History for Peace in association with Shiv Nadar School, Noida invites you to the Idea of Justice: Chapter 4, a two-day conference and workshop series that promises to nourish, enrich and bring interesting and innovative ideas into the Social Science and Humanities classroom.
Are justice and ethics interdependent? Yes, of course, they are interdependent, but there is a difference between the idea of justice and the sense of justice. The idea of justice is a fundamental concept that has been debated and discussed by philosophers, legal scholars and ordinary people for centuries. Is justice always passive, like passing laws such as the Constitution, or is justice also active such as the practice of law. What is the purpose of justice, particularly in the context of ethics? Is the need for justice made visible only when there is injustice? —Romila Thapar at The Idea of Justice conference, Calcutta, August 2023.
Some of the finest minds of our country deliberated on the most fundamental of all human values—the complex and crucial issue of justice at three History for Peace conferences in 2023. We now invite you to register for Chapter 4 of The Idea of Justice conference to be held on 13, 14 May 2024 at Shiv Nadar School, Noida.
Schools can nominate a maximum of 4 teachers and 4 students.
The participation fee is Rs. 1100 per teacher and Rs. 800 per student.
Schedule and Speakers
13.5.2024
7.30 – 8.40 a.m. Registration
9 a.m. Welcome Address. Shiv Nadar School
9.15 a.m. Opening Address. Meena Megha Malhotra, Director, History for Peace
9.30 a.m. – 10.45 a.m.
Keynote Address: Swarna Rajagopala
'You have a choice: Just-is or Justice?'
As individuals, as ordinary citizens, how do we react when we witness injustice? There is
always a choice—to walk away or to do what we can. This talk is presented as a personal
exploration of our choices and their implications.
Swarna Rajagopalan is a peace educator. She is a political scientist by training, has taught
Politics at several universities including currently at Krea. She is the founder of Prajnya, a
Chennai nonprofit that works on gender equality and peace through research, public
education and network-building. She writes on topics related to peace, gender, justice and
human security for both academic and general publications.
10.45 – 11.15 a.m. Coffee break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.
The Idea of Justice, Nivedita Menon
How can we interpret and bring to life the value of justice espoused by the Preamble to the
Constitution? What kinds of structural and symbolic transformations are required to embody
plural visions of justice? The talk will explore some possibilities along these lines
Nivedita Menon is Professor at Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
Her latest book is Secularism as Misdirection: Critical Thought from the Global South
(Permanent Black and Duke University Press 2023/2024). Apart from research papers in
Indian and international journals, her previous books are Seeing like a Feminist
(2012/updated 2nd Edition 2022); Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics Beyond the Law
(2004); and (co-written) Power and Contestation: India after 1989 (2007/2nd Edition 2014).
She also has two edited volumes Gender and Politics in India (1999) and Sexualities (2007);
and co-edited Critical Studies in Politics: Exploring Sites, Selves, Power (2014). She is a
regular commentator on contemporary issues on the collective blog kafila.online (of which
she is one of the founders), and is active in democratic politics in India.
She has translated fiction and non-fiction from Hindi and Malayalam into English, and from
Malayalam into Hindi, and received the AK Ramanujan Award for translation instituted by
Katha.
12.45 – 1.45 p.m. Lunch
1.45 – 3 p.m.
The Crisis Looming Large, Bittu Sahgal
‘The Idea of Justice’ undergoes change with changing times. Today virtually all forms of
justice in the long run depend on our ability to adapt, mitigate, or otherwise deal with the
damaging impacts of the climate crisis upon us. I would speak on this issue positioning the
conversation at the tri-junction of biodiversity, economics and climate change as it relates to justice, environmental conservation, and sustainable development, not just for present times, but for the days ahead, when today's young will need to negotiate survival on a planet altered by changes wrought by humans on the biosphere that sustains all life on Earth including Homo sapiens.
Bittu Sahgal is a renowned environmental activist, writer, and the founder of Sanctuary
Nature Foundation, an Indian non-profit conservation organization that works
on environmental policy, advocacy, science, on-ground support and habitat management.
He is also the founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, a wildlife and ecology magazine.
He has been associated with Project Tiger since its inception and was greatly influenced
by Dr. Salim Ali, the famous 'Birdman of India' Kailash Sankhala, the first director of Project
Tiger and renowned conservationist Fateh Singh Rathore, the former field director
at Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve.
Sahgal has served on a number of government and non-government bodies, including the
National Board for Wildlife. He works with policymakers, social workers, economists and
scientists at the tri-junction of biodiversity, climate change and economics, speaking at
national and international platforms in support of wilderness conservation while continuing to spearhead the work of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation.
3 – 5 p.m. Parallel workshops
[STUDENTS] GROUP A
Sparking Conversations, Komita Dhanda
This short workshop will explore the concept of justice and touch upon its complexities
through the lens of theatre. Through various basic theatre exercises, we will engage with the
idea of equality and analyze different perspectives on justice. This workshop will also
demonstrate how art can contribute to the idea of social change. No prior theatre experience necessary!
Komita Dhanda has been an actress, director, writer, and organizer for the Delhi-based
theatre group Jana Natya Manch (Janam) since 2004. She has worked with renowned
theatre directors like Abhishek Majumdar, Sunil Shanbag, Shaili Sathyu, and Mallika Taneja.
Apart from India, she has performed in the UK/Scotland (2013), South Africa (2014),
Palestine (2016), and the US (2023). She has done apprenticeship with the Bread and
Puppet Theatre Company in Vermont (USA). She has developed and led theatre workshops
for activists, school, and college students and teachers.
She is currently pursuing Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance studies at School of Arts and
Aesthetics in JNU. Focusing on the works of women activist-performers as organizers,
performers and leaders, her work unravels feminist strategies, which incited new meanings
in the theatre practices of activist cultural organizations in India. As part of her larger
research project, she has been studying transnational links and cultural exchanges between
activist performance collectives, notably those in India and the United Kingdom. She has
received a grant from the Charles Wallace India Trust (British Council).
She worked for a decade teaching at multiple colleges at the University of Delhi. Served as a
Project Coordinator for the Delhi Oral History Project at Ambedkar University's Centre for Community Knowledge in Delhi.
[STUDENTS] GROUP B
The Question of Ethics, Angana Das and Amreeta Das—History for Peace
This workshop aims to engage students in meaningful discussions about the relationship
between ethics and social justice. Students will participate in interactive and reflective
discussions to explore questions such as: What does ethics mean to young people? Why is
it needed? What is fair and just in different and diverse contexts? Students will be
encouraged to reflect on their individual and collective sense of ethics by creating their own
“Ethics Wheel”. The activities and discussions will encourage students to critically assess
ethical dilemmas, empathise with diverse perspectives, and reflect on what they can do to
apply their sense of ethics to promote social justice in their community.
Angana Das is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Her
research explores children’s voices on the Happiness Curriculum in Delhi government
schools and the social, cultural and contextual factors that influence their happiness and
well-being. Prior to her PhD, Angana worked as a researcher on projects related to the
Happiness Curriculum, Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act, remedial teaching and
school leadership in India. Her research interests include education for happiness and
peace, social and emotional learning in non-western contexts, and arts-based peace-
building approaches. She holds an MPhil in Education, Globalization and International
Development from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Conflict Analysis and Peace
Building from Jamia Millia Islamia. Angana is a recipient of the Commonwealth Shared
Scholarship and the Cambridge International Scholarship.
Amreeta Das has finished her B.A and M.A in English Literature from Jadavpur University in
2021 and worked as a writer and researcher at DAG Museums, Kolkata. At DAG she broadly
worked on a range of education initiatives that equips students and teachers to use art in the
classroom and co-led heritage walks. Her areas of academic interest are South Asian print
culture and more specifically the circulation and reception of printed pictures in periodicals
and ephemera, time consciousness and temporal discipline in colonial Bengal, history and
sociology of colonial pedagogy, among others. She will join her doctoral programme at the department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in the coming fall. Amreeta has interned at History for Peace during which time she has conducted workshops and been part of research and development of teaching resources.
[STUDENTS] GROUP C
Balancing Scales: In Pursuit of Fairness, Ranita Ray—History for Peace
How do we decide what qualifies as just? Is it easier to recognize the violation or absence of
justice rather than its presence? Is justice a necessary fantasy? Is our sense of justice innate
or social? This workshop seeks to i) explore imaginations of a just society drawn from history, and ii) encourage participants to reflect on and discuss ideas of justice through an engagement with fiction, 'the lie that tells us true things, over and over'.
Ranita Ray is presently a teacher of English Literature and Library programming curator at
Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata. She has previously been Programme Officer at The
Seagull Foundation for the Arts, working primarily on its education projects History for Peace
and PeaceWorks, with a focus on the Anne Frank: A History for Today project.
[TEACHERS] GROUP A
Seeking Justice: Educational Considerations, Barry van Driel
The focus of this 2-hour workshop will be on the issue of justice and injustice. How do
societies tend to view these two concepts and how do we translate such views into
classroom practice. The format will be interactive. In this workshop we look at justice at
different levels: the personal, familial, the school, local, national and international. We will
examine present day injustices, how they are dealt with and whether they bring ‘just’
solutions for a better world. The final part of the workshop will revolve around what kinds of
activities teachers can do with their (high school) students.
Barry van Driel is President of the International Association of Intercultural Education (IAIE)
and the Senior Editor in Chief of Intercultural Education. He has extensive experience as a
consultant in the field of intercultural and inclusive education, and has been involved in
various working groups in Europe on education policies, as well as in international projects
on curriculum development and teacher training.
[TEACHERS] GROUP B
Justice in Teaching and Learning, Sundar Sarukkai
What are the ideas of justice that occur in the classroom? And, more generally, in the
process of teaching and learning? How can understanding the idea of justice help in
incorporating it into the act of teaching? This workshop explores the complex concepts of justice in relation to the classroom and its inhabitants.
Sundar Sarukkai works primarily in the philosophy of the natural and the social sciences.
He has held positions of professor of philosophy at the National Institute of Advanced
Studies, Founder-Director of the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, and Visiting
Faculty at the Centre for Society and Policy, Indian Institute of Science. He is the founder
of Barefoot Philosophers, an initiative to take philosophy to children and to the public. He is
the author of the following books: Translating the World: Science and Language, Philosophy
of Symmetry, Indian Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, What is Science?, JRD Tata
and the Ethics of Philanthropy, The Social Life of Democracy, and two books co-authored
with Gopal Guru – The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience
and Theory and Experience, Caste and the Everyday Social. His book for children
titled Philosophy for Children: Thinking, Reading, Writing has been translated into Tamil,
Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. His latest publication is a novel, Following a
Prayer.
[TEACHERS] GROUP C
Why Our Reflections Matter: Writing for Each Other as Social Justice Educators
Kaveri, Grace David, Neha Pradhan Arora
A teacher’s daily life, more often than not, is fraught with impossibilities both within the
classroom and beyond. While we read and hear about successful endeavours in teaching
and learning, our ordinary lives feel weary and exhausting, and several days are spent
questioning the decision to remain teachers. If we reflect on what often keeps us going
during these difficult moments, or can keep us going, it is to remind ourselves of the larger
purpose for which we teach. Our work may not offer us a conscious education about what
social justice entails, but there are quite a few of us who respond sensitively to distressing
situations, even encourage critical discussions at the risk of inviting the school
administration’s wrath. Teachers themselves experience many injustices at the workplace,
and only a few of them are related to their professional abilities. Most often, these issues are
related to biases with regard to caste, gender and other such identities.
We hope that this workshop creates a space that allows teachers to explore reflective writing
as a tool for ourselves and as a resource in our classrooms, even as we try to integrate
social justice as a concept and value in our practice. We hope to not only recognise the
countless and persistent efforts, few or far between as they maybe, but also help each other
feel less alone in our social justice practices and inspire others to do more of the same.
This workshop is also part of a larger project which aims at a collective celebration of all
teachers who work hesitantly, persistently and hopefully, towards the ideals of social justice.
It is an invitation towards hope.
As an educator, Kaveri has enjoyed a diverse career spanning nearly 8 years. Her roles
have encompassed working with schools and NGOs across various places in India, both
rural and urban. She had the privilege of teaching english, history and politics, and she is
deeply passionate about building critical thinking in young adults. While she deeply enjoy the process of reading, writing and research, nurturing young minds towards a feminist future iswhat fulfils her.
Grace David has a Master’s Degree in English from Delhi University. She is also a student
of Christian theology and is completing her Master's Degree from Vidyajyoti College, Delhi.
Her experience for the past 20 years has been largely with youth groups, Church
communities and faith formation as well. For the last nine years she has been working as the
Coordinator of Catechetics, Values and Social Justice Education in St. Columba’s School,
New Delhi. She has also authored several devotional books in English and Hindi along with
papers and articles on theological themes.
Neha Pradhan Arora has worked in the education and development sector for 20 years with
a focus on building collective responsibility and transforming children, teachers and
classrooms, through dialogue and learning experiences. A social worker and teacher by
qualification, she has been the resource person for the Social Justice and Advocacy
programme in the Edmund Rice schools in India since 2018. She is also the co-founder of
an organisation that works on the issues of safety and protection of women and children
from abuse, violence and exploitation.
14.5.2024
9 a.m. – 10.15 p.m.
Experience of Justice and Injustice, Sundar Sarukkai
Whether we can conceptualise justice properly or not, an experience related to justice is
available even for young children. Most often, this experience is not of the positive idea of
justice but an experience of injustice. What do these experiences of injustice teach us about
the ideas of justice? To answer this question, we have to understand the nature of
experience, the possibility of translating it into language, as well as clarify how the concept of justice can be acquired through these experiences. These are some of the issues this talk
will address.
10.15 – 10.45 a.m. Coffee break
10.45 a.m. – 12.45 p.m. Parallel Workshops
[STUDENTS] GROUP A
Balancing Scales: In Pursuit of Fairness
Ranita Ray—History for Peace
[STUDENTS] GROUP B
Sparking Conversations
Komita Dhanda
[STUDENTS] GROUP C
The Question of Ethics
Angana Das, Amreeta Das—History for Peace
[TEACHERS] GROUP A
Why Our Reflections Matter: Writing for Each Other as Social Justice Educators
Kaveri, Grace David, Neha Pradhan Arora
[TEACHERS] GROUP B
Seeking Justice: Educational Considerations
Barry van Driel
[TEACHERS] GROUP C
Justice in Teaching and Learning
Sundar Sarukkai
12.45 – 1.45 p.m. Lunch
1.45 – 3.45 p.m. Parallel Workshops
[STUDENTS] GROUP A
The Question of Ethics
Angana Das, Amreeta Das—History for Peace
[STUDENTS] GROUP B
Balancing Scales: In Pursuit of Fairness
Ranita Ray—History for Peace
[STUDENTS] GROUP C
Sparking Conversations
Komita Dhanda
[TEACHERS] GROUP A
Justice in Teaching and Learning
Sundar Sarukkai
[TEACHERS] GROUP B
Why Our Reflections Matter: Writing for Each Other as Social Justice Educators
Kaveri, Grace David, Neha Pradhan Arora
[TEACHERS] GROUP C
Seeking Justice: Educational Considerations
Barry van Driel
3.45 – 4.45 p.m. [All the participants together]
World Café
History for Peace Team
Each school can nominate a maximum of 4 teachers and 4 students. The participation fee is Rs. 1100 per teacher and Rs. 800 per student.