Nivedita Menon

Nivedita Menon (born 1960) is a writer and a professor of political thought at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. She previously taught at Lady Shri Ram College and the Department of Political Science at Delhi University. Before moving to JNU she was a teacher at Lady Shri Ram College for 15 years, and the political science department at Delhi University for seven years. She also writes on current issues in the journal Economic and Political Weekly, the online news blog kafila.org, and several newspapers.

Reception Seeing Like a Feminist, released in 2012, received favourable reviews. It also had high sales, partly due to uproar following the 2012 Delhi gang rape. The title of the book is a play upon the title of Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. A review in The Hindu said that the book "[dissected] social institutions, policy, and common ideas to explain the many ways the process of “gendering” occurs — here making a distinction between ‘sex’ as the biological characteristics and ‘gender’ as the set of cultural meanings that are arrived at over time." A review in The Guardian noted that "Menon succeeds in shattering some deeply-engrained myths, and her efficient gathering of the intersectional strands makes it a breezy but sharp read."

Political activism Menon is known for her staunch opposition to nuclear power. Menon has commented on the different portrayals of the Kashmir conflict within India and outside it, and has criticized the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Describing Uniform civil code as anti-Muslim In an article published in The Hindu in 2016, Menon criticised the Uniform Civil Code. She wrote that, "the talk of a Uniform Civil Code has nothing to do with gender justice. It has entirely to do with a Hindu nationalist agenda to 'discipline' Muslims". She went on to describe the Code as "a stick to beat Muslims with" and claimed that the "Muslim Personal Law is already modern", as it already provides women the right to property and recognises marriage as a civil contract, unlike Hindu marriages which were largely considered sacrament, until recently. The lecture was part of a series about nationalism. A video clip from her lecture was highlighted by the news channel Zee News, which labelled Menon "anti-national". In the clip Nivedita said that " Hindu Society is the most violent, to the root violent society in the world". The incident led to her being targeted for her views by people and student organisations. She also said "We know that people the world over think that India is illegally occupying Kashmir". She also said, "If people are raising slogans for azadi (freedom), shouldn’t this be looked at in the context of India being seen as an imperialist country internationally?". She also highlighted the fact that Kashmiris equate "India" and Indian nationalism with militarism and abuse of power. Menon later stated that she had not said anything anti-national.

The video of her speech and the reactions to it also led to Menon receiving widespread support online. A number of activists published a statement saying that Menon was being vilified by the media and the police, and that the complaints against her constituted harassment. She has also argued that Hindutva is a "Brahminical political project" which denies that India is a country of numerous minority communities rather than one Hindu majority, and that it seeks to assimilate, marginalise, or eliminate non-Brahmanical groups.

Views on Palestine Menon has stated multiple times that she fully supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and Palestinian independence from the beginning. Menon characterizes a contentious parallels between Hindu nationalism and Zionism as ethno-majoritarian ideologies and claimed that public expression of solidarity with Palestinians has faced restrictions in India.

Personal life Menon is known as 'Nivi' to most of her students and peers. She belongs to an upper-caste middle-class family, and was brought up in different parts of India, including Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. who co-founded the organization Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA). Their brother is Dilip Menon, who is a historian at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Selected works Power and Contestation: India since 1989 (Global History of the Present) (2007). Seeing Like a Feminist (2012). Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics Beyond The Law (2004). Gender And Politics In India Sexualities (collected volume) I Could Not Be Hindu (translation)

Awards and honours In 1994, Nivedita Menon won the A. K. Ramanujan Award (Instituted by Katha) for translation from Hindi and Malayalam into English 1994.