Devangana Kalita is a JNU MPhil student who is also a women’s human rights activist and a founder member of Pinjra Tod (Break the Cage), a student organisation that advocates for the freedom of women, gender equality, and other social issues. Her involvement in the anti-CAA protests is what made her most well-known.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Devangana Kalita was born in Dibrugarh, Assam, on June 17, 1989, a Friday.
In a family of Assamese descent, Devangana Kalita was born.
Dr. Hem Chandra Kalita, Kalita’s father, is a practising cardiologist at Assam Medical College & Hospital, while her mother stays at home.
While working as an intern at Seva Mandir, an NGO in Udaipur, Devangana met her future spouse (whose name is unknown). The couple later wed in the United Kingdom in 2014.
EDUCATION
In 2010, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English from Miranda House University of Delhi.
She then travelled to the UK to enrol in the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex’s Master of Arts (MA) degree in Gender and Development. She returned to India after completing her post-graduate studies in the UK because she had no intention of staying. She went back to Delhi and enrolled in the MA in History programme at the Centre of Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). She is presently pursuing an MPhil at the JNU Center for Women Studies.
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
PINJRA TOD
While no similar limitations were placed on boys, Jamia Milia Islamia, a Central University in Delhi, changed the late-night admittance for ladies from the previous timing of 10 pm and set curfew for the girls staying in their dormitory at 8 pm in 2015. Girls from Jamia protested the choice. Students took to the streets as a result of similar demonstrations that broke out in other campuses and were inspired by the Jamia protests. Devangana and her friends created the “Pinjra Tod: Break the hostel locks” Facebook page. Women from all parts of India started sending their experiences, which they would then publish on the Facebook page, in reaction to the campaign’s overwhelming response. An internet movement that originally fought for women’s independence from hostel timings expanded to take on a number of other social problems that were pervasive in society. Here is a video in which Devanagana explains the background to Pinjra Tod’s ascent.
ARREST & PROCEEDINGS
Devangana, her roommate, and another Pinjra Tod activist, Natasha Narwal, were all detained by police on May 23, 2020, in connection with FIR 48/2020 for their participation in a sit-in protest against CAA-NRC on February 22, 23, and 24, a day before the Delhi riots. A Delhi court granted them bail the following day, on May 24, 2020, stating that there is no evidence against them that demonstrates their involvement in inciting violence. The court also overturned the non-bailable IPC Section 353 charge that had been brought against them since it was “not maintainable” and they were “merely demonstrating against NRC and CAA,” according to the court. The release was short-lived. The following day, a Crime Branch Special Investigation team filed a second FIR (50/2020) that included serious allegations like murder, attempted murder, rioting, and criminal conspiracy and sought to detain the individuals once more. They were placed in police custody for two days by the court. Devangana was again detained on May 30, 2020, in connection with the third FIR (250/2019), which was centred on the violence that erupted in Delhi’s Daria Ganj neighbourhood. The judge once more granted them bail in the FIR on June 2, 2020. Devangana Kalita and Narwal were once more detained by the Delhi Police on June 5, 2020, as part of a fourth FIR (59/2020), and they were also charged under the severe anti-terror law UAPA. In ten days, she was detained three times. They were charged of 33 offences by the Delhi Police, including sedition, rioting, dacoity, terrorism, murder, and rioting.
After three months, on September 1, 2020, the Delhi High Court authorised her release on bail in connection with FIR 50/2020 and ruled that her incarceration was unlawful.
Due to the court’s refusal to grant Devangana bail in the final one of the four FIRs filed against her, she is still detained in the Tihar jail. In the northeast Delhi riots case, a Delhi court denied her request for bail on January 29, 2021. Amitabh Rawat, a second Sessions Judge, stated that the charges against Kalita first appear to be true.
