Dec 21 2025 to Dec 21 2025 5:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

This conversation will shift your understanding of power, and of possibility.

In this session Rahila Gupta will examine how male dominance persists across radically different societies from theocracies to democracies, dictatorships to socialist states. Her co-authored book Planet Patriarchy asks what makes patriarchy so resilient, and where feminism is not just surviving but genuinely thriving.

At the heart of the conversation is a revelation: a little-known women’s revolution in Rojava, Northeast Syria. Here, women are building a bottom-up democracy rooted in multi-ethnic inclusivity and ecological sustainability. It’s a radical reimagining of power that challenges everything we think we know about governance and gender.

Concluding with an audience Q&A, this session invites you to rethink power, resilience, and the possibilities of feminist futures, one where gender equality isn’t an afterthought but the foundation.

Speaker

Rahila Gupta
Freelance Journalist, Author & Activist
Rahila Gupta is a freelance journalist, author, and activist who has spent decades at the intersection of feminism, race, and justice. As Chair of Southall Black Sisters, she campaigns for black and minoritised women escaping violence. Gupta has authored and edited numerous books, including From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters (2003), Provoked (the story of a battered woman who killed her violent husband, later adapted into a 2007 film starring Aishwarya Rai, for which Gupta co-wrote the screenplay), Enslaved (2007) on immigration controls, and Turning the Page (2019), an anthology by the Southall Black Sisters support group. Her play Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong, a monologue in verse, toured internationally across London, Edinburgh, New York, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, earning multiple award nominations. She writes regularly for the Guardian, New Humanist, New Internationalist, and openDemocracy. Her latest book, British Feminism: Through A FiLiA Lens, was published in October 2025.