic, unfeminist space it was. And then you noticed quickly that the National Citizen Party started allying itself with the right-wing forces to gain a populist base. And that, to me, is the, one of the biggest contradictions of what do leftists do when we gain power? And also, like, the sober conversation is, are these leaders leftists? Or did-  Cayden: Yeah, were they ever? Were they ever?  Sharmin: Or did we project our leftist dreams onto them and I think one of the things that [00:21:00] we've been doing for many generations, and I think Vincent Bevins' work really synopsizes this well, in looking at the last decade of popular uprisings, is that we've been doing politics without ideology, right? Mm-hmm. That these political for- formations actually don't have a coherent theory of change when they're contesting for power. And so you notice quickly the National Citizens Party was very reactionary, and it was very anti-fascist by, their vernacular, but what anti-fascism meant was that we hate the Awami League, we're gonna ban the Awami League, and the Awami League is no longer going to exist. And then we're- Yes … gonna fight for Sheikh Hasina to be hanged, right? And so that became their populist slogan.  Cayden: Hmm.  Sharmin: And so, you know, there is no left force in Bangladesh, and that's something that we have to name, that for sure there are garment workers that are organizing a party. There's a communist league that does not actually grow in their base. Um- Hmm … and that is why coming out of [00:22:00] the July uprisings, you notice this leadership actually turned center right really fast because they didn't have a, a vision that was rooted in economic and political struggles of the working-class students who made up majority of the base of people that were on the streets. Um, and you know, it was surprising, Cayden, I'll just say, like, after the, the NCP was getting ready for elections that just happened this past February, they joined a coalition with the largest Islamist force of Bangladesh, and this is such a misstep, right? To join forces. W- your enemy of your enemy is not your friend, right? Like, wh- where, like, where, when has that gotten us anywhere? It falls into the traps of organizing without a clear, coherent ideology, and then the post-uprising impact is weakened. And so a lot of that groundwork of, like, theoretical work, we actually have to do that to be able to be ready for fights that take power in the way that [00:23:00] feel, restorative and generative, instead of what we're seeing now, which is a populist right-wing growth in Bangladesh. Cayden: That feels like such an important lesson that we need to learn, unfortunately, over and over again, and I feel like this theme of, the enemy of my enemy is sometimes still my enemy has been coming up on this show a lot lately. That like, it, I, uh, you know, we see it happening in our movement politics here too, especially in, in this sort of moment of authoritarian retrenchment in our own government, that like, there are, there are challenges around that, and there's like ways that I think, yeah, it makes sense that it feels good in the moment to be like, “Yeah, there's more of us than there are of them.” But it's like, well, who, who are us? Like, what is the us that we're talking about? Samir, I will pass it to you to talk about, I guess, some of the texture that we should know about the protest movement in Nepal, and like what are the ways that, other social forces also outside the state have shaped the way that the protests have played out there. Samir: I was listening to Sharmin, and I was like, “Oh, there's so many similarities,” [00:24:00] like in a lot of the political forces that led our movements and also like talking about K.P. Oli, there's so many similarities of like how they were the face of the movement. And as somebody who really admired K.P. Oli because, you know, he was part of the social movement left. He was part of , like the first people's movement struggles, uh, that happened in the '90s that got rid of absolute monarchy. He was the face of the Communist Party. He did take up arms, right? So all of the tools that our revolutionary histories have used to, find liberation, right? So he used a diversity of tactics. Like, he started as somebody who believed in picking up arms. And then he led a people's movement in the '90s of, like with other political parties to get rid of the Panchayat system, which was a system of absolute monarchy and where all the political parties were dissolved right by the king from the 1960 to 1990, right? But one of the big things that I think we didn't think about when our movements were being led, when our movement ancestors were organizing and like really thinking about is like what does identity mean for our movements. There's political forces, [00:25:00] the social movement parties that are leading our people and organizing our people, and they did the organizing that happened in Nepal, the door-to-door, the base building that happened, if that was done by political parties, right? Which is true, and we need to name that layer, too. And I think one of the things that we're missing in this moment right now is we have been so, so frustrated by the last 20 years of governance by these forces. We wanna forget the political history of how we got here, right? Mm-hmm. And that has been one of my big critique of the young people in Nepal, right? And for me, I also think about as somebody who's getting older and also had access to my dad who was part of this movement, right? He was a big force as part of the Communist Party, and now he's heavily traumatized because of the way he got betrayed by his comrades, right? And I think one of the forces I was talking about identity is, like, all of these political forces were led by upper caste Brahmin men, and there was no indigenous representation. So finally, the 1990, we were able to get rid of absolute [00:26:00] monarchy. By '96, we still don't have full democracy in Nepal, so, you know, the Maoists decided to wage a civil war where they really organized the masses, and really created conditions for the monarchy, to bow down, right? And the Maoist party came out of this forest and, like, built a coalition with the Communist Party and the Congress Party to take the streets again. In 2006, we finally were able to get rid of monarchy, but 2006 to 2014 was a struggle to, like, really, draft a new constitution for us, where we made some progress and where we also did some things where it took us back around, like, women's rights, right? And so there was a big feminist movement that really created, like, organizing conditions of 2026 in so many ways, right? And one of the things that we were seeing during the last 20 years is what's happening is all the communist parties, the people who led our movements and uprisings were veering towards the right, right? Hmm. Because they consolidated more power, like, you know, exactly what happened with, uh, Bangladesh. They consolidated more power where, you know, they could stay in power [00:27:00] for long. The indigenous folks were part of the struggles and the uprisings in the 100 years of our movement struggles. But once we won and they got, the Communist Party got into power, they started, like, pushing policies that would not benefit indigenous peoples, right? And then one of the big things that Nepal wanted is federalism in terms of, like, one of the big critiques of Nepal has been the government is so centralized in Kathmandu. Other people outside of Kathmandu really don't get to take part in politics. And, so federalism was one of the big things that we pushed for, right? At Indigenous Struggles, that is the one thing that we pushed for so that we can govern our homelands, and that was the one thing that Oli was, like, against too, and that was also one of the reasons why he started becoming less and less popular, right? But one of the things that's 2026 was, I think it's also really important to understand, is the 2026 uprisings were led by youth who I believe, I dare to say, didn't have, the full understanding, the political understanding of our political histories in that way. And there's this, like, disconnect in terms of, like… it's hard for me to bridge the 100 years of left in Nepal [00:28:00] and like, you know, this youth uprising that's happening in Nepal that has no connection because it's not an organized group, right? It's very decentralized. Right. It happened on Discord. And that is one of the big questions we have now is, like, how do we as young people, the young people who led this uprisings, how do they stay organized, right? And that is a big question we still don't, we don't have answers to, right? The movement histories and, you know, the last 20 years has been very traumatizing, but there's also so many lessons and so many beautiful things that happened during the organizing, right? So how do we make those connections? How do we ask those questions? How do we talk to this feminist group? How do we talk to, like, workers, right? We need to figure that out. And I think one of the big things, like Sharmin talked about too, is like the student protest student movements were a big part of how we got liberation in Nepal, and the student movements are like directly connected to political parties because they have the student wing. But that also doesn't mean they are not organized. Yes, they were organized, and they really figured it out, but they have gotten corrupt. There's goons there, there's only men there. [00:29:00] And, like, how do we really ask those questions as a movement now and start building on some of our social movement histories? And that is a big question. And I haven't heard anything, and I'm very curious what's gonna happen on that, and I've been sitting with that a lot, too.  Cayden: Yeah. No, I, I mean, I feel like thinking about the challenges in remembering and then sometimes, like, having movement history misremembered to us by people with motivations. I can see how in that way for these young people who are getting organized, who are, like, trying to figure out what they want from the government in the future . there's some real, delicate territory for them to negotiate around, like, understanding themselves in a lot of ways as political and historic actors, which is really interesting. Swati Rayasam: You are tuned in to Apex Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org.  Cayden: One of the other trends that [00:30:00] I would love to talk about is this, sort Western media trend where, an uprising happens somewhere, a protest movement happens somewhere, and they're like, “Oh, there's an interim government. Great.” And then, like, in the US, we don't hear anymore the establishment of interim government is, first of all, deeply informed by the social movements and social forces that are already moving on the ground and also glosses over the way politics is done in a particular place. I'm wondering if there's stuff that you've noticed that has really been lost from the international media discourse about the politics of both Bangladesh and Nepal since the sort of student uprising moment. And if there's stuff that you've been seeing in the like, interim government moments that you're like, “Oh, this is something to watch out for.” Like, “This is something that we can draw some lessons from.”  Sharmin: Yeah. Well, in Bangladesh we had a United States favorite Nobel Laureate, you know, Muhammad Yunus- Mm-hmm as our interim government. And, and I think what's so fascinating is that, you know, he is the world's sweetheart because he created [00:31:00] this, like, you know, microfinancing program that is, a program that they say, you know, empowers the poor people. And, we know that in practice it actually did not reverse poverty, and it actually left millions of people in more debt, than, they or- originally were projected to gain. And so I think what's very fascinating about having such a pro-capitalist, figure that is, a sweetheart of empire, it spoke to his legacy in office, you know? During his time, he also signed one of the most devastating US-Bangladesh trade agreements with Trump- Hmm … which actually, further isolates China from the Bangladeshi trade market and, forces Bangladesh to do all of our trade deals with the US. And it's a non-binding agreement. And so it is, deeply unlawful and also devastating to the economy of this area of Southeast Asia that actually needs China as, an ally, as a country that has, contributed a lot to the development of [00:32:00] our, transportation systems and, so for us it- it's also about how much of this interim government was, you know, representing the interests of the global elite and what he was willing to do to be able to s- to, to squash, revolutionary energy within the country. The Women's Commission was one of the most powerful consolidation of feminist leaders under the interim government that were looking to reform land laws for women. And similar to what, Samir was saying, right? Women's rights just are the first thing that these governments throw under the bus and that- women's commission report that was looking to really examine land laws and inheritance laws and and the rights of women economically like actually triggered one of the largest anti-feminist rallies in the country's history- Wow … where millions, millions of Jamaat-e-Islami men and their supporters took the streets in [00:33:00] protest of women having rights. And that was something you did not see the Western media touch, even-  Cayden: No …  Sharmin: even though the Western media was, like, so excited for this revolution, right? You know, on the ground too, you have those people that are like, “This is a CIA-backed, like, uprising,” right? And then on the ground you see, like, oh yeah, people actually don't want to touch the complexities of this country because it is layered within, like, religious nationalisms- Mm-hmm ethnic nationalisms, and caste. And so in my experience, I would just say that people know very little of the political forces within this, greater West Asian political landscape and how it connects to US imperialism here and abroad, you know? Pakistan was once the CIA's closest ally in the Cold War, and they continue to be during the war on terror right now, right? Mm-hmm. The United States provided Pakistan with military, diplomatic, and economic support because a [00:34:00] pro-US military dictatorship in this region that was a staunch anti-communist ally created a buffer between the axis of the USSR, China. Cayden: Hmm.  Sharmin: And then I'll say at the same time, on the ground, there were dozens of reports of mobs that were attacking temples and Hindu leaders. Hindus are a minority in Bangladesh that have been historically, marginalized, and these contradictions were, were getting highlighted, right? Because that violence was eerily similar, right? The partition of South Asia- Yeah …  Cayden: excluded  Sharmin: Hindu-Muslim communalism, and there were tensions and divides that fell across class lines. And for Western and, hegemonic media outlets, this looked like, oh, the Muslims are attacking the Hindus again.  Samir: Right.  Sharmin: And so for me, like, the being able to reckon Islamophobia, communal violence, identity and class politics, but also the way nationalism operates in South Asia, it, it's a tricky dance [00:35:00] And I've been learning how to really convey this complex history because the country's, uh like, beautiful history of, like, using guerrilla warfare to defeat US-backed forces in the region, it also represents something different from its neighbors, India and Pakistan. Mm-hmm. And within that, you know, we have Bangladesh joining the PLO in Lebanon to fight on behalf of Palestinian liberation. We have the fact that the country's actually i- inception was based on a socialist vision, right? And it's now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with the fast fashion garment industry that's also ravaged by climate crisis and mass displacement. And so for me, it always just comes back to anti-war and anti-imperialism, like all the nodes of my brain, because I'm like, “Here's this US global death-making machine and this defense industry that sells tear gas shells to my country and [00:36:00] sells Israeli surveillance technology to my country.” And then there's this Bangladesh trade agreement that Trump was able to wager during this vulnerable moment for our country and it's at the core of all the political and economic violence within my country. And so the neoliberalization of our campuses and what these students are facing is because of the war economy. And so, so I just, like, zoom out in those moments, and I'm like, “Oh, this, this feels very much so like Cold War politics and the aftermath.”  Cayden: Yeah, like the politics of the Cold War have just simply never left us. Like, they're still here, and it's like we've sort of swapped in China as the big bad in a lot of ways.  Sharmin: Right.  Cayden: Samir, I wonder if there's, stuff that you've been seeing about the interim government in Nepal that you think are worth our sort of examination as kind of like lessons that we can draw from what happens after the protest, and yeah, like how that has been part of the electoral moment also we're in in Nepal right now. Samir: Yeah, [00:37:00] well, the interim government was, what was it, about five months. I think we didn't really see a lot of work that happened from the interim government, but obviously one of the big wins of the interim government was they were successfully able to hold elections. And the Western media has only focused on Balen Saha, this, quote-unquote, “rapper,” this charismatic guy who is gonna, who's 35 years old and is gonna lead. And then like Sushila Karki, I mean, one of the big things that everybody is like, “Oh, she's the first woman prime minister of Nepal, and what does that mean for us?” And, you know, this identity politics of like, “Oh, we finally got a woman president.” And for us it's like when we talk about it, that's the only thing we see in the discourse. But the reality is she was also a woman prime minister in an interim government that she knew was gonna last for six months, right? And also one of the things that a lot of people don't think about and realize is like the youth really didn't know who she was. And I think that's one of the big things that Sarmin talked about too, is like how do our youth have the consciousness? And do we have a left, social movement left, that's actually supporting them to really understand, you know, the conditions [00:38:00] of our people and who we're electing and, like, how we're organizing and what that means for us, right? But one of the big popularities about her was, like, she was not a career, jurist as she was appointed, was a lawyer that was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2009 by the Judicial Council, and she had this reputation of pushing back against some of the political parties and some of the establishments in that time. So that was, like, one of the big things that really lured our folks, there was this one interview of her that went really viral about how she talks about, you know, establishment parties and how she challenged, some of the status quo while she was… Because a lot of times what happens with some of these appointments are people who are loyal to the to the parties, right? That was the one big thing that really attracted a lot of our young folks, to mobilize around her being the prime minister. And it's just, like, a lot of unknowns around, like, we still don't know because with the older parties, it was very clear to us that the Communist Party was, like, more loyal to China, right? And the Congress party was more loyal to India. And then one of the things a lot that we don't see in the discourse even in left spaces, right? Even [00:39:00] in, like, media spaces is, more than US imperialism, India and China is also waging some form of imperialism in our homelands, right? And that we don't wanna name that layer because in the US, as, us being in the belly of the beast, our only responsibility is to fight US imperialism. And then for me, as somebody from the Global South, I understand that how that impacts our movement and how that is dangerous and harmful to our people in our, back in our homeland. Because China and India are bullying Nepal in a lot of different ways politically, right? Because nothing happens in Nepal without the consent of India and China, right? And India obviously has more power, and they're, like, fighting over that power in Nepal right now. And the other thing that I wanted to name is, I was hoping K.P. Oli, during our interim prime ministership, during that interim government, would be held accountable, which didn't happen. And we're not talking about that, right? And also she [Karki] had a lot of limitations, and we still are figuring out what, like, what kind of power she held, right? But the hope was for me was, like, that she would hold the people who were responsible for our people's deaths accountable during the six months she was there, which [00:40:00] really didn't happen and really moved. And that's one of the things that hasn't been talked about, and I think that was a big political opportunity for her to do some of that work to push K.P. Oli out of power because he, after doing all of this, was still able to contest the elections and lost really badly. But one of the things for me, the inspiration was, like, how Sheikh Hasina was pushed out of the country, right? Like, that was one of the hopes and dreams, and that didn't really happen, during this interim government.  Cayden: Hmm. That's interesting that there's, like, a possibility that he might be back. Well, I wanna turn a little bit to thinking about this history that's been unfolding and, like, what it is like to be observing, talking to comrades and loved ones as an organizer who's based here in the US as part of your diasporic community. One of the things I think a lot about is, like- When we talk about solidarity with people's movements internationally in the US, sometimes we forget that, like, people from those diasporas are our comrades. They are here. And that we have a lot to, [00:41:00] like, learn from them. What has it been like watching the sort of, like, social movements in Bangladesh and Nepal respectively, and what has it been like to have that consciousness as an organizer here in the US dealing with all of the political stuff that we've been dealing with here? Samir: I love that you asked that question, Cayden, and also, like, yes, I just wanna start with, like, this layer of like, oh, yes, we have comrades here who are from these diasporic communities who actually can inform us in this. And to add another layer to that, even with, with my, you know, my history of being born and raised in Nepal and, like, being connected to our movements there and, like, living here for the last 20 years now, right? That also creates another layer where I don't have access to everything, and that also creates a layer of, like, that I don't have to know everything, right? And I wish our left- Mm-hmm … Western left understood that layer sometimes because – In our movements, I'm gonna go be a little– I'm gonna little shit about our movements here, you know? Because one of the things that happens is, like, the romanticization of what's going on in our homelands without understanding, and this idea- Mm-hmm of, like-like, we have to know the answers to every… It's okay to not have answers. I think that's a big thing that I reflect on a lot as somebody here, [00:42:00] right? And also, the reality is I have access to my father, who is, for me, the only revolutionary that I know who was part of, like, social movements and who, like, really spent his whole life to the movement and is now still doing things after being betrayed by his party, right? So I think that's one of the big things. I think it's okay to know that. I think the second thing for me as somebody in the diaspora, it's my role in the diaspora. It's also what is my role in the diaspora to inform my comrades. If you're an upper-caste person, it is your responsibility to name that in the movement spaces that you hold and name that layer- Mm … and inform people about that layer. I think about that a lot. I sit up, I sit with that and reflect on that a lot, and that really informs the way I show up as somebody in the diaspora. And my responsibility, one of the things that we saw when all of this was happening you know, the movements, the social movement left was so fast, got into this train of, like, it's a Color Revolution [i.e., the revolution is backed by the US government/is a US-led intervention], as if our peoples don't have the capacity to organize. Yes, there was infiltrations. Yes, India was involved. But yes, there was also uprising where 70 people died, right? So just, bringing it down to, like, it's not really being complex and, like, [00:43:00] being nuance about that. And that really is harmful to our people back home, right? Because that, in that, when we're doing that, we're taking away, like, access from our people in terms of, like, how they are doing things. And also, like, really, I think invalidating the fact that our, the governments that was being oppressing against the uprisings are oppressive. So that just, like, invisibilizes, uh, what the state is doing, right? Because it is a Color Revolution, you know. The, it is not led by the people. We're, there was even sign, things like they said, like, “Oh, there were signs in English.” Like, can you just think about, you know, the, the orientalist, uh, you know-  Cayden: Yeah …  Samir: orientalist way that you are thinking even as somebody who considers yourself a social movement left. So that's, I think, one my, that, for me, that is a big responsibility. And- And that is where I can also make an impact as somebody in the diaspora. I am not on the ground, that is the reality of it, and knowing where I can make impact and how I can make impact, and knowing very clearly that I don't have all the answers, and I'm not– I'm an outsider in so many… I go back home every time I go home for a couple of months, the way I show up in these movement spaces [00:44:00] is I'm here to listen and I'm an outsider, and I'm trying to figure out how I can support you, right? And that is, for me, a role as a diasporic person, and I'm very clear on that. And I think it's also because I have access to my dad who grounds me in that, and it's like- Mm-hmm “Samir, you don't live here anymore.” He will remind me very clearly. He's like, “You don't live here anymore.” And you need to understand that, and that's okay.” And he will ground me in that, and that really helps me in terms of thinking of how I wanna show up as a diasporic person.  Cayden: Yeah. No, that's, that's really helpful, and I think that, like, this thing that you're describing about the sort of like in some ways, like, healthy, but in other ways sort of, like, overblown skepticism that US observers can have about uprisings, revolutions in other countries just because, like… The, the word that came to mind as you were describing it was, like, infantilizing, right? That it's, like, as if people can't independently form their own political opinions without the intervention of the, like, global superpower is just sort of, like, baffling to me. You hit on something that, like, I think about a lot [00:45:00] also as somebody who is, like, a generation removed from the immigrant generation in my family. I don't have a ton of relationships with my family who are in Hong Kong and China, but, like, how do I, like how do I relate to that? It's very challenging, and it's- and I, I think that there's so much in, like, US like left social movement discourse that I'm just kind of like, “I actually don't know how to relate to this as a diasporic person sometimes.” Sharmin, I'm also interested to hear from you on this.  Sharmin: Yeah. Yeah, similarly, I feel, I feel like there is this, like, uh, relationality that it's pushing people that are here to really think about more clearly. I feel like some of the early '70s through the '90s was a very, like, symbolic type of solidarity that we had- Mm-hmm where, where, you know, we would do the cultural attire, the cultural associations, you know, the melas, which are, like, big fairs that we have in these hubs of, like, immigrant communities. And now I think the politics are coming back. Like, I think after the July uprising, [00:46:00] you actually saw solidarity actions popping up across hubs in, you know, New York and California where people were like, “Actually, this impacts me and I wanna talk about what this means. I wanna talk about the cultural and political organizations that run this local community.” And one thing that I really took back from the last two visits to Bangladesh is really learning the skills of talking to somebody who disagrees with me because-  Cayden: Hmm …  Sharmin: I think in the United States the left does not practice, being able to engage, talk, even, like, be in relationship with people that might be politically opposed to you. And so when I go to Bangladesh, I'm actually surrounded by a lot of homophobes. I'm surrounded by a lot of men who, like, support the Awami League, and I've had to kind of, like, sit in this in between of being like, “Oh, yeah, like, I actually have to learn how to debate better. I have to learn how to, like, you know, be that person that's, like, holding humanity but also holding the, the critical left analysis that I, I believed in to be right because I [00:47:00] know I'm right.” Right? And I know that, like, this is a hill that's worth dying on. And I think with Mamdani's win in, in New York, like, there's so many examples of how that, like, South Asian left politic that's actually talking about class exists- Mm-hmm.  Cayden: Yeah …  Sharmin: within the geography of our communities. And, you know, especially for, you know, Samir and I are, like, the minority South Asians, so we're not the Indian upper caste. And so for us, we're like, “This has always been the reality of our people.” They are working-class organizers. They're people who know how to talk about the intricacies of domestic labor, about the unorganized labor forces, about the people that are left out of the political agenda of our government. And so for me, like, I really take some of the lessons that DRUM [ Desis Rising Up and Moving]  is doing on the ground in New York around what it means to actually build a member base that's rooted in relationship, but also towards a North Star. And that North Star, it looks a little socialist. It looks a little working class. It looks [00:48:00] very deeply rooted in a feminist, anti-oppressive politic. And I think for someone in diaspora, that's been the biggest growth area for me, where I'm like, “How do I hold this vision and not lose hope that my people are not, like, all right-wing people that are out to, like, you know, destroy me and my people?” But we are in this center-right populous moment that will require us to do cultural shift. It will require us to do that, like, slow work of tilling the land, like Ella Baker spade work. And you know, a comrade of mine, Nafiz, who's a brilliant writer at Jamhor, when I was talking to him about processing the February elections, he was just like, “You know, I actually think, like, I'm seeing a lot of possibility right now because I saw what happened to Egypt after Tahrir Square, and I saw where Egypt went and what a military dictatorship did to that country.” And he was like, “And Bangladesh, that's not what happened to us.” And, and he was like, “And this is important for us to really reckon with how… Not to [00:49:00] say, like, ‘Oh, it could be so much more worse,' but it could be so much more worse.” And we have to work within these, like, terrains in a way that's, like, really reckoning with why are people wanting to find comfort in these right-wing religious social groups, because they are the only organized groups of people that are providing shelter and food. And so unless the left fills that gap, we are gonna see right-wing populism, and we've seen it within white supremacy here, but it translates to every Global South country, from Brazil to, you know, um, obviously South Asia. And so yeah, I just am trying to be more, like, relative in that way, where I'm like-  Cayden: Hmm Sharmin: “Oh, we're a lot more relative than we think we are.”  Cayden: Yeah. That is such a good insight about, like, having to context switch Across geography, across political context, like builds a, like a really important muscle for us as organizers. This has been an absolutely fantastic [00:50:00] conversation and I've learned so much from both of you. My one sort of like, well I have two outgoing questions and they're sort of related to one another. One is thinking about like as a monolingual English speaker, as somebody who's like in the US, I think one of the things that I've often felt a challenge around is like where do I look to for news, for updates, and for analysis about what's going on in the Global South, especially for places where I have no cultural or language connection. And like when you're assessing news and information that's coming out about movement politics. What do you consider, what do you think about, what are the questions you ask yourself when you're like seeing headlines, kinda day-to-day that you think would be useful for other folks to start thinking about? Sharmin: Yeah. I, I really think about, like, multiple nationalisms right now, that there's, like, these competing forces of, like, who gets to tell the story. And I always, like to think about, like, how, uh, US [00:51:00] interests, Chinese interests, or even, like, Indian interests are determining the news landscape right now. And I don't like to think about it, but I, I've been looking at so much coverage that feels very much like, yikes, like what is going on, with our, like, news ecosystem? And unfortunately, I think we need to get back on Facebook. Like, I think that the fact that- … progressives and the left have left Facebook, like, I get it. Fuck Meta, and Facebook is the main place for so much like organizing. And we-  Cayden: Contest every space.  Sharmin: Get back on Facebook. Who cares if there are right-wing trolls on it? You we have to create alternative like information systems that are, like, really amplifying to these networks and groups of people that are getting inundated with that information. And I think we're really lucky because there's a lot of leftist South Asian publications now, Himal South Asian, Jumphore, you could become Patreon supporter and really be a part of these legacy, South Asian [00:52:00] left, thinkers that are actually thinking about, like, the long-term arc, and they, they're contending with socialism. They're contending with the communist, like, legacies of our organizations. And so, I just really appreciate that they're doing political analysis with politics and not just focusing on, like, symbolic forms of, like, political analysis. So shout-out to them and, and their hard work because yeah, they, they're English media that is getting translated for this day and age, you know? Cayden: Yeah. I… It was really exciting to me to, like, do a lot of the sort of, like, background for this conversation and find, like, English language movement media coming out of South Asia. I was like, “This is so exciting.” Like, this is… I feel like in some ways the thing that they're trying to do is, like they're kind of our comrades- Mm-hmm in a sense, right? Like, they're trying to do a similar thing to the thing that we're trying to do at Convergence, and I was like, “Ooh, this is really cool. Like, I'm bookmarking this.” Yeah. So I don't know. Samir, do you have, do you have other thoughts about, like, what things [00:53:00] US people should be thinking about as they're kind of assessing news and developments? Samir: Yeah, big ups Himal Magazine. I think that is a big source of information for me too. And also as somebody who struggles with reading Nepali now, which I'm very embarrassed of it's really hard for me to get access. to. I have to sit with my dad to, like, really go through some of the news articles, which, you know, my dad gracefully agrees. Uh, I think one of the big things is, like, I do benefit a lot from his free labor. I'll just name that on this podcast. But I think, and one of the things I would say is like- Thanks,  Cayden: dad …  Samir: really, like, figuring out, like, I don't know, like, pushing through the binary of, like, what US imperialism means for Nepal and what also there's, there could be other forms of imperialism that I named earlier, that Sharmin named too. And also right now, I think there's a lot of unknowns for us too, right? We have this party that was not part of the political establishment that came into picture in 2024. So we are still grappling with the idea of, like, what does this mean for us? Who are they gonna be loyal to, and how does, what does this mean for geopolitics in Nepal, right? So we are still sitting with that question. And there is some clarity around, I think one of the things I would say is there's a [00:54:00] lot of excitement, even in diaspora community, and my role in the diaspora also has been talking to some of my friends who are stoked about this prime minister right now because we haven't built a left that is informing them of the nuances and, like, how we can actually figure out the critique of this person, right? Because for me, I think it's really important the social movement left to understand because even my friend, my comrades are sending me, “Oh, this rapper is a prime minister now.” It's somebody that I trust a lot, right? Yeah. And I have to do the work of like, “Hey, this person has this history of governing in this way when he became the mayor of Kathmandu, where he was against poor people,” right? He did some changes, structural changes that helped, upper middle class people. And using that as a way to, like, really assess what he's gonna do for Nepal, and I'm actually skeptical, right? He is somebody from the Madhesi movement, which is a indigenous group that is very marginalized in Nepal, but he also comes from a very upper class background, right? And that's also real. We have to name that. His party's ideology is to push us away from federalism in some sense, right? And also the reality is they had a majority, they won a majority because we didn't have a social movement left outside of political parties that would help us assess him, right? [00:55:00] So that's, I think that's the question. Those are some of the questions I would love people to ask, because I am asking those questions as somebody who is from Nepal and from the diaspora, and I check myself every time. And yeah, I will end it with, like, it's okay to not have all the answers, and just, yeah, do some of that work of, like, reflecting on, like, asking yourself how you are taking in some of the information that you're seeing. And obviously, Himal Magazine is a big source, and one of the Substacks that I would highly recommend too is, I think we could put it in the links later, it's called Kalam Weekly, which is on Substack. I have some critiques of their writing too, but that's really been helping me understand what's going on in Nepal right now.  Cayden: You both have been so incredibly generous with your time, and this has been such a rich conversation. I don't know if there are places also where if our listeners want to follow your work, I don't know, if there's organizations or places where you are publishing thoughts, either your own or organizationally that you wanna share. Sharmin, is there any place people can find you online? Sharmin: Yeah, for sure. We're building the Asian American left at 18 Million Rising, so you could follow us there, and I'm @sharminultra [00:56:00] on all social media.  Cayden: And Samir, is there a place people can find you?  Samir: Uh, yeah, I am a very quiet person. Uh, but direct action has been a big part of our struggles in the last few years, and we are really thinking about, like, how we can escalate strategically, so I am part of a network of direct action trainers called the Ruckus Society. Hit us up. We do trainings, go to our website, request a training if you need any direct action support. We love nerding out on action design and thinking about action curriculum and how we train our people to do action safely. And follow Ruckus Society, and I don't really have a social that's public, so…  Cayden: that's so fair. I respect your choice not to be perceived.  Samir: I mean, also, I'm not Sharmin, I feel I learn from her so much, from Sharmin, so I just wanna name that, and also just from how I- And  Sharmin: we're friends. Like, we, we've done direct actions together. Like, we've been arrested together. Like-  Cayden: Yeah. …  Sharmin: we're comrades, so it's just so fun to be able to talk about this- Well, I really-  Cayden: Yeah …  Yeah. Thanks again, Sharmin, Samir. Absolutely a pleasure to talk, and I'm, I'm sure we'll talk again soon.  Sharmin: Talk soon. [00:57:00] Thank you, guys.  Samir:

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBSGujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

What happens to tradition, personal identity, and creative freedom when an artist decides to completely rewrite the rules of the musical game in real time?  In this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I sit down with the phenomenal award-winning Indian singer and musician, Rashmeet Kaur. Known widely for her boundary-pushing fluid artistry, Rashmeet has carved out a completely unique sonic footprint by effortlessly bridging centuries-old traditional Punjabi root music with contemporary house, techno, hip-hop, and Afro beats.  Rashmeet pulls back the curtain on her creative philosophy and what keeps her deeply in love with the limitless nature of music. She explains why she actively practices spiritual detachment from her studio work to protect her creative sanity, and why chasing safe commercial "hit records" is a dangerous trap that completely kills artistic experimentation.  We also dive deep into what the modern music industry must urgently unlearn to create safe and empowering spaces for independent creators, the divine raga-driven origin story behind her debut hit "Kahaan," and how she is fiercely connecting with her live audiences to genuinely live in the moment.  Rashmeet shares insights on:• The Power of Detachment: The harsh realities of Bollywood playback singing and why learning to let go of creative attachments anchors her independent career.  • The "Hit Song" Trap: Why she refuses requests for sequels to hits like "Ishq Nachaawe" or "Bajre Da Sitta" in order to keep her artistic intimacy fresh.  • The Divine Roots of "Kahaan": How she channelizes Sarang Raag to build an emotional environment that transforms a deeply personal journey into a live pop community.  • Vocal Cord Preservation: Bouncing between high-energy stage extroversion and entering a strict, isolated "mute mode" to protect her instrument.  • Unlearning the Hustle Trap: Why industry gatekeepers need to stop replicating past hardships and instead build safe, accessible community spaces for the next generation.  Whether you're an aspiring artist trying to navigate the modern digital music landscape, a fan of cutting-edge global fusion, or someone looking to practice deep mindfulness in a hyper-connected world, Rashmeet's masterclass in creative conviction provides an invaluable blueprint.  If you enjoyed this deep dive, please hit that subscribe button, leave a comment, and share this video with someone looking to scale their own vision!  --------------------------Chapters00:00 Introduction and Welcome02:35 Backstage Rituals and Introversion/Extroversion05:29 The Early Training: Learning from the Gurus and Finding Endless Limits07:55 Unlearning Playback Attachments & Finding Independence in Songwriting10:17 What the Music Industry Must Unlearn to Provide Free, Safe Spaces12:11 Escaping the "Hit Song" Trap: Embracing Imperfection and Experimentation15:02 Sponsor Break: Lotus Lane Coffee and Travelopod16:01 Preserving Musical  Intimacy 21:12 Storytelling, On-Stage Comedy, and the Heavy-Light Balance22:46 The "What's Next" Mindset & Reimagining the Kaura Live Sessions23:32 Singing for Her Pets: The Eager Listeners and Longest Companions24:52 Allowing Your Audience to Live in the Moment26:51 Conclusions and Shout Outs

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરોSBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

What happens when a former high school principal and White House fellow steps into the political arena to challenge the status quo?In this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I sit down with educator, leader, and congressional candidate for Florida's 22nd district, Pia Dandiya. From founding a high school in Harlem with an 86% poverty rate and sending 100% of its students to college, to running a tight political operation in a competitive toss-up seat, Pia brings a refreshing, execution-focused perspective to modern governance.Pia breaks down her core framework for societal growth—detailing why we must legislate for stability first before we can unlock true opportunity for the next generation. She opens up about the realities of modern political fundraising, the necessity of building a high-functioning policy shop on day one, and how her background as a South Asian woman raised in Florida shapes her deep appreciation for American democracy.We also dive into the future of education in the age of AI, the power of real-time community listening, and the personal unlearning it takes to shift from a pure focus on execution to leading with authenticity and a strong heart.Pia shares insights on:• Stability First, Opportunity Second: Why tackling immediate cost-of-living and housing supply challenges is the essential first step before implementing long-term workforce development programs.• The 80% Rule of Bipartisanship: How focusing on the vast common ground shared across political party lines can cut through performative politics to deliver true progress.• AI and Personalized Education: Why AI will never replace classroom teachers, but how it can empower them to become individualized facilitators of critical thinking.• Competence vs. Authenticity: The powerful leadership lesson of shifting from standard execution metrics to embracing vulnerability and human connection.• The Spark of Public Service: A moving look back at a life-changing summer teaching in India that defined her calling to fight for human dignity.If you enjoyed this deep dive, please hit that subscribe button, leave a comment, and share this video with your friends and family!--------------------------Chapters:00:00 Introduction & Vision for the Future03:19 Navigating Florida's New 22nd District04:42 Problem Solving Lessons From a Harlem Principal07:44 Rebuilding Voter Trust & Overcoming Frustration11:19 Stability First: Tackling Housing & Cost of Living13:44 Job Skills & Workforce Training in the AI Era17:33 Bipartisan Leadership & The 80% Rule19:38 Sponsor Break: Travelopod20:13 Competence vs. Authenticity in Leadership22:05 What American Patriotism Means in 202624:29 A South Asian Perspective on US Democracy25:53 Finding My Purpose: A Summer Journey to India28:57 Balancing Short-Term Needs With Long-Term Policy32:20 The Reality of Political Fundraising & Authenticity34:55 Turning Individual Power Into Civic Action37:43 Episode Wrap-up & How to Get InvolvedGet to know Pia Dandiyahttps://piaforcongress.com/#PiaDandiya #BipartisanLeadership #EducationReform #FloridaPolitics #TrustMeIKnowWhatImDoing--------------------------Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing | Dr. Abhay DandekarA mirror and window for global Indians and South Asians through conversation.Every week, we share chats with artists, leaders, musicians, chefs, experts, change makers, and innovators from the home and diaspora - sharing their journeys and motivations.Support our sponsors: Start your journey with personalized travel support at https://vacation.travelopod.com/For enquiries

Every Saturday, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on December 12, 2022. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed. Lionel Messi - considered by many to be the greatest football player of all time - is two wins away from finally winning a World Cup. And though much of his native Argentina is behind him - they are not the only ones. Continents away, in parts of India and Bangladesh, Argentina and Messi superfans also hope to see him lift the cup. So what’s behind the Messi mania in South Asia, and what does it say about the soft power of ‘the beautiful game?’ In this episode: Somdutta Bhattacharyya, Argentina superfan in India Tamjidul Hoque (@TamjidulH24v2), Argentina superfan in Bangladesh Jasmine Garsd (@JasGarsd), Host, The Last Cup Episode credits: This episode was updated by Tamara Khandaker. The original production team was Ashish Malhotra, Chloe K. Li, Ruby Zaman, and Halla Mohieddeen. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Andrew Greiner is lead of audience engagement. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરો.SBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરો.SBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરો.SBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

What happens to career strategy, leadership, and professional growth when the traditional rules of the corporate game are rewritten in real time?  In this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I sit down with executive search expert, leadership advisor, and host of the Corporate Confessions podcast, Deepali Vyas. Known widely as the "Elite Recruiter," Deepali has spent 25 years advising Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds, and high-growth AI organizations on executive hiring and leadership strategy.  Deepali pulls back the curtain on the "unwritten rules" of hierarchical organizations and explains why the traditional chronological resume is completely dead in today's attention-deficit economy. She introduces a modern framework for career positioning, detailing how professionals can build "The Signal"—a powerful one-page personal narrative—and why tying your outcomes directly to the dollar is essential for survival.  We also dive deep into the rising era of the "Company of One," the crucial differences between mentorship and true sponsorship, and how human skills like storytelling and judgment become your ultimate agency in the age of Agentic AI.  Deepali shares insights on:• The Death of the Traditional Resume: Why a chronological autobiography fails to get noticed, and how to capture an employer's attention in six seconds using "The Signal".  • The "So What" Filter: A simple, high-impact framework to flip your resume bullet points from passive tasks into quantifiable business value.  • Advisor vs. Mentor vs. Sponsor: Delineating these three fluid yet distinct roles, and why assuming your manager is your mentor by default is a common career trap.  • The "Company of One" Era: How new graduates and professionals can use portfolio careers and skill-stacking to build independent influence and security.  • Overcoming the Intelligence Paradox: Why highly accomplished individuals frequently fall into analysis paralysis, and how executive judgment thrives under ambiguity.  Whether you're a recent graduate navigating an unstable market, an executive looking to pivot, or someone trying to protect your human agency in an automated world, Deepali's masterclass in career literacy provides an invaluable blueprint.  If you enjoyed this deep dive, please hit that subscribe button, leave a comment, and share this video with someone looking to scale their own vision!   --------------------------Chapters-00:00 Introduction01:32 Deciphering Success in a Disrupted World04:05 The Unwritten Rules of Corporate Culture07:35 Post-Pandemic Workforce and Changing Rules09:23 Why the Traditional Resume Is Dead12:11 Tying Your Value to the Dollar: Modern Resume Metrics14:14 Falling into Recruiting: Cowardly Resignations & Indian Parents15:49 Navigating Wall Street & Standing Out at Goldman Sachs17:30 Sponsor Break: Travelopod19:18 Advisor vs. Mentor vs. Sponsor: Delineating the Roles23:47 Learning from Mentorship Mistakes and taking action28:49 Sponsor Break: Timberdog29:19 Overcoming the "Intelligence Paradox" & The "So What" Filter32:53 Identity, Seasons of Career, and Merit36:55 Portfolio Careers & The Era of the "Company of One"40:50 Cultivating Trust & Why AI Will Never Replace Human Connection42:44 Wrap-up & Shoutouts

Listen to the latest Australian news from SBS Gujarati. - SBS Gujarati પર ઓસ્ટ્રેલિયાના તાજા અને મહત્વના સમાચાર મેળવવા ઉપર ઓડિયો પ્લે બટન પર ક્લિક કરો.SBS Gujarati is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia.To hear more podcasts from SBS Gujarati, subscribe to our podcast collection.Tune in to SBS Gujarati live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm on SBS South Asian on digital radio, on channel 305 on your television, via the SBS Audio app or stream from our website.On SBS South Asian YouTube channel, follow SBS Gujarati podcasts and videos. You can also enjoy programs in 10 South Asian languages, plus SBS Spice content in English. It is also available on SBS On Demand. - SBS Gujarati ના વધુ પોડકાસ્ટ સાંભળવા માટે, અમારા Podcast પેજને સબસ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.SBS Gujarati નું જીવંત પ્રસારણ બુધવાર અને શુક્રવારે બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે SBS South Asian પર બપોરે 2 વાગ્યે ડિજિટલ રેડિયો પર, તમારા ટેલિવિઝન પર ચેનલ 305 પર, SBS Audio એપ્લિકેશન દ્વારા અથવા અમારી Website પરથી માણી શકો છો.SBS South Asian YouTube ચેનલ પર, SBS Gujarati podcasts ને ફોલો કરો.તમે SBS Spice પર અંગ્રેજી સહિત 10 ભાષાઓમાં કાર્યક્રમો માણી શકો છો.તે SBS On Demand પર પણ ઉપલબ્ધ છે.Listen to SBS Gujarati every Wednesday and Friday at 2 pm

How do we move the needle from simple charity to true, lasting systems change?  Megha Desai, President of the Desai Foundation, joins the podcast to share how they have impacted over 12 million lives by treating dignity as a measurable currency. If you want to catch more deep dives into the global desi and diaspora experience, hit the Subscribe button to join our community!In this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, host Dr. Abhay Dandekar sits down with Megha to explore the powerful intersection of big data and human-centered storytelling. From scaling a modest family ethos of abundance into a globally recognized public non-profit, Megha reveals what it takes to operate an impact organization like an entrepreneurial startup. We also dive deep into the global movement for menstrual equity, shifting the narrative from control to care, and what it truly means to build a sustainable infrastructure of dignity across rural India.In this episode, we cover:• Generational Shepherding: Scaling a family ethos of abundance.• The Startup Mindset: Approaching global philanthropy like a venture pitch• The Currency of Dignity: Bridging corporate investors and rural villages• Data vs. Storytelling: Why the story is the arrow tip but data is what pierces through• Menstrual Equity: Confronting global stigmas to drive health, literacy, and GDP-------------------------Chapters:00:00 Introductions and Identities04:00 Generational Shepherding: Scaling a Family Ethos of Abundance05:55 Moving from a Family Foundation to an Entrepreneurial Startup Model09:45 The Currency of Dignity: Bridging Corporate Donors and Rural Villages13:03 Active Listening in Boardrooms and Villages 17:49 Staying Loyal to Beneficiaries 21:26 Sponsor Break: Travelopod23:55 Collaborative Ecosystems and Sharing Information for Greater Impact  25:58 Menstrual Equity: Confronting Global Stigmas 29:46 Unlearning Assumptions, Cultivating Growth, Sustaining Empowerment35:08 Creating True Systemic Change and Finding Personal ConnectionConnect with Megha Desai & The Desai Foundation:• Website: https://thedesaifoundation.org/• Personal: https://meghadesai.com/Shout outs this week:• Spelling Bee Champ Shrey Parikh• Air conditioners everywhere• Primary voters across the US and especially in California#TheDesaiFoundation #MeghaDesai #MenstrualEquity #SystemicChange #WomenEmpowerment #TrustMeIKnowWhatImDoing #SouthAsianVoices #DiasporaStories #SocialImpact --------------------------Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing | Dr. Abhay DandekarA mirror and window for global Indians and South Asians through conversation.Every week, we share chats with artists, leaders, musicians, chefs, experts, change makers, and innovators from the home and diaspora - sharing their journeys and motivations.Support our sponsors: Start your journey with personalized travel support at https://vacation.travelopod.com/For enquiries

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. On this episode, host Miata Tan is joined by guests from the South Asian Coalition, an emergent national network committed to collective liberation and solidarity. Together they explore what it means to build South Asian political power in this moment—and how cross-movement solidarity can shape a more just, multiracial future. Learn more about the South Asian Coalition Website | Instagram | Policy Priorities   The South Asian Coalition was convened in October 2024 by: Manavi, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, Muslims for Just Futures, and Raksha.   Transcript ​[00:00:00]  Miata Tan : Hello and welcome. You are tuning in to APEX Express, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I'm your host, Miata Tan. Tonight, we're focusing on South Asian communities and the organizers working to build political power. South Asians are one of the fastest-growing racial groups in the United States, Over six million people [00:01:00] and roughly a quarter of the Asian American population. South Asian is used as a broad umbrella term for people with roots in countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and sometimes Afghanistan. Though exact definitions can vary across communities and organizations. And as we'll talk about tonight, within the South Asian diaspora who call the United States home, you have a mix of nationalities, religion, immigration status, and more. Tonight, I'm joined by four people working to address the issues impacting South Asian communities in the US and beyond. At a time when questions of belonging, safety, and political power continue to shape immigrant communities across the country, South Asian organizers are building new forms of solidarity while also grappling with the diversity and complexity within their own communities. The first voice you'll hear is Sabiha Basrai Sabiha is the daughter of Muslim Gujarati immigrants and has been [00:02:00] organizing with the Bay Area-based Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA, since 2009. Here's Sabiha helping us to understand how South Asian political organizing has evolved in the United States, especially in the post 9/11 era Sabiha Basrai: Thanks for the opportunity to do some reflection this year marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11, which was a real a political flashpoint that absolutely changed my life because I was a 19-year-old college student trying to figure out a lot of things about how the world works and my place in it, and my own identity and the multiple identities I hold. Uh, and also where my responsibilities lied in solidarity, not just with other Muslims who were being targeted, but our broad immigrant diasporas and allies, uh, who have experienced discrimination in different forms from the state. So thinking about the ways in which- organizing happened in the, months and years after 9/11 to support immigrant [00:03:00] rights that was really a time in which new projects formed, um, or existing projects kind of found a new focus. ASATA as an organizing project, as a group of volunteers, has both done things like shown up to support folks being called up for the NCR's Special Registration Program and also participate in direct action protests in solidarity against the war, and has continued to be part of coalitional work regionally in the Bay Area. And, you know, more recently, uh, when we think about the ways in which our communities under, are under increased pressure with the Trump administration's immigrant policies, there have been also opportunities to build more relationships and make sure that as we advocate for our community's rights, we're doing so in formation with others, not just focusing on one particular bad piece of legislation, but connecting that to a larger story, to really build towards liberation for all of us. I'll [00:04:00] just add, too that those relationships that were kind of seeded and invested in in that moment of crisis and anxiety and fear have endured in many ways to now. The fact that that very ecosystem is actually growing in this moment is a testament to the relationships that were built in those days. Miata Tan : That was Sabiha Basrai grounding us in the history of South Asian political organizing in the US. As she mentioned, for many South Asians, 9/11 marked a particularly mobilizing moment, one that helped our communities organized and built solidarity. To help us better understand how that moment influenced the evolution of progressive South Asian activism, we now turn to Deepa Iyer, South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at Building Movement Project and brings more than 25 years of experience in Asian American organizing and advocacy Deepa Iyer: I think that I would say that there [00:05:00] were, looking back, a couple of trends and themes that we can pull out from that time. one is that there was definitely a shift in the general consciousness of South Asian communities about our place in American society, our understanding of racism, Islamophobia, and also the role of the state. And so we had a situation where both hate violence and state violence were actually being endured by South Asian, Muslim, Arab communities. And so I think that there was a shift in the ways in which our communities began to think about ourselves in the United States. A second piece is the growth of a field, an ecosystem of South Asian organizations in the wake of the attacks and the global war on terror. So we began to see a lot of groups that were actually formed or becoming more staffed up in the weeks and months after 9/11. For example, the Sikh [00:06:00] Coalition was actually birthed the evening of the attacks, and an organization that I was close to, SALT, was also emerging and forming in the months after 9/11 as well. So we began to see that a, a field was growing. And the third, sort of theme I would point out that Sabihah alluded to is this sense of solidarity, that instead of sort of being siloed as, you know, South Asians working within just our communities and just talking about certain specific issues, there was real sense that we needed to collaborate and build bridges with Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and, Black communities in the United States to understand the trajectory of racism and xenophobia, and how they were all kind of coming together in the weeks after 9/11. Those three themes and trends are what, when I look back, I see coming up over and over again in our messaging and in our advocacy. Miata Tan : [00:07:00] That was Deepa Iyer, as you heard from Deepa, collaboration across movements was essential in helping South Asian communities to understand and respond to the waves of xenophobia in the wake of 9/11. Now we turn to Rajiv Narayan and Farah Mahesri, who lead national policy work at the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA together they launched and now co-lead ASATA's new political base building group, ASATA Power. Rajiv begins by reflecting on what South Asian communities are facing today and what has and hasn't changed since 9/11. Rajiv Narayan: I think unfortunately many of the challenges present in the early 2000s remain today. They take new form. Some have evolved and transformed, but they were ex- existed in, in much the same form following 9/11. One of the, the instances in which I, I learned about that is at the recent South Asian Coalition convening where we did this exercise in mapping a number of [00:08:00] historical and present day events, as well as a future vision of things that are important to our organizations and to our movements. And something that we reflected on together in the convening is that a number of these attacks on our communities have waxed and waned, uh, at different periods in time, dating back to the, the 1960s and truly at, even at the beginning of, you know, the 19th century and the late 18th century. And so, to answer your question specifically, in the early 2000s, like Deepa and Sabihah mentioned, we've dealt with, uh, an incredible expression of Islamophobia of, uh, anti-Brown and anti-Black racism and hate speech. There was a, in, in general a skepticism and unwelcoming of South Asian communities. And unfortunately with the current federal administration and political discourse in our country, uh, a number of those same themes are relevant today and take on similar forms, whether they're in [00:09:00] response to what the federal administration is doing in countries like Iran or previous administrations have done in Afghanistan or Pakistan. I think all of those events underscore all the more so that it's important for our organizations to, organize together, much as we did in the early 2000s, to address these harms, to remember what they look like at previous stages of history, and to fight to prevent them again from happening in the future. Miata Tan : Farah, perhaps you could speak a bit to the organizing. What did that look like, a few years ago, and what does that look like today? How has that changed? Farah Mahersi: Rajiv and I started ASATA Power a couple of years ago specifically to be able to look forward to practice radical imagination, and fight for not just protection of our communities, which we will always do. That is built into our DNAs. It's what we know. It's how we move. And also to fight for things that we want, to build the world that we want to live in so that we're not constantly caught in these cycles. And as we're doing [00:10:00] that, we are learning a lot about how organizing is happening today, the BLM movement, Black Lives Matter, and incredible street power, but also that movement's ability to change our national discourse and change what is baseline, what we should be demanding, and how we are visioning a future that is built on policies governance and hard material changes in our lives is profound. beyond that, also the Palestine solidarity movement over the last couple of years has rewritten every book about organizing. And so I think that it is an interesting moment of both a little bit of sadness, to be honest, that we are still fighting some of these same fights and we are still in some of these same dynamics that we have been for 25 years, and the profound opportunity that we have to build power and to look forward, and I think that is, more true in the Bay Area than it is almost everywhere else. Uh, because of what our workforce looks like, because of the sheer [00:11:00] amount of wealth that is accumulated in this little corner of our world, and also when you look around at the political power and people who hold political power or are running for political power and elected office around the Bay Area, you could really start to see not just how South Asians are increasingly politicized and increasingly looking to build electoral and political power, but also s- very specifically progressive political power. And so when you look to Congress now, The progressive caucus is full of South Asian progressives who are leading the charge, who are doing some of this critical work, that's part of our organizing strategy, is to be part of those conversations and to continue to push and to continue to, again, advocate for policies and changes at that big level to make the future we want possible. Miata Tan : I love that. Coming together to dream and really fight. Rajiv, you are leading this work at the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action. Can you speak more to why the Bay Area [00:12:00] is a, like, a distinct microcosm in this progressive South Asian movement? Rajiv Narayan: Of course. So Farah and I, we both work together at ASATA Power, and ASATA is sort of political power building project within the auspices of, uh, ASATA which has been operating in the Bay Area for more than 25 years now. I think what makes the Bay Area a microcosm of the South Asian diaspora is a tremendous amount of diversity and, uh, a set of interrelated intersectional challenges. So you have, uh, folks of South Asian descent with all different immigration histories. So I'm, for example, a person, um, who has birthright citizenship in the United States as I was born here. But there are folks who immigrated here, like my parents and had to attain their citizenship uh, through the, the US legal system, and folks beyond that who are refugees or asylees or are undocumented due to a variety of political and social and economic pressures. And so we all coexist in this same space across an economic gradient. So there are folks [00:13:00] who are very well compensated in the tech sectors and healthcare sectors sometimes, uh, characterized, uh, as part of a, a model minority myth, um, as representatives of the South Asian diaspora, um, within the San Francisco Bay Area and the United States broadly. And then there are whole variety of South Asians who are working in less well-compensated, often quite exploited industries. For example, in, care industries as people who are providing childcare or senior care services, people who are working in the restaurant industry folks who are lesser compensated within healthcare as well as in tech industries and other ways. Of course, those economic positions interact with the political and legal system. So for example, even if a person might be, um, well-compensated in a tech job in the Bay Area, um, which they attained by way of an H-1B visa that person might be subject to exploitative labor conditions based on the, uh, the legal configuration of how H-1B [00:14:00] visas are treated. For example, that you depend on your employer for your immigration status in this country, which changes the worker-employer relationship in a way that makes it very difficult to identify workplace abuses. beyond that, we also have a diverse range of South Asians across the age gradient. So we have folks who are quite young, who are in Gen Z, and are entering politics in a completely different way than somebody like myself or Deepa entered politics at, in earlier in, in our lives and experience it today, which provides an opportunity for us to learn from earlier generations and to also share lessons from our political experience. So like with many things, the Bay Area has it all, the good and the bad, and ASATA and ASATA Power work within that, that space to identify opportunities for solidarity. Miata Tan : That was Rajiv Narayan and Farah Mehestri. Through their work with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA, Rajiv and Farah are helping to build South Asian political power here in the Bay Area and [00:15:00] nationwide. The ASATA team and all four of our guests tonight are connected through the South Asian Coalition, a network of local and national organizations focused on advancing policy issues affecting South Asian communities and building shared spaces for strategy and collaboration. To better understand this evolving movement of progressive South Asian action, let's return to Deepa Iyer, who shares how and why this coalition came together Deepa Iyer: Yeah. I really appreciate Rajiv bringing up, um, how- what is happening in the Bay Area is part of a larger movement. And what I would say about this ecosystem, this field that I talked about earlier, and I've been able to understand this through the course of the work I've done, but also a book I've written about post 9/11 America, is that so much happens on the coasts, and we often forget that there are organizations and are communities that are really [00:16:00] growing in other parts of the country, right? You know, I grew up in Kentucky, um, and there are places like Kentucky and Indiana where you are seeing, um, more South Asians settle and build their lives there. So one of the things that I think has been important in thinking about as we come up on this 25th anniversary of 9/11 is how our coalition of South Asian groups, how that field has grown with these additional organizations, in geographic areas that are different, as well as the ways in which folks are organizing. So now we've got, for example, groups that are working with Bhutanese refugees or Nepali-speaking community members, or groups that are organizing around the exploitation of community members based on caste. These are, um, really important movement interventions and organizations that are growing. one of the key aspects of network infrastructure is the ability to connect with each other, [00:17:00] not to flatten our experiences and say we're all the same, but to actually find some threads of commonality in our shared struggle and our experiences, and to also know that together as collectives, as Farah mentioned earlier, we can actually build the futures that we wanna see. One of the really, I think, inspiring pieces of coalition building that I've been fortunate to work with and support along with, um, everyone here is the South Asian Coalition, which is this emergent network of now 35 organizations around the country, and this coalition really seeks to build relationships and strengthen relationships, engage in peer learning and skills building, make it clear that there are certain policy issues that we need to uplift and to advocate around, and to create opportunities and pathways for solidarity with larger movements. This coalition and the infrastructure that it's been [00:18:00] creating is a way for us to look at our ecosystem of South Asian organizing in this moment, and to really see what happens when we galvanize our power collectively. Miata Tan : and Deepa, can you share a bit about the various co-conveners that make up the South Asian Coalition?  Deepa Iyer: So the South Asian Coalition, um, as we've mentioned, is this emergent network of groups that address various issues but are aligned around shared values. And the groups that really came together to co-convene it include Asad the Power, as well as Muslims for Just Futures, Raksha, which is an organization in the South, and Manavi, which is based in New Jersey. And these four organizations really had the vision to set up the structure for the coalition. the organization where I work at, Building Movement Project, supports the coalition through infrastructure, so providing facilitation, providing resources, policy analysis, and creating the container to support [00:19:00] movements in that way, which is so critical for coalitions. Miata Tan : That was Deepa Iyer a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. after the break, we'll hear more from organizers and advocates working to address issues shaping South Asian communities today. Stay with us  [00:20:00] [00:21:00] that was “Phenom” by Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. You are tuned into [00:22:00] APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I'm your host, Miada Tan. Tonight, I'm joined by four people who are working to address the issues impacting South Asian communities in the US and beyond. Back in March, organizers, advocates, and community leaders from across the country gathered in Washington, DC, for a national convening focused on the challenges and possibilities facing South Asian communities today. Here's Sabiha Basrai with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA. She speaks about how this coalition of progressive South Asian groups formed and why this moment called for it. Sabiha Basrai: So this new emergent South Asian Coalition had its first convening in Washington, DC in March, and this was, the culmination of, a little over a year of monthly Zoom calls which started because [00:23:00] we knew we were on the verge of a Trump re-election. Uh, we knew that there was this ecosystem of South Asian activism and organizing across the country. Some of us knew each other from previous collaborations, but some of us didn't. New organizations were forming, and there was this recognition that we need each other in order to face what's coming, and we are stronger together. And we know that being South Asian is not a monolith, uh, that we deal with within our own communities based on labor exploitation, caste discrimination, anti-Muslim violence. And when we talk to each other, when we connect, we give ourselves the best chance at being able to move through those pieces of pain and build towards a future where we can all feel a sense of belonging, feel represented, and an agency in shaping that future together. So what started with a few conversations with a few folks, grew steadily [00:24:00] and, um, and through some intentional work to, to kind of invite each other in, which is of course an ongoing process, we were able to unite under this umbrella called the South Asian Coalition. Uh, we committed to some shared political points of unity and kind of community agreements to really set some expectations with one another on how we could move well in formation. And, made sure we had pathways to share information with each other so that someone like me working in Oakland could understand what, uh, someone working in Texas or in Georgia was facing, what local policy positions they were needing to, to navigate. And, uh, we could give each other advice, give each other moral support, and also sharpen our political understandings. So, uh, these kind of, uh, regular check-ins was one way of just understanding what we were all facing and feeling connected. But, actually being together in person was remarkable. I cannot overstate how much of a difference it makes to be able to share [00:25:00] space and see each other as whole people and not just representatives of a particular organization or a particular issue area, and, have those in-between moments where we actually build, build some friendships. One of the things that was also really important for me to understand when we met together was just how important that intergenerational work is. we had folks in the room who were, in their 50s and 60s who had been doing this work for decades. And we had folks in the room who were in their 20s for whom 9/11 was, something that happened in history. The conversations that were happening across generations informed the way that we think about ourselves as a coalition and helped me also to let go of some of the constraints that, kept my imagination small about what we were capable of. I was really grateful that so many people attended and chose to prioritize that work. It's hard, you know, to take a pause from The daily work to leave, fly to [00:26:00] DC take those risks as well because for many of us, uh, going through TSA is no small thing. There's a lot of harassment and racism that still permeate, you know, these institutions. So not to minimize just the effort that ta- it takes to convene and really make the most of our time together. One of the things that we did while we were in DC together was hold a congressional briefing to really, uh, amplify and share the issues that were coming up for our communities that folks were already working very hard on. Miata Tan : That was Sabiha Basrai with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA. Now let's return to Rajiv Narayan, another member of the ASATA team and co-lead of their political action group, ASATA Power. Rajiv will take you inside the congressional briefing that Sabiha mentioned and how South Asian organizers from across the country shared the issues shaping their communities and what support is needed now Rajiv Narayan: We in ASATA Power worked in [00:27:00] collaboration with a number of the organizations in the South Asian coalition, to put together a congressional briefing on the issue of South Asians and immigration in the heart of Washington, DC, in the halls of Congress in Capitol Hill. And we were fortunate to do so in collaboration with Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Grace Meng. we had a number of, speakers representing, different perspectives and political struggles within the South Asian, uh, space in the United States, especially as it relates to immigration. So, for example, we had representatives from the Dalit Solidarity Forum talking about the plight of oppressed workers, caste-oppressed workers, in New Jersey working in a Hindu temple.  ​ Dr Roja Sunganthy-Singh – Dalit: I stand here as a Dalit, formerly known as an untouchable in India's caste system, speaking for over two hundred skilled Dalit artisans who were brought to the US from India to build the largest Hindu temple in New Jersey. In their words, ” We are the Indian stone workers of America, workers [00:28:00] rescued by the FBI in twenty twenty-one from forced labor conditions constructing the BAPS temple in New Jersey. we were brought to the US on R one visas and compelled to perform construction labor for over eighty-seven hours a week and paid just a dollar twenty an hour. Rajiv Narayan: We heard from, um, the executive director of the Sikh Coalition talking about Sikh truck drivers and religious workers and their experience under the federal regime's, uh, rule-making efforts. Harman Singh – Sikh Coalition: Uh, Punjabi Sikhs began entering the US trucking industry in large numbers during the nineteen eighties, and Sikh truck drivers and business owners have played a critical role in addressing driver shortages over the past several years. Unfortunately, Sikhs in this critical industry have become the subject of harmful rhetoric and policy from this current administration. These drivers are being excluded solely because of their specific immigration status and regardless of their driving histories, skills, knowledge, or English proficiency.  Rajiv Narayan: We heard from, the executive director of Asian Refugees United, who [00:29:00] spoke about the experience of Bhutanese refugees who have been rendered stateless by the current administration's, deportation efforts Robin Gurung – ARU: Because of the ethnic cleansing campaign of Bhutan government, more than hundred thousand Bhutanese citizens were forced to flee the country. For twenty years, I lived in a refugee camp in Nepal. In 2008, the government of this country came to rescue us. We were promised safety and security. But last year, that promise was broken. As of March 2025, over seventy of our community members are deported to Bhutan, the same country that persecuted us and made us refugees. These community members are kidnapped from their homes and jobs. They have been taken from their routine ICE check-ins. We know due process was not followed. Rajiv Narayan: We also heard from the executive director of Raksha, a domestic violence organization based in the Southern United States that has played an instrumental role in supporting South Asians who have been the victims [00:30:00] and who are now survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence, about the needs for supporting these kinds of organizations, with federal dollars and through the grant-making systems conditions. Aparna Bhattacharyya – Raksha: For thirty years, we have supported community members in navigating interpersonal violence, but also waves of racism and policy backlash.  South Asian and Indo-Caribbean survivors need safe places to turn, safe places that speak their language, understand their unique immigration and cultural needs. Raksha recently had $700,000 in OVC grants terminated by DOGE. additionally, we are still waiting for OVW sexual assault cultural funds for five months, where we have gotten no determination of whether we're getting that funding or not. Five months. Rajiv Narayan: We also heard from, the director of the South Asian American Justice Collaborative, which is currently, before the US Supreme Court in the birthright citizenship case, and [00:31:00] filed this foundational amicus brief detailing the story of South Asians in the United States going back to the 1600s. Klapana Peddibhotla – SAAJCO: Our brief pushes back against this notion that we are forever foreign.  South Asians actually arrived on these shores in the sixteen hundreds, and by the seventeen hundreds, South Asians were already asserting their rights here. In an Afghan immigrant actually fought in the Civil War in the Union Army. by the late nineteenth century, the largest farming group in Central California was formed by Punjabis. Today, South Asians are one of the largest immigrant populations in the US, but many families are caught in immigration backlogs that last for decades and make them vulnerable to the President's executive order restricting birthright citizenship. Rajiv Narayan: Across all of these speakers, you know, the, the, the message became very clear that we have so many different struggles, but they're all [00:32:00] united by a sense of solidarity for each other's political experiences under the same system of exploitation and oppression, and that there, there's so much that Congress can do in this moment to support the South Asian diaspora in the United States and, and even abroad in some cases. for ASATA Power's part, we, had the opportunity to put together over the course of the last year a policy brief on undocumented South Asians, and it was during the congressional briefing that we shared some pretty startling statistics that we, collected and collated from a number of public sources. And so what we were able to identify for the room is that there are about eight hundred thousand to nine hundred thousand undocumented South Asians in the United States, and because there are only six point five million South Asians in the US, both those who are undocumented and those who have birthright citizenship or are otherwise naturalized, refugees, asylees, and, and everyone in between. Of those six point five million South Asians One in eight of [00:33:00] them is undocumented, which is shocking and not something that somebody would understand at the outset given these problematic narratives like the model minority myth and whatever you see these days on X or Twitter about South Asian immigrants. So it's important for us not only to, to set the narrative straight and to identify both the diversity and opportunity for solidarity across our struggles, but to do so in the halls of power and to speak that truth to power directly. Miata Tan : That's Rajiv with ASATA Power reflecting on a recent congressional briefing in Washington, DC he helped to organize alongside other progressive South Asian leaders, organizers, and activists. Here's a snippet of Rajiv's opening remarks at the briefing Rajiv Narayan: I want to draw your attention to the slide behind me, they'll show a couple of images of South Asian community members who've been impacted recently by the horrific policies and practices of the federal administration. These members include Sheraz Fatehali Sachwani, a forty-eight-year-old citizen of Pakistan who died in ICE [00:34:00] detention last December. They include seventy-three-year-old Harjit Kaur, who was arrested during a routine ICE check-in, separated from her family, and deported to India without notice. I should say, I grew up seeing Harjit Kaur behind the counter at Sari Palace in Berkeley. She would help my mom try on saris. Her home was here. Her community was here. You know, these are just some of the names and stories of community members who have been affected by immigration policy as of late, and we hope that you will keep them in mind as you hear from our speakers today. There are many more we were not able to picture or name, but their stories are just as important. We'll be making many asks over the course of today's briefing. Some of those include the following: Congress should not increase funding for ICE or Border Patrol, including providing funds for detention facilities, especially in this funding moment. We have to remember that ICE is not a long-standing American institution. It was created in two thousand and two, recently, as part of the Homeland Security Act following nine [00:35:00] eleven. Miata Tan : That was Rajiv Narayan with ASATA Power speaking at a recent congressional briefing in Washington, DC. The briefing was part of a larger national convening organized by the South Asian Coalition, bringing together progressive South Asian groups from across the country. Now let's return to Deepa Iyer, who leads projects on solidarity and social movements at Building Movement Project here's Deepa reflecting on her takeaways from the congressional briefing Deepa Iyer: I think that there were so many pieces in that briefing that maybe people didn't know about that organizations are struggling with, and part of it is that, um, our communities, and Sabihah said this earlier, are not a monolith, right? And there are so many different ways in which we are experiencing what is happening right now in the United States, the fractures and the fissures that we're seeing. Rajiv spoke so well about the community needs and issues. One thing I'll lift up is actually the impact on nonprofit [00:36:00] organizations. Several of the groups that were, uh, speaking at the briefing noted how the attacks on nonprofits that are specifically working on issues like immigration in terms of losing federal funding and grants, being forced to certify that they are not addressing issues work that deal with undocumented immigrants, as well as the ways in which, um, nonprofit organizations are being, in some ways, seen as doing risky and un-American work. there is the, the exploitation of domestic terrorism as a frame that is being used right now to target certain nonprofit organizations. This is something that I think is not necessarily known to many people in terms of the ways in which national security, immigration issues are also affecting the nonprofit sector as a whole. And where I work at the Building Movement Project, we really look at the nonprofit sector and the health of the nonprofit sector, and we're [00:37:00] seeing that these types of external threats, the spotlight on organizations that are on the front lines, including South Asian groups, um, Muslim groups, Palestinian groups, that are working with, um, immigrant communities, queer and trans community members that are providing- Vital language access, service provision, community safety are really under threat right now, and this includes many of the organizations that were present at the, coalition's convening. So that's something that I also wanna lift up, that in addition to our communities who are facing the impact of the current moment in really acute ways, our nonprofit sector and our organizations are also dealing with a range of constraints and threats and difficulties. So that is one thing that came up over and over again. Miata Tan : That was Deepa Iyer with the Building Movement Project, highlighting the pressures facing the nonprofit sector right now, [00:38:00] especially as it relates to South Asian organizers, advocates, and communities. Let's return to Farah Mahesri with ASATA Pawa.  Farah Mahersi: One of the other things that I am very proud of for this congressional briefing that we did was that it was us telling our own stories and us presenting our own policy recommendations. There was no need to have, like, an expert come in and talk on behalf of our communities or try to represent our communities. We were the experts in the room, and we were really recognized and seen as that. As Rajiv mentioned, you know, there, the room was packed with Hill staffers and congressional staffers who were taking diligent notes as we spoke our truths Miata Tan : That was Farah Mahesri with ASATA Pawa reflecting on the recent congressional briefing she helped to organize, one that brought greater visibility to the experiences of South Asian immigrants. You'll hear more on how South Asian activists, organizers, and community groups [00:39:00] are mobilizing after this. Stay with us ​ Miata Tan : [00:40:00] [00:41:00] [00:42:00] That was Lion on the Hunt by Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. You are tuned into APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I'm your host, Miata Tan. Tonight, we're talking about South Asian organizing in the United States and how community leaders are responding to immigration challenges, political representation, and the shifting landscape of civil rights back in March, organizers and advocates from across the country gathered in Washington, DC for a national convening focused on the challenges and possibilities facing South Asian communities today. Here's Rajiv Narayan with the Alliance of [00:43:00] South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA, reflecting on the importance of honoring both the diversity of the South Asian diaspora and the shared struggle that connects these communities Rajiv Narayan: Something I appreciate about, your work, Miata, at APEX Express, is to highlight both that diversity of the South Asian diaspora and the many struggles and experiences that unite our political experiences and our commitment to social justice. It, it used to be, and in, in some places it still is the case, that folks will use an over-broad group to represent all of the South Asian diaspora. For example, talking about all Brown people as Indian or Desi or to, to collapse all the differences in our community. And part of the power of the congressional briefing is that we are able to show that what it means to be South Asian is at once an incredibly diverse expression and at the same time a collective expression of solidarity. We can do two of these things at the same time. We can recognize our differences and fight for each other. One of my [00:44:00] favorite takeaways that I, I heard from Deepa at the briefing is that there are some staffers that came up to her and said, “I've never heard my story, my experience, my political struggles represented in a panel in this building in front of other congressional staffers.” And that's something that we can do, and we should do more of. There are so many ways in which we can tell the stories and highlight the campaigns of folks from different parts of the South Asian diaspora who are all fighting for a better life for all of us. Miata Tan : That was Rajiv Narayan with ASATA, in the recent congressional briefing that Rajiv helped to organize through the South Asian Coalition, organizers also pointed toward the future of South Asian organizing in the United States and the role of a new generation shaping it. back to Deepa Iyer with Building Movement Project. Here, Deepa Iyer: Some of the young folks that are entering or working at nonprofits now, supporting South Asian nonprofits don't have a living memory of 9/11 and the global war on terror, [00:45:00] and they have been politicized in different ways, right, over the last eight years, for example, the pandemic global wars, et cetera. And so there are a couple of ways in which I've been thinking about how we can support South Asian young people. so for example, how can we share historical analysis and political analysis so that young people understand that they are part of a trajectory of South Asian activism that actually started well before 9/11, before the 1960s, right, and that continues to today, so they don't feel fragmented. So that's something I've been sitting with a lot. Another is around pathways into public service and community service and into the nonprofit sector. So how could we support young people in terms of building their skills, in having pathways open to them into our nonprofit organizations? And then finally, how do we support them, um, so that they, can do this work for the long run? You know, we all struggle with burnout, we all [00:46:00] struggle with sustainability. what are some lessons learned that we can pass on? What are some best practices? that's something that's been sitting with me quite a bit since the gathering that we had, and I hope that the coalition will really think about, supporting young people's leadership and finding different avenues and pathways to do that. Miata Tan : That was Deepa Iyer reflecting on how movements can better support the next generation of South Asian organizers. Within the South Asian coalition, that work also means building long-term infrastructure for better collaboration. Now back to Sabiha Basrai with ASATA. Sabiha Basrai: I'm also really appreciating that the South Asian Coalition is this model for creating a container for many, many organizations to unite as a group while maintaining regional focus and individual issue priorities. I also wanna name that the place where I first learned how to do national coalition work was as a member of the National South Asian Coalition that ASATA had been part of. [00:47:00] It was facilitated by a group called SALT which played such a critical role in the post 9/11 era and continued to then work on DACA, creating resources for undocumented South Asians, along with other issues facing our diverse diasporas. And SALT closed a few years ago. It was a decision that I don't understand and was- has really left me with a lot of sadness and confusion. but I al- I know that sometimes institutions do end, but that the work does not end and the relationships do not end. And the South Asian Coalition is this emergent space that, um, is not led by any one organization. it is a space that is being invested in collectively, and we're really moving at the speed of trust so that we can be really laying that strong foundation that supports the work ahead. I'm really sitting with the ways in which sometimes this labor of Building the container, creating the container, [00:48:00] investing in the network. It's sometimes invisible labor, but it is the most critical because without it we can have moments of mass mobilization, but then that wasn't actually building any power over the long term. And I'm really looking forward to all of the very good work ahead, because I trust the relationships and the containers that we're building. Miata Tan : That was Sabiha reflecting on the collaborative infrastructure that the South Asian Coalition is helping to build. Now let's return to Deepa Iyer. I asked Deepa what campaigns are on the horizon for the coalition, especially as this year marks 25 years since 9/11. Deepa Iyer: As Sabiha mentioned, the coalition is a space for invested leadership, and so there are lots of different campaigns that groups within the coalition are eyeing and taking on. One of them Rajiv mentioned already is the fight around birthright citizenship. And so there are groups like SACHCO and others that showed up with a South Asian [00:49:00] delegation at the Supreme Court on April 1st when that case was being heard, and it was really great to see so many South Asians out there in a delegation along with other communities, to raise their voices on this really vital, pivotal issue. And so that is a campaign that some of the groups within the coalition are going to continue to be lifting up as we get the results of that case and moving forward. Another one that you mentioned, is around the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and there are groups that are considering, along with others in other movement spaces what does narrative strategy look like as we go into this time period? How do we think about the fact that we're marking the 25th anniversary in the same year that we're marking the 250th anniversary of the United States, right? how do we use 9/11 and its anniversary as a lens through which we understand empire, through which we understand the ways in which domestic [00:50:00] policies are being recirculated against other communities? And also this piece around awareness and education. this is an opportunity to share some of the personal experiences that many of us have around that moment in time, but also the ways in which our communities have built up themselves as well as the solidarity with other communities. So I think there are lots of ways in which organizations are thinking about that anniversary and how they can, utilize that moment, to draw greater attention to our community's experiences. Miata Tan : Rajiv, Farah, would you like to add anything about upcoming campaigns and how you're thinking about the South Asian political power movement moving forwards?  Rajiv Narayan: Yeah, I'm happy to talk about one sort of continuing campaign, which is that, like I mentioned, we put together this policy brief on undocumented South Asians, and we had this great opportunity to circulate and talk about it on Capitol Hill in DC. But it's also important for us to bring that story home. And so part of [00:51:00] what we'll be doing, um, for the remainder of, of this year is identifying opportunities to do town halls both, with community members and potentially with elected officials to help educate, do political education about the nature of undocumented peoples in the South Asian community. A large part of what we did in that policy brief is to collate all these numbers to tell you, how many folks might be undocumented, what is the proportion of undocumented people in the South Asian community. But an important, equally important contribution of that report is the nature of undocumented experiences. Why do people become undocumented? What are the factors that put them in that position, and what does it mean for a person to become undocumented? How can we support them, not just in different policy prescriptions, but also the ways that we talk about undocumented people and the South Asian community as a whole? So that'll, that'll be, um, a focus that we have, uh, and a contribution that we hope to make both in the, the Bay Area and beyond.  Farah Mahersi: I'll add to that, that it is election year. It is [00:52:00] a… I feel like we say every election is a critical election, and I do believe that that is very true this year. And so ASATA Power, as a political organization, will be making endorsements and talking through not just that it is important to vote, but it is really important and critical for us in this moment to vote for progressive candidates who are part of our, what is often called like a build coalition, who are here to help us build this world that we are dreaming of, who are aligned on policy positions. The other thing that we are working on locally and nationally is around the war budget. So as a group that has been so directly impacted by the global war on terror 4.5 million Muslims around the world who have been killed by US war-making in that global war on terror, and just watching kind of what the United States foreign policy in particular over the last couple of years has been, we have a particular point of view and a particular interest on tracking and watching things like the [00:53:00] largest, request for a defense budget in US history. How are those dollars being spent, And how those dollars that are being spent abroad to do war-making are also having a boomerang effect and coming back to impact our communities at home. So the same technologies that were developed and used in war-making through the global war on terror that impacted, uh, so many of our communities around the world for 25 years, a lot of that is the same technology that ICE is now using to go after undocumented South Asians in the United States, right? And so that's another way in which we really see our struggles are interconnected, and that we are wanting to dismantle als- a lot of these systems of harm, and also, again, at that intersection between both hate violence and state oppression that's happening. Miata Tan : That was Farah Mahestri with ASATA and ASATA Power. As she shared, ASATA Power is focused on the midterm elections and how war spending and post 9/11 policies continue to affect South Asian communities today. [00:54:00] To close out, we return to another ASATA organizer, Sabiha Basrai. Sabiha Basrai: So I wanted to bring the conversation back locally to the Bay Area again, and just thinking about, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, which is, part of a network of AAPI and Asian organizing in the Bay Area as a space where South Asians progressive South Asians can actually build community, sharpen our political analysis, embrace our responsibilities here in the Bay Area in this political moment. And just also, lifting up that ASATA currently is working on things like the Oakland Arms Embargo or local community defense against ICE , environmental justice projects, and also looking for more ways to fight supremacist ideologies of Hindutva but in collaboration with anti-Zionist Jewish community activists. these are opportunities that we have here in the Bay Area. And also thinking about ways that we participate in mobilizations. Like, we show up for Reclaim MLK Day, [00:55:00] International Working Women's Day, May Day, the Trans March every year because we understand our responsibility to show up and to show up consistently. And so when I think about the South Asian Coalition and this moment of, okay, we've been trying to- we've built- been building towards this convening and this congressional briefing, and now we're on the other side of this moment, and we are kind of reflecting and coming back together around how we maintain this energy. Also wanted to highlight,  Some of the amazing work that many of our coalition members are, are already doing. One is Savaira, so Savaira United Against Supremacy is actually a coalition of work as well, they focused, their energy on addressing Hindu nationalism and and Hindutva ideology and the, and the many ways in which, the supremacist ideology is kind of insidiously part of institutions, policy even cultural work, uh, within our diaspora. they're so committed to both, like, [00:56:00] resisting the tides of hatred but also combating all forms of supremacist politics and the intersections between them. so their, their work has been a big part of my political education, and I'm really glad that they're part of this coalition. Every member of the coalition is bringing analysis and experience that cross-pollinates to the rest of us. So I'm looking forward to just more of that   also considering what ASATA's role is and how ASATA working in the Bay Area alongside so many other amazing organizing projects here can be strengthening those relationships nationally. Miata Tan : That was Sabiha Basrai with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA.  This is APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. APEX Express airs every Thursday evening at 7:00 PM. And with that, we're at the end of our time here [00:57:00] tonight. We really appreciate you for tuning in to listen, and a huge thank you to our wonderful guests. For a transcript of tonight's episode, please visit our website. That's kpfa.org/program/apex-express  We've also added links on the episode page for tonight's show so you can learn more about the South Asian Coalition, ASATA, and all of the organizations we've talked about tonight, along with their upcoming campaigns as well. APEX Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me, Miata Tan. Get some rest y'all. The post APEX Express – 5.28.26 – Building South Asian Power appeared first on KPFA.

South Asian influence in electronic music is undeniable, from underground club movements to global stages. Yet influence does not always equal ownership. The next chapter is about authorship and narrative. Who tells the stories? Who curates the spaces? And how can cultural impact translate into lasting leadership and a defining role in the future of electronic music? Recorded live from the International Music Summit (IMS) - one of the leading conferences for the electronic music industry, held annually in Ibiza. Founded by Pete Tong, it has become the defining forum where the global dance music community gathers to catalyse sustainable growth and inspire positive change from the boardroom to the dancefloor.Featuring Ahadadream, founder of Dialled In; Kunal Merchant, co-founder of Indo Warehouse; Meedy, founder of DESCENDANTS Records, and our host, Farah Nanji. Moderated by BBC broadcaster and artist Amber Haque."Indians and Pakistanis, supposed enemies, all dancing together. That's what the dancefloor does." - AhadadreamJoin us as we explore:✅ The real cost of being South Asian in the electronic music industry✅ Why creating Indo House as a genre is an economic argument, not just a cultural one ✅ Why the dancefloor has always solved what politics refuses to ✅ What it takes to back yourself when the industry doesn't believe in your vision✅ What the next generation of South Asian artists inherits, and what they still have to fight for➤ Follow us at:⁠Instagram:⁠⁠ @missionmakers⁠⁠Instagram:⁠⁠ @dj.n1nja⁠⁠TikTok:⁠⁠ @dj_n1nja⁠⁠Soundcloud:⁠⁠ @dj-ninja⁠➤ Credits:Music: Mission Makers - N1NJA (Unreleased)Producer: Farah Nanji⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mission-makers.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.dj-ninja.com/⁠⁠

In this episode, Abhay sits down with dance artist Nikita Banawalikar — a Kathak exponent, choreographer, and scholar who seamlessly bridges the gap between ancient tradition and modern storytelling.Nikita shares why she views Kathak not just as a dance, but as her true "home". She discusses the rigorous journey of becoming a scholar of the arts and offers a fascinating look behind the scenes of choreographing for major films like Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. From finding inspiration in the mundance to the challenge of "unlearning" technical precision for the camera, this conversation explores how to maintain artistic purity while embracing evolution.In this episode, Nikita shares insights on:• How to find inspiration for art in everyday life, architecture, and nature.• The reality of film choreography and making actors shine on screen.• The impact of digitalization on classical arts and the debate between social media reach vs. live experience.• Why "embracing innocence" is the key to staying authentic as an artist.-------------------------Connect with Nikita :https://www.instagram.com/nikkitakathak/#Kathak #NikitaBanawalikar #BollywoodChoreography #IndianClassicalDance #TrustMeIKnowWhatImDoing #DanceEducation #RockyAurRani #ArtisticJourneyCHAPTERS:00:00 – Introduction and Welcome03:13 – Living the Dream: When a Hobby Becomes a Profession05:07 – Finding Inspiration in Nature, People, and even Mumbai Traffic08:17 – The Integrated Life: Does an Artist Ever "Shut Off"?10:08 – The Process of Falling in Love with Kathak13:16 – Building Confidence16:11 – Learning and Growth with Kathak19:21 – Sponsor Break: Travelopod 20:26 – Digitalization: Teaching and Performing Post-COVID22:57 – Live Performance vs. Social Media: The Purist Debate26:46 – Film Choreography: Working on Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani29:53 – Unlearning for the Commercial Screen34:26 – The Future of Kathak: Evolution, Purity, and New Narratives40:09 – Discipline and Observation: How Dance Shapes the Person43:27 – Embracing Innocence and SensitivityShout out to my cousins Vaishali Potdar from Nupur Kathak Academy and Vedashri Mahajan in Australia and anyone else out there who is learning, teaching, and promoting this dance art!--------------------------Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing | Dr. Abhay DandekarA mirror and window for global Indians and South Asians through conversation.Every week, we share chats with artists, leaders, musicians, chefs, experts, change makers, and innovators from the home and diaspora - sharing their journeys and motivations.Support our sponsors: Start your journey with personalized travel support at https://vacation.travelopod.com/For enquiries

Riz Ahmed is an Oscar and Emmy-award winning actor and rapper, known for pushing for more nuanced portrayals of South Asians, and especially Muslims, on screen. In his most recent projects, he's shaking the foundations of British cultural mythology by taking on two roles that have long been definitive for white actors: James Bond and Hamlet. He joins Tom to talk about his new series Bait, where he plays an actor chasing the role of 007, and why he wanted to strip down Shakespeare's most famous tragedy into something more contemporary for his film Hamlet.

The Met Gala is one of the biggest nights in fashion and finally as South Asians we are seeing ourselves being represented on the fashion red carpet. In this episode I'm joined by Fashion journalist Priya Raj who has written for Vogue to break down South Asian representation at the Met Gala from the iconic moments, the controversies and what it means for the global South Asian Diaspora. We talk about: 

The response of South Asians to the Word of God on a Audio Bible is amazing. In this episode, Morgan Jackson will talk about how the people who respond to God's Word are compelled to pass it on so others can hear. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/701/29?v=20251111

A fascinating and somewhat unsettling observation from JACC: Asia: nearly 1 in 4 STEMI patients in New Delhi had no traditional risk factors—no hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, or smoking. Yet outcomes tell a different story. Despite fewer signs of heart failure at presentation, these patients had worse left ventricular dysfunction and identical in-hospital and 1-year mortality compared with those with standard risk factors. This "SMuRF-less paradox" challenges our conventional risk models. It reminds us that absence of risk factors is not absence of risk. We may need to think beyond the usual suspects—toward genetics, inflammation, lipoprotein(a), and healthcare access delays—to truly understand and prevent cardiovascular disease. A humbling lesson: treat aggressively, think broadly, and never be reassured by a "clean" risk profile.

Listen to our radio program, first aired on SBS South Asian on Thursday, 26 March 2026 at 2 PM, and repeated on Sunday, 29 March on SBS Radio 2 from 4 PM, featuring weekly Australian news, use of unauthorised peptides, Melbourne's upcoming Momo festival, Nepal's Gen Z protests investigation report and other topics. SBS Nepali is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia. To hear more audio content from SBS Nepali, subscribe to our podcast on any platform, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube Podcasts, and Spotify. SBS Nepali broadcasts a radio program every Tuesday and Thursday at 2 PM on SBS South Asian digital radio and channel 305 on your TV, live from our studios in Sydney and Melbourne. Repeats of these shows are aired every Thursday and Sunday at 4 PM on SBS Radio 2. Every Monday, listen to one full hour of contemporary Nepali songs on SBS South Asian at 2 PM. - बिहीवार, २६ मार्च सन् २०२६ दिउँसो २ बजे एसबीएस साउथ एसियनमा प्रत्यक्ष प्रसारण र आइतवार २९ मार्चमा एसबीएस रेडियो २ मा पुन: प्रसारण भएको एसबीएस नेपालीको कार्यक्रममा हामीले अस्ट्रेलियाको साप्ताहिक समाचार, अनाधिकृत पेप्टाइडहरूको बढ्दो प्रयोग, मेलबर्नमा आउँदो एप्रिल ११ र १२ मा हुन गइरहेको म:म: फेस्टिभल, नेपालमा जेन जी आन्दोलनबारे तयार पारिएको छानबिन रिपोर्ट सार्वजनिक गर्न माग लगायतका विषयहरू प्रस्तुत गरेका छौँ। हाम्रो रेडियो कार्यक्रम हरेक मङ्गलवार र बिहीवार दिउँसो दुई बजे SBS South Asian मा प्रत्यक्ष प्रसारण हुन्छ। यी रेडियो कार्यक्रम बिहीवार र आइतवार SBS Radio 2 मा अपराह्न ४ देखि ५ बजेसम्म पुन प्रसारण हुन्छन्। डिजिटल रेडियोमा SBS South Asian, डिजिटल टिभीको च्यानल 305 मा अथवा SBS Audio App डाउनलोड गरेर पनि श्रोताहरूले यी कार्यक्रम सुन्न सक्नुहुन्छ। यसै गरी SBS on Demand मा गएर वा हाम्रो वेबसाइट sbs.com.au/nepali मार्फत पनि हाम्रो प्रत्यक्ष प्रसारण सुन्न सकिन्छ।

Guest: Fareeha Jay, BSC, MSC, RD - Diabetes SpecialistShow Notes:South Asian food is rich, comforting, and deeply cultural—and it can absolutely support better health. In this episode, award-winning dietitian and diabetes specialist Fareeha Jay shares how to make simple, realistic upgrades to traditional meals without losing taste or tradition. From rebalancing carb-heavy plates to boosting vegetarian protein and navigating fasting and festival seasons, you'll walk away with practical tools to keep blood sugar steady and feel your best—starting today.Guest Bio:Fareeha Jay is an award-winning dietitian and former NHS Diabetes Specialist with six years of experience delivering education to people newly diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. She specialises in South Asian diets and provides expert, evidence-based nutrition advice to South Asians worldwide. She has developed the South Asian Eatwell Guide, which is now widely used in many NHS trusts and various charity organizations.Quote:“A very small icebreaker, which I always use, is that I always tend to learn how they say hello in their own language. For example, if I'm speaking to someone from Nepal, I would learn how they say hello. And as soon as I start my consultation with them, I say that one word. And just using that one word, you know, it breaks all the barriers. They feel so much more comfortable speaking to me.”Question of the Day:What traditional South Asian dish means the most to your family, and how have you adapted it, if at all, to support your health?On This Episode You Will Learn:Why South Asian communities face higher risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease (and what's actually preventable)How to rebalance classic meals (curry, naan, channa, dal) without giving up cultural integritySimple ways to cut back on oil, ghee, and salt while keeping the flavor you loveGo-to strategies for vegetarian protein, iron, and B12 (plus what to do with lactose intolerance)How to handle fasting + feasting seasons (Ramadan, Navratri, Eid, celebrations) while keeping glucose and energy more stableConnect with Yumlish!Yumlish Website: YumlishYumlish on Instagram: @yumlish_Yumlish on Facebook: YumlishYumlish on Twitter: @yumlish_Yumlish on LinkedIn: YumlishConnect with Fareeha Jay!Website URL:  www.fareehajay.com Instagram URL: https://www.instagram.com/dietitian_fareehajay/ Facebook URL: https://www.facebook.com/aapkidietitian/ Facebook Group URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1575269765877135 Twitter(X) URL: https://twitter.com/FareehaJay Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/dietitian_fareehajay/LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fareeha-jay-457a34209/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app&fbclid=IwAR0NCUqyRnLWN3oEGpFIc4HvLni86Pg6E-hOyDh5uAYvNG4maiZfZ0iNAPE Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSXc-Vg8wc2SdY8Jh7TK45A/videos Tik Tok : https://www.tiktok.com/@dietitianfareehajay?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

What happens when a fully integrated healthcare system aligns training, data, and access to improve surgical outcomes? In this BackTable OBGYN episode, Dr. Eve Zaritsky joins hosts Dr. Mark Hoffman and Dr. Amy Park to discuss how Kaiser's integrated health system enables rapid care coordination, large-scale quality improvement, and population-level research using one of the largest US datasets. --- Get the BackTable app https://www.backtable.com/app --- Timestamps 01:17 - Introduction 03:35 - How Kaiser Works07:24 - Research Using Big Data09:19 - Changing Hysterectomy Culture13:36 - Ending Racial Disparities15:22 - Handling Large Uteri17:52 - Vaginal Hysterectomy Trends20:38 - Myomectomy Reintervention Rates24:23 - Shared Decision Making26:30 - Mini Lap Versus Robotic27:41 - Hybrid Extraction Strategy29:08 - Credentialing Robotic Myomectomy30:19 - MIG Referral Pathways32:03 - Fibroids Across Asian Subgroups34:55 - Mentoring Research Pipeline36:44 - Funding Analysts Through GME40:49 - Endometriosis Disparities Findings43:59 - Mentorship Mindset --- More about this episode Dr. Zaritsky describes how a coordinated, system-wide effort transformed hysterectomy care, shifting from 80% open procedures to nearly 90% minimally invasive within five to eight years through focused training, reducing low-volume practice, and tracking system metrics, ultimately decreasing racial disparities once minimally invasive rates exceeded 90%. She also highlights Kaiser-based research on variation in vaginal hysterectomy by service area and surgeon volume, long-term reintervention rates for fibroids across procedures, increasing use of minimally invasive myomectomy, and a JAMA analysis showing differences in fibroid diagnosis among Asian subgroups with the highest rates in South Asians. The episode concludes with Dr. Zaritsky calling attention to how Kaiser's research infrastructure creates robust opportunities for meaningful mentorship across all levels of training, supporting the development of physicians, residents, and medical students. --- Resources Minimally Invasive Hysterectomy and Power Morcellation Trends in a West Coast Integrated Health System https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28486359/ Racial Disparities in Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain Treatment Within an Integrated Health Care Delivery System https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40839882/ Uterine Fibroid Diagnosis by Race and Ethnicity in an Integrated Health Care Systemhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40172885/

Vivek from the Queer South Asians of Melbourne (aka QSAM) joins Jack and Chiron to explore the unique challenges and joys of navigating queer identity within South Asian communities. We discuss isolation, cultural expectations, and how QSAM creates safe spaces through dance, film, theatre, and social events. Vivek shares powerful stories about members finding their tribe and the importance of representation. Check out our other JOY Podcasts for more on LGBTIQ+ health and wellbeing at joy.org.au/wellwellwell. If there's something you'd like us to explore on the show, send through ideas or questions at wellwellwell@joy.org.au Find out more about LGBTIQ+ services and events in Victoria and South Australia at thorneharbour.org and samesh.org.au

This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother's role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a journalist in India and the U.S. has revealed about the differences in the operations of caste in the two contexts. Finally, we ended with her coverage of the Zohran Mamdani campaign, both its promises and its failure to address the caste question head-on. Guest: Yashica Dutt is a journalist and author whose writings can be found on her Substack, Featuring Dalits and in New Lines magazine. Mentioned in the episode: Yashica Dutt, Coming Out as Dalit Rohith Vemula: an Indian PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad whose suicide drew attention to widespread institutional casteism. Kumari Mayawati: first Dalit woman chief minister in India who served in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party founded in 1984 and focused on representing the interests of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities. Origin: 2023 film written and directed by Ava DuVernay based on the life and work of Isabel Wilkerson. ST/SC Act: Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is a landmark Indian law designed to protect marginalized communities from atrocities, hate crimes, and discrimination. Cargenie Institute study: 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. DRUM Beats: organization that mobilizes working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities. Yashica Dutt, “I reported on the Zohran Mamdani Campaign for six months and documented South Asians' rise to power in New York City” Yashica Dutt, “What Zohran Mamdani's Campaign Says About the Quiet Erasure of Caste in US Politics” Yashica Dutt, “If South Asians are prominent in the New York Mayoral Election, then where is caste?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother's role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a journalist in India and the U.S. has revealed about the differences in the operations of caste in the two contexts. Finally, we ended with her coverage of the Zohran Mamdani campaign, both its promises and its failure to address the caste question head-on. Guest: Yashica Dutt is a journalist and author whose writings can be found on her Substack, Featuring Dalits and in New Lines magazine. Mentioned in the episode: Yashica Dutt, Coming Out as Dalit Rohith Vemula: an Indian PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad whose suicide drew attention to widespread institutional casteism. Kumari Mayawati: first Dalit woman chief minister in India who served in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party founded in 1984 and focused on representing the interests of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities. Origin: 2023 film written and directed by Ava DuVernay based on the life and work of Isabel Wilkerson. ST/SC Act: Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is a landmark Indian law designed to protect marginalized communities from atrocities, hate crimes, and discrimination. Cargenie Institute study: 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. DRUM Beats: organization that mobilizes working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities. Yashica Dutt, “I reported on the Zohran Mamdani Campaign for six months and documented South Asians' rise to power in New York City” Yashica Dutt, “What Zohran Mamdani's Campaign Says About the Quiet Erasure of Caste in US Politics” Yashica Dutt, “If South Asians are prominent in the New York Mayoral Election, then where is caste?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother's role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a journalist in India and the U.S. has revealed about the differences in the operations of caste in the two contexts. Finally, we ended with her coverage of the Zohran Mamdani campaign, both its promises and its failure to address the caste question head-on. Guest: Yashica Dutt is a journalist and author whose writings can be found on her Substack, Featuring Dalits and in New Lines magazine. Mentioned in the episode: Yashica Dutt, Coming Out as Dalit Rohith Vemula: an Indian PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad whose suicide drew attention to widespread institutional casteism. Kumari Mayawati: first Dalit woman chief minister in India who served in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party founded in 1984 and focused on representing the interests of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities. Origin: 2023 film written and directed by Ava DuVernay based on the life and work of Isabel Wilkerson. ST/SC Act: Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is a landmark Indian law designed to protect marginalized communities from atrocities, hate crimes, and discrimination. Cargenie Institute study: 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. DRUM Beats: organization that mobilizes working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities. Yashica Dutt, “I reported on the Zohran Mamdani Campaign for six months and documented South Asians' rise to power in New York City” Yashica Dutt, “What Zohran Mamdani's Campaign Says About the Quiet Erasure of Caste in US Politics” Yashica Dutt, “If South Asians are prominent in the New York Mayoral Election, then where is caste?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother's role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a journalist in India and the U.S. has revealed about the differences in the operations of caste in the two contexts. Finally, we ended with her coverage of the Zohran Mamdani campaign, both its promises and its failure to address the caste question head-on. Guest: Yashica Dutt is a journalist and author whose writings can be found on her Substack, Featuring Dalits and in New Lines magazine. Mentioned in the episode: Yashica Dutt, Coming Out as Dalit Rohith Vemula: an Indian PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad whose suicide drew attention to widespread institutional casteism. Kumari Mayawati: first Dalit woman chief minister in India who served in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party founded in 1984 and focused on representing the interests of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities. Origin: 2023 film written and directed by Ava DuVernay based on the life and work of Isabel Wilkerson. ST/SC Act: Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is a landmark Indian law designed to protect marginalized communities from atrocities, hate crimes, and discrimination. Cargenie Institute study: 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. DRUM Beats: organization that mobilizes working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities. Yashica Dutt, “I reported on the Zohran Mamdani Campaign for six months and documented South Asians' rise to power in New York City” Yashica Dutt, “What Zohran Mamdani's Campaign Says About the Quiet Erasure of Caste in US Politics” Yashica Dutt, “If South Asians are prominent in the New York Mayoral Election, then where is caste?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother's role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a journalist in India and the U.S. has revealed about the differences in the operations of caste in the two contexts. Finally, we ended with her coverage of the Zohran Mamdani campaign, both its promises and its failure to address the caste question head-on. Guest: Yashica Dutt is a journalist and author whose writings can be found on her Substack, Featuring Dalits and in New Lines magazine. Mentioned in the episode: Yashica Dutt, Coming Out as Dalit Rohith Vemula: an Indian PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad whose suicide drew attention to widespread institutional casteism. Kumari Mayawati: first Dalit woman chief minister in India who served in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party founded in 1984 and focused on representing the interests of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities. Origin: 2023 film written and directed by Ava DuVernay based on the life and work of Isabel Wilkerson. ST/SC Act: Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is a landmark Indian law designed to protect marginalized communities from atrocities, hate crimes, and discrimination. Cargenie Institute study: 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. DRUM Beats: organization that mobilizes working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities. Yashica Dutt, “I reported on the Zohran Mamdani Campaign for six months and documented South Asians' rise to power in New York City” Yashica Dutt, “What Zohran Mamdani's Campaign Says About the Quiet Erasure of Caste in US Politics” Yashica Dutt, “If South Asians are prominent in the New York Mayoral Election, then where is caste?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother's role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a journalist in India and the U.S. has revealed about the differences in the operations of caste in the two contexts. Finally, we ended with her coverage of the Zohran Mamdani campaign, both its promises and its failure to address the caste question head-on. Guest: Yashica Dutt is a journalist and author whose writings can be found on her Substack, Featuring Dalits and in New Lines magazine. Mentioned in the episode: Yashica Dutt, Coming Out as Dalit Rohith Vemula: an Indian PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad whose suicide drew attention to widespread institutional casteism. Kumari Mayawati: first Dalit woman chief minister in India who served in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party founded in 1984 and focused on representing the interests of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities. Origin: 2023 film written and directed by Ava DuVernay based on the life and work of Isabel Wilkerson. ST/SC Act: Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is a landmark Indian law designed to protect marginalized communities from atrocities, hate crimes, and discrimination. Cargenie Institute study: 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. DRUM Beats: organization that mobilizes working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities. Yashica Dutt, “I reported on the Zohran Mamdani Campaign for six months and documented South Asians' rise to power in New York City” Yashica Dutt, “What Zohran Mamdani's Campaign Says About the Quiet Erasure of Caste in US Politics” Yashica Dutt, “If South Asians are prominent in the New York Mayoral Election, then where is caste?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

We are BACK not ONE WEEK LATER (!!). This episode has everything! Usha Vance, Zarna Garg, Tolstoy (particularly, War and Peace which we are totally actually going to Book Club) and of course, Priyanka and Nick. Not to mention a 10 minute detour on anthropomorphized beanie babies and a discussion of how much dumber we've gotten over our nearly ten years of podcasting together. You can be the judge of that!! Hit us up at thebrownburndown@gmail.com.

In what can only be classified as a coup (and as South Asians, we don't use this term lightly), we have Sharda Ugra, Ahmer Naqvi, and Mohammad Isam to talk through the recent crisis in international cricket. We often explore these themes through Shah Rukh's movie metaphors, starting with K3G and ending with Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman. The episode serves as a reminder that we need to keep lines of communication open between the public, and it's even more important to do this with the current media landscape. We briefly touch upon the associates at this World Cup and who we are most looking forward to watching. Our guests are joined by hosts Richa, Nishant, Sarthak, and MV.

Listen to our radio program first aired on SBS South Asian on Thursday, 15 January 2026 at 2 PM, focusing on weekly world news, experience of Nepali grandparents in Australia, latest from Iran and other topics. SBS Nepali is a part of SBS South Asian, the destination channel for all South Asians living in Australia. To hear more audio content from SBS Nepali, subscribe to our podcast on any platform, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube Podcasts, and Spotify. SBS Nepali broadcasts a radio program every Tuesday and Thursday at 2 PM on SBS South Asian digital radio and channel 305 on your TV, live from our studios in Sydney and Melbourne. Repeats of these shows are aired every Thursday and Sunday at 4 PM on SBS Radio 2. Every Monday, listen to one full hour of contemporary Nepali songs on SBS South Asian at 2 PM. - बिहीवार, १५ ज्यानुअरी सन् २०२६ दिउँसो २ बजे एसबीएस साउथ एसियनमा प्रत्यक्ष प्रसारण भएको एसबीएस नेपालीको कार्यक्रममा हामीले विश्वका प्रमुख समाचार, अस्ट्रेलियामा बस्ने नेपाली अभिभावकहरूको अनुभव, इरान सम्बन्धी पछिल्लो समाचार लगायत विभिन्न विषयहरू जोडेका छौँ। हाम्रो रेडियो कार्यक्रम हरेक मङ्गलवार र बिहीवार दिउँसो दुई बजे SBS South Asian मा प्रत्यक्ष प्रसारण हुन्छ। यी रेडियो कार्यक्रम बिहीवार र आइतवार SBS Radio 2 मा अपराह्न ४ देखि ५ बजेसम्म पुन प्रसारण हुन्छन्। डिजिटल रेडियोमा SBS South Asian, डिजिटल टिभीको च्यानल 305 मा अथवा SBS Audio App डाउनलोड गरेर पनि श्रोताहरूले यी कार्यक्रम सुन्न सक्नुहुन्छ। यसै गरी SBS on Demand मा गएर वा हाम्रो वेबसाइट sbs.com.au/nepali मार्फत पनि हाम्रो प्रत्यक्ष प्रसारण सुन्न सकिन्छ।

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Guest host Jovelyn Richards presents White Switch   WHITE SWITCH Show Transcript Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:01:07] Hi, this is Jovelyn Richards and I'm happy to be here on Apex. Some of you may know me from Cover to Cover, which is every Tuesday at two o'clock, which I, um, spend time with artists, filmmakers, uh, writers, play writers, poets, to bring that to my audience. And on every third Monday you would hear me on Women's Magazine and my colleagues. We all take one Monday and Tuesday on different topics from a feminist perspective, from a global perspective. And my specific way of approaching that is to look at writings and, um, that's either from fiction or either it is nonfiction, but at the core of it, because my interest really is getting to the story of what it's like to be human.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:02:05] Those reflect characters topics that really dig inside of that written by women who was in search of, in their research, their lives of highlighting either known people or ordinary people who are. Living in ways in which moves humanity forward. So that's where you'll find me. And so why am I here? I'm here because I did a project, uh, over a year ago, and this, this, uh, tape is, uh, this program is a long time coming. I partnered with this particular project with, so when you would be familiar with, and that's Preeti Shekar last name is spelled S-H-E-K-A-R. And we began this story, uh, of looking at anti-blackness in the South Asian community together. So what I'm going to do is let you listen to a clip, not from Preeti or myself. But from someone else's doing this anti-blackness work in South Asian communities with Ritu Bhasin, and the last spelling of her name is B-H-A-S-I-N. So we'll take a listen to that and then I will be right back and have that discussion.   CLIP PLAYS   Jovelyn Richards: [00:04:46] All right, so here we go. And so one of the things I appreciated seeing and listening to her video when I first was introduced to her, that aligned with the work that myself and Preeti was doing in our project curriculum called The White Switch, and we'll dig into that. What is the White Switch? What is the curriculum of the White Switch and how it came about? And so what I appreciate, the continuous work, you may wanna Google, if you don't already know, you probably do with Ritu Bhasin, uh, because she speaks directly about anti-black, uh, racism within South Asian communities, especially among professionals and leaders. And as you've heard in the video, she shares what that experience has been. And I was so happy to be able to offer that in the beginning of this. Uh, broadcast so that it, uh, to break the sense of isolation just in myself. Speaking of it as a black woman, I was hoping that Preeti would be here, but she's, um, back in India and I'll talk a little bit about what that's like for me, uh, that my co-create, um, my partner on this here.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:05:59] So the white switch and the history of it for years. Uh. Probably like close to 15 years now. We were part of the beginning of white, uh, women's magazine and we had wanted to do something together. We knew that we wanted to work together without knowing the why, but every time we were in conversation in the building, uh, women's magazine and the way I approach the topics, uh, as a collective. And where the resistance was, where the fun of it was at. Uh, and then her way she approached it, there was place the, the connected dots. So example would be for any of our lives, when you're in very difficult conversations, you pay attention to the other, uh, uh, collaborators or whatever the, what the team is made of. And even if it's to people and you see whether or not they're coming from a place of inclusiveness, you're seeing how, how hard they are holding on to their opinion, whether it's negotiable, whether they're really deeply listening. And what was really interesting to where we connect the is that we found that both of us and we were relatively new to each other.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:07:20] What we both found is that the humor. That in the heat of it all, or the conflict of it all, there was, we relied on this part of humor to not, to deflate and deflect from the situation, not to deflate it, like take off the, the, the fullness of the topic, but to give us all a moment to breathe in humor. Right? And, and that's, that is part of my go-to as a standup comedian. So that's real for me. So. Let's talk about the white switch. So the, oh, so the, how it began, how we came up with that since we wanted to do a project together, how did we come up with the white switch anti-blackness in South Asian community Preeti, uh, was in New York over a year ago, and she was taking a Lyft in Harlem to wherever else she was going, or she was going to Harlem and the Lyft driver. South Asian, uh, driver asked her why was she going there or coming from there. Then she said, what do you mean? And he began to have a conversation around the dangers of that even. He didn't always like to pick up folks there and he was referring to black folks. And so pretty him not knowing that she's an independent journalist, she's also an activist.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:08:48] Begin to ask important questions and starting with what has been your experience, your personal experience, and then your experience with others close to you that might have shared that is informing these thoughts. You have these feelings, you have these decisions you're making, these things you're telling me not to do, and he had nothing, none to offer. So the next question would be, so then, then. Why, and then from, if I got the story right, there was a, um, uh, moments of silence and so I think he was sort of processing, processing in his own mind. Why am I telling, why am I feeling this way? Why am I hesitant to go to areas where I know there'll be black folks? Why am I telling a woman who is South Asian, particularly identifying with his own, uh, identity, wanting her not to go? And in that emptiness, one would hope that. Once he did self-reflection, uh, with that question that he was discovering, like he really didn't have anything substantial to go by. And so when she got back from her trip, we were talking and she said this was very important to her, to talk about that.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:10:15] And uh, and I told her at the time, surprisingly enough that I was. Actually had been working on a project in my isolation, uh, called the White Switch, and that this coincidence, we wanted to take advantage of both of our energy of importance towards the matter. So the thesis statement within it is that the whites, which is a healing curriculum. This innovative program designed for activists very specifically anyone can, can be involved in the curriculum of, of essentially looking at the anti-blackness in any community outside of the black community. Specifically for activists and then, but anyone can do that if you, if they're, you don't have to be actively considering yourself an activist just by wanting to, to think about and look at the curriculum on some level. Something is activating inside and looking at that, and then to, in the curriculum to recognize as this, this Lyft driver did that there was no logical reason for him. To not only have that stance, but to offer it to strangers, then spreading that untruth or have no validity to it, right? And so the curriculum addresses that and to begin as, as to, to eradicate the deeper feelings despite being activists, despite education around anti-blackness.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:12:12] That even among the most astute South Asians, there are the deeper roots, the deeper roots of anti-blackness. And that is the white switch. The white switch. And so the, the pattern. The reoccurring pattern that one has seen politically in black communities. As we also heard in the, um, video, which were two of us seen, uh, has been, that is, is even after years of political education, community organizing, or DEI, where there's a sudden internal shift that occurs. This shift is not intellectual, it is somatic. Emotional and rooted in the proximity to whiteness. And that switch, the white switch goes on immediately for survival purpose. So when confronted. By anti-blackness in conversation and actions, there's a switch that goes off. Fight or flight, fight or flight. And when that happens, there are things that happen again in the activist. In, in communities that have, uh, fought for years for political education through community organizing. But the, the, the roots of the proximity to whiteness globally is no joke because literally it is saying, this is for your survival.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:14:18] You are invested here in this proximity to whiteness. For your survival, economically, social placement, accessibility, back to safety for all of the above, and this buried there even while you're doing the, the, the radical work, however you show up, is sitting there with those deep roots, right? And so the workshop curriculum was created. I had started it before Preeti and I began doing it, um, writing about it. And I'll give you that history. This is a good place to do the history of that. I had been doing political education around anti-blackness and around many issues, but what, this is what we're speaking about, right? And educating around domestic. Other things were like hunger, domestic violence, um, community organizing, and specifically that, that came out of anti-blackness, holding workshops, creating workshops. And what I discovered is, um. Most of the people, the audience that was there, I'm thinking example of the Stockton Unified School districts district where myself and peer advocates went in, uh, to do the work of anti-blackness over some incidences that had happened in in Stockton in the public school system that was quite serious and quite painful for the black students and black community.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:16:07] And when I was there doing a workshop, and this was in my particular, um, um, curriculum that we was, we was doing, uh, but I was implementing it and what I noticed was more pronounced, I had noticed it before. And had even talked about it, had, um, had dialogues about it, uh, with others. What I noticed in those, the, those times that there's a point. Where in the, that particular workshop, I could see where there was staff that was really wanting to get to the bottom of their own anti-blackness for their students. So the teacher part of them and the diversity of the students. And there was activated and then there was those, uh, that were not engaged with the caring of, they were there to teach and they brought, they. Didn't have an issue with their behavior that spoke to anti-blackness. Example would be two students are talking and one non-black. Black. And these are just random examples. Very, they're not mild, but compared to what had happened, what brought us there that was so extreme, it involved death. Um, uh. I shouldn't just say it like that without giving more backdrop to it, but, and maybe I will.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:17:43] But here's in the daily classroom that then this black student would be called out and removed more times than not from a classroom. And so by the teachers that did not take up responsibility, that in their teaching they had a responsibility to be teaching themselves. By listening to the students that would call, would call them out and, and stay forth and say, why, why? This person started talking to me? Why are you only pointing out at me? So this, this is not new. I'm sure this happened throughout the teaching person teaching career. Why am I have to go to office? And so now we can see what happens when students are constantly in the office, how that impacts them. So. That is part of when I started making more notes on this here. And then I, uh, worked with, and probably you're very familiar with this organization in the Bay Area, surge showing up for racial justice. And they were, uh, we worked together on a project. That I was doing as a writer. I was writing the Play 911: What's your emergency? And it was in response to white communities, particularly women calling the police on Brown and black people. And most notable in the Bay Area was barbecue, Becky and Permit Patty. So I met La Peña. I was a resident artist at La Peña Cultural Center. Hopefully you're all aware of that. Uh, of the center and its beauty that it, uh, and work is done over the decades. And I, so in writing the play and working with community folks, uh, actors, performers, and interested and impacted by these phone calls, and we worked in Workshop to create together, I did. I wanted to. Dig more into the psychology now of the barbecue Becky and permit Patty.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:20:10] That means I wanted to look at the racism within white women. And again, I wanted to look at that from, of. White women who have done work and fight for anti-blackness and other, uh, social ills. And so I went to search and, uh, they agreed immediately, which is kudos and kudos, uh, that, uh, they were willing to even think to themselves, yes, I can look, I can get, I, there's, there's roots in here. There's something in here. And so we, um. Created, I created the curriculum for the workshop that lasted over the weekend, and I found out some very interesting things and they found out more importantly, some very interesting things being activists themselves. And as we dug deeper using healing curriculum, for example, uh, there's, uh, healing, uh, um. Theater is based in theater, similar to, um, not similar to, but another theater thing you could think of that deals, which social ills would be theater of the press, uh, playback theater. And I also use that in some of the work I do. That's part of the White Switch. But I had created a thing called two Tiers Telling. Jovelyn Richards: [00:21:38] And in the chairs, two chairs telling the facilitator being me and the, the person who is working on, and this, in this case, women from s would sit in the chair and the others are the witness. They hold the space. Right. And again, this is a healing, uh, process. And then we go into some reflection questions, right. The same way. Preeti did with the Lyft Driver. But these particular questions, because I'm working with activists who are very savvy in the work they do, and very knowledgeable and, uh, the political, uh, things that are happening are happening in the world, then I created those questions to dig past the intellect. Pass the work into the personal, right? So we go into to memory, we go into early memory, and that became really a wonderful experience, as I said, for everybody, right? And I took those notes again, collecting that. And over the years, other workshops I've done. And so again, by the time it circled to pretty us looking forward. Uh, work to do together. It came up. Now I even in this rec, this, um, programming, it was odd when I 'cause this, this recording, this program was due like almost a year ago. We started this program in this 20, 20, 26. Now we started together in late 2024. We presented this at the DESI Conference in 2024, south Asian uh, DESI Conference.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:23:41] We presented at that conference, right? And we were building the curriculum looking for, um, support for it, and Kamala Harris spoke at that conference. There was some political uproar from some of the folks there. They had their own feelings about her and the, the, the, what was, what was happening, what was not happening in the, uh, Biden and her administration with Biden. And there happened to be a moment when I got into, uh, an argument with one of the people who wanted to disrupt the moment she was speaking. I had an issue with that and wanted to, um, ask more questions and in the questioning the person was, was crying and so upset, and then I asked them what work they had been doing in their, in anti-blackness, and their response to me was, I don't have time for that right now.  That was very concerning. Very concerning. And so when I talk about this now, I'm recording this. It's actually Martin Luther King's Day where I'm recording it at air, uh, later and, and I'm sitting here reflecting on where we're at as a whole. Jovelyn Richards: [00:25:14] And I know that a lot of that was, we're here now, whatever, wherever you're thinking about where we're at, because of anti-blackness, because of anti-blackness. So, so much feels kind of odd to be talking about the work we were doing and wanting to do, and then more fiercely leading up to the election. Right? So again, this was, uh, 24. 2024 when we started the story in the, the spring of, and it just turned 2024. The conference was in the spring, I think it was May, late spring, and we came back wanting to do workshops and I left the conference. It was a wonderful. And I love the diversity of the conference in terms of the way diversity and how they was approaching it. Different topics, whatever the topics they were using. It was a different, it was different than most conference where the talking hads and, and then you go to break room, then you come back to another workshop on the program and then you go on the talking hat. You take notes or. And then you come out and then there's a, another break or lunchtime, you go back in and you meet people. There were hundreds of people and there were, there were people approaching difficult subject matters with comedy. And I'm a comedian, so I know that, and we all know on some level the comedians can tell you the best of the best stuff in terms of, um, political social ills, and they get you with that punch.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:26:50] That's another way to get people to sort of pay attention to where they're at in the world, where they're at within the subject matter and what or what not they want to do. Richard Pryor would be a good one, uh, most notable. Uh, and Eddie Murphy to some degree. Yeah, to some degree, but definitely Richard Pryor. Um. And so, and then they also had the dance. They have so much, they had so much of, they brought themselves their culture to the conference and it was one, it was the best conference I had been to. Uh, in a long time. 'cause it brought the, the, the one beautiful thing about many communities is that if, if the conference is put on by them, uh, and for whatever the topics, some, a lot of communities bring their culture into it, right? It's not a template of traditional conference, which very cut, very linear, et cetera. And that was absolutely fantastic. And I enjoyed it deeply and that was my takeaway from it. My takeaway from what we presented, very active listeners, very painful. As I was listening to some of the panelists, I was on the panel, discussed the work they do and gave, uh. Examples, like, uh, one woman was an his attorney and deals with, uh, prison reform and she was giving case cases that she had shared and the disparity of an justice system and the pain of, and then it was, it was, um, very, uh, emotional for me because I know these things occur, but when you hear, hear them in a case study and the results of them.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:28:47] So I was. How very, I was feeling that very deeply. And when it was my, someone asked a question, it was my, and I was speaking again. I'm feeling a certain kind of way. And I'm much, much, uh, I mean at this point my, you can hear and feel my passion when I was answering the question and the frustration that the story of the prison system. Uh, the, the racial, uh, inequality, the punitive measures, and I, and frustrated because this is not new. We know that in the different presidential folks, uh, say the Reagan administration, the Clinton three strikes, we know that's been going on and on, and yet the same stories being told over and over again. Uh, the sameness is like the, the, that different, different, different zip codes, different people, et cetera. But the same story of the injustice. The injustice, right? Going all the way back for some of you that are familiar with history. Going back to, uh, emancipation when the, um, black folks were, the, this sort of system we're working on now was created from that, that system doing emancipation with black folks, had nowhere to go with no resource, no money, and that no land.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:30:19] And that wandering the roads of trying to, to make up a life. And they created a system, a law that if you were the, what is the fragrant of fragrant frequency law, lot loitering, L-O-I-T-E-R-I, in order to re imprison them. So they had choices either go to prison or go work on Mr. X Farm of Land. And so it's been a continuation of, of creating systems, of imprisonment, of enslavement, of brown and black folks. And then so that came out and one of the people facilitating the conference when I, I just, my impatience of keep dis of discussion, my impatience of intellectual approach, my impatience and my bottom line question is, is what is taking this so long? If everybody, if we have attorneys and politicians and all these folks working on the same thing, why are we still here? What is that? And the persons, and so whatever I said after that was really about being more radical, more clear, more intolerant of it. And the person said, we are not ready yet. Meaning we are not we, we are not ready. We don't have all those pieces in place. And then I said, we are. And why? And why are we on the timeframe of others?   Jovelyn Richards: [00:31:50] Right. Why is it we're looking at the clock of others? What is that about other than anti-blackness? The deeper woods where the white switch clicked on? Why are you, why would anyone or any bodies of people talk about the atrocities of the prison system? The injustice? Talk about it, the atrocities. Then when approached to say, meet it, meet it where it's at, it turns the intensity to say, we are not ready yet. What does that, what did that mean? Jovelyn Richards: And what I learned even in that statement that at the conference, and as men pretty came back and talked about and realized that even after years of political education, the community organizing or DEI, a sudden internal shift occurs. The shift is not intellectual, it's somatic. Emotional and again rooted in proximity to whiteness and despite activists stated commitments to racial justice, many South Asians activists experience a movement with their nervous system over rise their politics. Fight or flight response activation. Instead of leaning into accountability, they retreat.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:33:23] Retreat into defensiveness, fragility or self-protection. And when I say those words, we see that more. We think about in the, what is the book? White fragility. So it's the same thing, right? The same characteristic. 'cause again. It's that close proximity to whiteness. So of course you're taking the, the, the, when you, and this, I think it's across the board when anyone is confronted on anything and don't take the word confronted, um, and begin to think of it just as confront, like it seems like a hard word, word and English language doesn't always offer enough words to express. One thing without making it as heavy, because confront, confront could be simply in a conversation and someone says, do you know what you just said is very offensive to me? And, and say, why? And then suddenly the possibility of the white switch, this reflective, turned toward whiteness. Toward innocence. Jovelyn Richards: [00:34:29] Rural more purity and distance from blackness is the white switch. And so when in my experience, uh, south Asian activist is confronted with their own anti-blackness, does the switch may show up as defensiveness. Words like, I've done so much work on this. I, you know, I do the work. It's like proving, here's my resume, here's my, this, I've done the work and, and, and that's not me. I've taken anti-racism training. I work every day my and, and bring credentials into it. I teach workshops. I'm dismantling racism, volunteer in prison reform. I've marched, donated, organized, centering my, uh, centering, centering. And that I wanna say is what people do in any situations, not just a topic like anti-blackness. It's in a relationships you can, and we call, what do people call it now? Uh, you're deflecting, you're being a narcissist. It's all these other things that cover it up. So it's a, it is, it appears to be something that human beings do in constant protection. So I wanna make that clear, but now we're talking about.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:35:50] In a way of the social pains of this world that we are trying as activists, uh, as people trying to get, not just get a handle on, but to eradicate it. Like right where, just take a moment. Where are we at right now? Where are we at in Minnesota? Where are we at in any state? DC Chicago? Where are we at? This is the thing that we're dealing with. And so it, if the answer is to look at the things that, the look at, the things that the government is saying, it is saying, we clearly, we are racist, and everything we about to do was about to be about that. I'm so happy. Again, you're going to hear this after, uh, today, which is Martin Luther King's Day. I'm so happy on social media where everyone is celebrating. Not everyone, but those that I see are, are celebrating and they're honoring. And they're ignoring any, any kind of dismissal. Erasure, ain't nobody. Yeah. You can forget what you wanna forget. You can have what you want to hide, but, but everybody out here knows the truth.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:37:18] We just gotta get to their truth of humanity. Other ways of dis defensiveness is the feeling in a sense of, of almost like being dismissed as all that they've done. Like, I've done all this, I do all this. And then to hear that and in, in, in that moment, I have, uh, witnessed we're almost as if in the mind, you know, if they say we are not mind Raiders, but if you. You don't have your mind reader to pay attention to the, the flesh of a person, the eyes of a person to be able to get cold. Where they're running, where they're hiding, which, where what, what, what are they doing to survive the moment? Right. To be seen and not seen. Right. And it's not intentional. It's not malicious. It again, it is a, it is the umbrella psychology that we exist under and. When a person works so hard to, to show up their best self as an activist in anti-blackness, and then someone, and particularly a black person, joins in their huge effort to say, Hey, this, this ain't this. This is not working here. Let's work with this here. It's almost like they just threw out their. Whole journey of sense of, of what they're proud of, what they're, what makes them feel good about themselves inside this human life. And it should, oh, and they should absolutely adore, feel good because we're out here doing the work.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:39:09] And so these are the things that is important for us to know. And we're going to listen to another, um, video, and you are going to hear, I, I appreciated this video because it asked a question, what would I have been if I had not been doing this? So take a listen and then I will be right back.   CLIP PLAYS   Jovelyn Richards: [00:41:55] So what would. Right. What would we be doing? I ask myself as a black woman, if a lot of what I do as a writer, as a performance artist, as a community, um, activist, whatever the title is, how much energy it takes, and right now. The energy is taken again in a very different faith. This hurts, this hurts, this really hurts. Right? In a way that almost the thinking about again, the timeframe of when we were doing the work and then where we at now. Being in the conference where we at now, how many people voted against Kamala, where we are now after the conference, um, I got a text message and this was when they were, uh, folks was holding, uh, zoom.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:43:20] And it was really exciting. So many people from so many different communities was doing Zoom calls to talk about the, the elections that were coming up. And when she became the primary chosen person to run as a democratic party and people were talking, people raising money. Oh, did you see the excitement, the energy. I got a text message from one of the people from the DESI conference and, and was very, they were in pain. He said, I feel so hurt right now because on the zoom that she was uh, on, there were many people saying that they weren't gonna vote for her, or no, this is South Asian Zoom. They weren't going to vote for her. Or they weren't gonna vote at all. My re I was so my livid, which is really not as important as the liveness of now. But I was just surprised given what everybody understood and knew about her opponent. And so I said to the person in text. I said, go back to the Zoom, and I said this, everyone, there's a slogan that people are saying as if it's, uh, the, the, you know, there's always this new thing to say.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:44:58] And the slogan was, listen to black women. Listen to black. So I said to her, which, which I, I think people really don't get it, don't understand the history of what that means. They don't understand history with that. They don't care. And, and I'm saying, I shouldn't just say I, it's not that they don't care. I don't think they, they, they take, they don't look at what that meaning. That means listen to black women means the story of black women in this country, how the, how our arrival, and then the story after that. They're not gonna even get into you. You know that if you know anything, if you listen to KPFA, you know, and the MA mechanisms of how that happens, the template of how that works is the, the ask black women, the template, right? We, we know that the, the intimate details of how that works, right? And so the thought that people were literally not wanting to. I not wanting to, and that was disturbing.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:46:19] And so that happened. And then we did, oh, then I was, um, watching a couple ones that were white women were getting together. On these zooms, and they were so excited, so excited. And in their excitement, they were talking about, they were connecting. They, they were having so much fun talking about this, this, the leading up to the election, the support, the, the, and they felt some sisterhood. They felt energized. They felt all of this stuff and the energy I got from that. The energy I got from that is this is about y'all having fun, connecting, laughing, having a project. This is a project, and I asked, what I didn't hear them say is how much they had raised. They weren't talking about any of the practicalities of the next step.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:47:28] It was just about. It was a, and I put it in the way I took it. Good, bad or different. You can agree or not agree, but I'm telling you what I experienced. It felt like it was a big party, a really big fun party that they had experienced and being able to see people, they and strangers, and laugh and talk and, and go on and on and on, that it was a party, right? But it really wasn't about the truth. It had something to do. And then, and I said, and I left that, that when I saw that, I wasn't in the Zoom, but this was people talking afterwards, like on social media, about how excited they were. And I had asked, what did you raise? What are your next steps? They had nothing.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:48:14] Well, we are gonna have another one in a couple weeks. We can figure that out. Really interesting. You got two weeks to figure it out. You got, oh, you got that kind of time. Interesting. Right. And then, uh, we saw how that happened and I see that they're working right outside my window. So let me just day. I apologize for those. Got a little bit of that noise out, said that, oh, I think that happened a little bit. And so that's how that went. And now we are here. So again and again, we, I think to find a way, even though there's a sense of probably hopelessness that some of us are feeling and we are not gonna go into, um, the hopelessness of it all. We are gonna go into, uh, not in this here, um, thing, but I think all of us needs to go into, uh, the, not even about the hope, but the necessity. Hope is wonderful. Necessity. They're going to the necessity, right? They go into that place like, and find where do you live, where it's like this is the urgency, the necessity to it.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:49:42] Uh, other quotes that I'm gonna give you a few of them. A few quote, anti-blackness is foundational, not peripheral. And that's Frank B Wilderson. The third on the limits of allyship. So as we go into this, uh, we're in this thing right now. I think it's important for, uh, connectiveness, interconnectiveness in groups, intubated, dig. Inside, um, those roots to be the most effective on the nervous system and racial conditioning, the body keeps the score. I think that's, um, something that's important. And then when the, when I bring that up, the body keeps the score because what does proximity to whiteness doom where it literally dismantles parts of you no matter how deep you've been educated.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:50:43] That it can dismantle you. Um, and where does that go? Example, the nervous system and racial conditioning I speak about That is the, you lose the ability to see, hear, and speak that racial conditioning, proximity to whiteness. You give up the ability to hear. To see and to speak. You are muted and your critical thinking skills is dismantled in areas of, of, uh, anym. So I'm gonna broaden it anym, and it dismantles those parts of you energetically. Like here we are on this human experience. And, and all the, the human properties that belong to us. All the gifts of being human and to come into a circumstance, uh, where you are immediately given isms and in this story, anti-blackness. And I think some of you have, you, you may have heard of the book cast and we know it South. Asian communities coming from a caste system and then coming to America. If you came here to America with, or a history of, however, the story is that you, it's, you have a built in template for anti-blackness. I mean, it's already set thousands of years of being set.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:52:27] And so coming here, it's not so hard, uh, to even, no matter how hard when you work to be educated. And to work in systems, uh, it gives you, working in systems and anti-blackness gives you sort of the oodles and feel a sense of pride when you sit down at the table. Right. But that white switch is there that you, the, the hearing, the saying, and the knowing is gone speaking, and so it's at what percent. What percent are you really doing the work if you are embedded with anti-blackness? You, so, like I said, the co. The co, the conference, I asked that questions. I asked a question like, why is it taking so long? Because people operating, operating at 40%. It's like being in a burning building and people in the burning building, you say, okay, I'm gonna go get, um, uh, enough water for half the building to be, um, uh, fire to be put out.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:53:45] So stand on that part of the building. The building's still on fire. So you're gonna put that out. So you're kind of running around in a burn, a, a burning building, and that's not okay. And so in creating the curriculum to do work, I think is really relevant. Now, I would fe I think February, um, 20, uh. 20 something, there's gonna pop the white switch, uh, ebook is coming out and it'll be on Amazon.  I know. Um, and that's not the best thing. Um, it'll be on, but it'll be out there and it will be the curriculum, it'll be the self-reflection, it'll be stories. And I, one of the things that I'm wanting of folks is to start partnering with. Like, if you're listening to this as a South Asian activist, what would it be like to get to, to hook up, which probably folks in your circle, um, black activists and there, and, and you may say what you, you may, I'm pretty sure you, you connected, but some folks have said, well, what if they're, they're not an activist.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:55:15] Um, very difficult to be breathing in black and not be an activist, if that's even before this time being aware of your activism. 'cause if you gotta move through space every day, you're fighting for yourself. You endure, uh, worlds. You are code switching, you are being aware of and mindful of and of your activities. You are an activist and always saving yourself. Saving yourself, saving your family, aware of signs of, uh, like, uh, signs that are out movies, you're always looking after anti-blackness that exists, even if it's not conscious on that level. Right. And so as I come to an end, I must say that, uh, it would've been nice to have done this with pretty, uh, one of the things that I think we both was learning an I that was.   Jovelyn Richards: [00:56:11] We were working on the anti-blackness and our work together that was, that couldn't be helped, uh, in working together. And as she shared with me one time, and she does a lot of fantastic work on herself, she said, you know, I am, I am the white woman in India. And I appreciated that knowledge and how that might work out with us. I work and it did show up and we were able to discuss some things, some things I, my own stuff kept silent. Right. And that's something I gotta work on. And I'll leave you with that. It's been traveling. Again, the ebook called We Switch by Joplin, uh, late February. Uh, curriculum exercises, thoughts, reflections, Self-Reflection, uh, and I'll see you on Cover, the cover of Women's Magazine. Until then, be mindful. Be conscious. Goodbye.   Miko Lee: [00:57:18] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important.   Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much for joining us.   The post APEX Express – 1.29.26 – White Switch appeared first on KPFA.

What used to happen in Canadian politics when someone called you a racist..... compared to todays clown show.   People in Canada up in arms about everything, Eby says not pipeline, people pissed at Gretzky for his golf foursome, it goes on. Remote viewing results on 3I/ATLAS, the social media of South Asians pew pew ing, and the massive bust in Peel of "South Asian" gangs. Project Monarch reminder.... Psychological warfare in UAP community and J6.   The media frenzy of babies dying from jab, and Sasha Latypova push back against the controlled op. Another OMG bust over the GOA and subverting RRK and HHS. And what happened to our food system? Volcanic activity all over, including lava spewing high in Ethiopia, and massive waves on the Great Lakes. Bob Ross theory, and Rhea the secret gov whistleblower note. Does Thailand drop the ball on digi id and banking or did something else happen?   To gain access to the second half of show and our Plus feed for audio and podcast please clink the link http://www.grimericaoutlawed.ca/support.   For second half of video (when applicable and audio) go to our Substack and Subscribe. https://grimericaoutlawed.substack.com/ or to our Locals  https://grimericaoutlawed.locals.com/ or Rokfin www.Rokfin.com/Grimerica Patreon https://www.patreon.com/grimericaoutlawed   Support the show directly: https://grimericacbd.com/ CBD / THC Tinctures and Gummies https://grimerica.ca/support-2/ Eh-List Podcast and site: https://eh-list.ca/ Eh-List YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheEh-List Our Adultbrain Audiobook Podcast and Website: www.adultbrain.ca Our Audiobook Youtube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@adultbrainaudiobookpublishing/videos Darren's book www.acanadianshame.ca Check out our next trip/conference/meetup - Contact at the Cabin www.contactatthecabin.com Other affiliated shows: www.grimerica.ca The OG Grimerica Show www.Rokfin.com/Grimerica Our channel on free speech Rokfin Join the chat / hangout with a bunch of fellow Grimericans  Https://t.me.grimerica grimerica.ca/chats   Discord     Leave a review on iTunes and/or Stitcher: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/grimerica-outlawed http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/grimerica-outlawed Sign up for our newsletter http://www.grimerica.ca/news SPAM Graham = and send him your synchronicities, feedback, strange experiences and psychedelic trip reports!! graham@grimerica.com InstaGRAM https://www.instagram.com/the_grimerica_show_podcast/  Purchase swag, with partial proceeds donated to the show www.grimerica.ca/swag Send us a postcard or letter http://www.grimerica.ca/contact/ ART - Napolean Duheme's site http://www.lostbreadcomic.com/  MUSIC Tru Northperception, Felix's Site sirfelix.bandcamp.com    Links to the stuff we chatted about: https://x.com/covertress/status/1995284105919893624?s=20 https://x.com/karma44921039/status/1994707242440863851?s=20 https://x.com/OnTheNewsBeat/status/1994598686949871794?s=20 https://x.com/Tablesalt13/status/1994482782370738460?s=20 https://x.com/edawson78/status/1994026693606928865?s=20 https://x.com/liz_churchill10/status/1993482672589685192?s=20 https://x.com/7___________K/status/1993755858916843700?s=20 https://x.com/Tablesalt13/status/1993330200902267089?s=20 https://x.com/MarcNixon24/status/1986122891172454613?s=20 https://x.com/therealinspired/status/1992684293257085130?s=43 https://x.com/holden_culotta/status/1994543361798160833?s=43 https://x.com/truthpolex/status/1994721098886439112?s=43 https://x.com/zero_lessons/status/1993703695394263396?s=43 https://x.com/OMApproach/status/1993009965624082755 https://x.com/uapwatchers/status/1993678431398117760?s=43 https://x.com/wallstreetapes/status/1994077079890264297?s=43 https://x.com/iluminatibot/status/1993268302982856716?s=43 https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1993329048886690133?s=43 https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1994274204410171453?s=43 https://x.com/hustlebitch_/status/1993321397230190849?s=43 https://lawyerlisa.substack.com/p/canadian-government-sets-up-alien?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1287362&post_id=180288334&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=24pqe&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/10?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=870364&post_id=180295526&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=24pqe&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email https://needtoknow.news/2025/12/we-are-everywhere-fort-bragg-psychological-warfare-group-posts-chilling-video/