It’s been over a year since our last intentional communication about how we are organising together, ,,Moving with Intention as a Collective. We shared with you then that we needed to slow down, take a step back from the rush of project work and social media and all the rest. At the time, we had several project streams running concurrently which seemed important and also overwhelming as a purely volunteer-run collective. Now it’s the end of the year and we are transitioning into new spaces - much has changed and, yet, we are still dedicated to building liberatory futures. We have grown as indi ..read more

As you may know, many of us on The Rights Collective team have been pretty burnt out over the last few months. We were full steam ahead during the two years of lockdowns, trying our best to cultivate community spaces online for learning, care and resistance. While we did some beautiful things….In fact, since The Rights Collective was founded in 2017, we have done a shocking number of things! We have published 7 issues of our zine, built an online and offline community of South Asians with a desire to work towards collective liberation, held workshops on the challenges to organising for change ..read more

The news of dead bodies washing up on the shores of river Ganga were the latest in a series of horrific news that came from India. Confined to our homes, the air outside seems heavy with the collective weight of grief and loss. As I take a step away from feigning normalcy, the monstrosity of everything happening outside my window seems dystopian and unreal. Like many other middle-class families, the severity of the pandemic dawned late on me last year after the short-lived family honeymoon and dalgona coffee phase. Amidst the images of migrant workers trekking home and people scrambling to fin ..read more

This project Dark Skinned and Lovely isn't just about showcasing the beauty of these incredible dark skinned south Asian women, it's also about giving them the chance to tell the world about their lived experience as dark skinned south Asians in western society - meet Sonali Sutharsan. It’s 2021...businesses really need to step up and start involving dark skinned women... What does representation mean to you as a dark skinned south Asian women? "I feel like there are many businesses and people in general claiming that they are representing dark skinned women but fail to convey this. For examp ..read more

The month of May marks a difficult anniversary for Tamils worldwide. May 18th 2009, otherwise known as the day of the Tamil Genocide, saw the brutal end of a decades-long war that took place in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and many more were forcibly disappeared during the last stages of the Tamil Genocide committed by the Sri Lankan state and army. During that year, tens of thousands of Tamils across the world took to the streets to demand that their countries intervene to stop the ongoing genocide. In Canada alone, where I am based, over 100 000 protestors showed up ..read more

In 2020 when protests against CAA and NRC were in full swing and Delhi was still reeling from the aftermath of the communal riots, my friend was travelling to the Delhi airport at 2am in an Uber. As they drove past the protest sites the cab driver went on a tirade against Muslims, following the old rhetoric, calling them terrorists and illegal citizens. The amount of hatred he spewed made her blood curdle as she sat in silence because of the fear of what he might do to her if he looked at her name on his phone. My friend is a Muslim, but her name or appearance didn’t make that obvious. She rea ..read more

Memory is a curious endeavor. Slowly taking form in the stories we tell our children, in our laughs hiding moments of the past, even in the preparation of a beloved drink. I grew up watching my dad make a very specific drink in the morning. Sometimes my mom would prepare it for him the night before. Water, plain yogurt, cooked rice, green chillies, onion, and salt. தண்ணீர், தயிர், சோறு, பச்சை மிளகாயை, வெங்காயம், உப்பு. Appa would take his time to drink it the silver spoon hitting against his cup as he mixed the contents. It was years before I finally learned the stories behind this drink. That ..read more

When it is my time to go, My Love, do not be afraid, Scatter me amongst tea leaves bright as jade, Allow my fragrance to move from the earth to heavens above Take me in your hands and remember how we almost fell in love, Crossing the mountains and rivers of two nations we met I am here to remind you of your promise ‘lest you forget, You vowed to let the laws of Mother Nature be And when time comes that you will set me free So, when it is my time to go, My Love, do not be afraid, Scatter me amongst tea leaves bright as jade. It is true, that my life was born out of the violent struggle that wa ..read more

This project Dark Skinned and Lovely isn't just about showcasing the beauty of these incredible dark skinned south Asian women, it's also about giving them the chance to tell the world about their lived experience as dark skinned south Asians in western society - meet Tabitha Mary. What does representation mean to you as a dark skinned south Asian woman? "Representation means so much to me especially as I grew up as a child of immigrants, in a small city in Germany where I was one of a handful of brown kids, not just in my class but in the entire school. Experiencing colourism from a young ag ..read more

This Dalit History Month, The Rights Collective interviewed Dalit activists working within Dalit liberation and rights movements. This conversation takes place between Inaya Hussain and Jyotsna Siddharth - actor, intersectional artist, activist and founder of online platform Project Anti-Caste, Love, who is currently based in India. Jyotsna shares her thoughts on Dalit History Month, her journey into activism and her hopes for the future of Dalit communities. TRC: In your opinion, what is the importance and significance of Dalit History Month? JS: Dalit History Month is a reminder of the journ ..read more