Cultural strategist, sustainability advocate, Kathak dancer & historian blending heritage, tourism and community knowledge for resilient futures.
New Delhi, India
Joined October 2009
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Bernie Sanders. Thunder for “We the People”, not “We the Wealthy”. Defending democracy at home, dignity beyond borders. May a democratic reckoning for POTUS echo in a political reckoning for the Lotus. People over plutocrats. @TheDeshBhakt @ppbajpai @ravish_journo @VinodSharmaView
Bernie Sanders just announced that the Democrats will initiate legislation to impose a 5% wealth tax and used the revenue to give direct cash benefits of $12,000 to every family of four members. This is the exact same direct cash benefit scheme called Nyunatam Ayay Yojana or Nyaya Scheme announced by @RahulGandhi in 2019 elections manifesto. The figure was also similar, 12k in respective currency.
Clearly, what Rahul Gandhi thinks today, the world thinks tomorrow.
Check out my new post,
6 years jailed without trial, a scholar’s banned book, & global prize expose how democracies weaponise fear, turning dissent into a crime and minorities into scapegoats._
substack.com/@navinajafa/not… @TimothyDSnyder @ruthbenghiat @HC_Richardson @AnandWrites @RBReich
Thank you, @zoo_bear, for taking the time to read and share Umar Khalid’s Fractured Communities: Adivasi Histories and the Politics of Power.
Get your copy from trusted bookstores or Amazon.
Anything to dodge citizens, until power forgets who lent it. At Jantar Mantar, even the stones keep time. The dictator mistakes an art show for an alibi. But no canvas can paint over the writing on the wall: time to pack. The clock is not his courtier.
@TheDeshBhakt @seemay @ravish_journo @bismil_prasad @PoMoGandhi
Within days of denotifying the area around Jantar Mantar as a protest site, the Centre has quickly moved in to select the 18th-century protected monument as one of the prime venues that will showcase exhibitions and programmes curated across over a dozen monuments and other prominent locations at “India Biennale 2026” that starts on Dec 4 and will be on till March 21.
More details 🔗 toi.in/u8SGsY
Catch every update on the TOI App 👉 timesofindia.sng.link/Cqhd4/…
#IndiaBiennale2026 #JantarMantar #IndiaArtBiennale
So grateful, Kabir Bedi ji. My production Sair-e-Motorcar used Kathak classical dance and Dastangoi storytelling to bring vintage cars and their owners to life: one city, its old garages, its stories. Let classic cars and their tales dance worldwide. @nmacc_india @NCPAMumbai @FestSerendipity @TeamworkArts @AsiaSocietyAus @AsiaSociety
Navina Jafa’s Kathak solo in “Sair-e-Motorcar” in Mumbai was one of the most brilliant Kathak performances I’ve ever seen. It was amazingly nuanced, expressive, inventive and bold, all at once.
Hats off, Navina! You are an extraordinary dancer. You gave us all an unforgettable evening at the NMACC.
K 🙏🙏🙏 👏👏👏
@navinajafa
Flowers for the Goddess. Barricades for women who dissent. Her departure on horseback predicts no government’s fall; it exposes the illusion that power lasts forever. Worship is not accountability. #Navratri2026 #Shakti
@kavita_krishnan @nilanjanaroy @saliltripathi @prempanicker @vrindagrover @karunanundy @MasalaBai
Durga Puja is here. We worship Maa Durga as Shakti, yet women continue to face sexual violence—even in places of worship.
The hypocrisy is unreal. 🤡
We bow before goddesses but fail to respect and protect real women. What kind of devotion is this? 💔🔥
#WomensSafety
Navina Jafa retweeted
#Update | Our lawyers have met Neha at the R.K. Puram station. It is mid night and police is not giving any clarity about her release, AISA has said.
LIVE | Where Are Neha Bora, Abhijeet Dipke?
CJP, AISA, Supporters Demand Their Post-detention Locations From Delhi Police
Live updates: thewire.in/rights/live-updat…
Navina Jafa retweeted
When you delete 15-20% of voters from voter list, and you call this "democracy", it is clear who is spreading anarchy. We don't need lessons from RSS people, whose love for Hitler and Mussolini is well documented. Gaming the system to win at any cost is not democracy. Bakwaas!
Burn a cockroach. Spare the rot. BJP-led Ramlila plans a 30-ft effigy. Democracy demands answers, not pest control.
#Democracy #RightToProtest
@harsh_mander @kavita_krishnan @ravishndtv @dhruv_rathee @TheDeshBhakt
The Shri Keshav Ramlila Committee will burn a 30-foot-tall #cockroach effigy alongside those of Ravana, Kumbhakarna and Meghnad during #Dussehra celebrations in #Delhi this year, with the insect symbolising "filth and unhygienic" conditions.
Know more 🔗toi.in/GqOk2Y
Navina Jafa retweeted
Ankita Bhandari's mother could not hold back her tears during the press conference.
There is no greater burden that the weight of losing a child. Then, in circumstances like this.
Delhi can move protests from Jantar Mantar, but not democracy from its citizens. Give dissent new ground and it may grow deeper roots. The strongest government is not one that silences voices, but one that listens. #JantarMantar
navinajafa.substack.com/p/mo…
@saurabhtop @AbhayDubey_ @ravish_journo @voicesofyouth @Apoorvanand__
Civilian protests across India have been increasingly met with police intervention — and allegations of excessive force have taken center stage. Reuters examined the guidelines and recent protest data to explore where these possible excesses against demonstrators are happening and why reut.rs/47jBORq
Delhi can move protests from Jantar Mantar, but not democracy from its citizens. Give dissent new ground and it may grow deeper roots. The strongest government is not one that silences voices, but one that listens. #JantarMantar @TheDeshBhakt
@ravishndtv @fayedsouza
@saurabhtop @vrindagrover
@bismil_prasad
thequint.com/opinion/from-ja…
Designating new sites aims to weaken the revolt while slyly preserving its outward form, giving citizens a venue for their questions, and power breathing room to leave them unanswered, writes Navina Jafa.
Read: thequint.com/opinion/from-ja…
Delhi can move protests from Jantar Mantar, but not democracy from its citizens. Give dissent new ground and it may grow deeper roots. The strongest government is not one that silences voices, but one that listens. #JantarMantar @TheDeshBhakt
@ravishndtv @fayedsouza
@saurabhtop @vrindagrover
@bismil_prasad
thequint.com/opinion/from-ja…
Designating new sites aims to weaken the revolt while slyly preserving its outward form, giving citizens a venue for their questions, and power breathing room to leave them unanswered, writes Navina Jafa.
Read: thequint.com/opinion/from-ja…
Utterly unacceptable: the dictator has the audacity to send police into gurdwaras, mosques and private homes, dragging citizens from rooms and aeroplanes, treating a non-violent movement as terrorism. A masterstroke of blundering by a shaken totalitarian government that sets out to crush dissent, and generously supplies the fuel for revolt.
youtu.be/_wX92UUfWyM?si=uGDe…
@seemay @VijayDhasmana5 @bismil_prasad @pbhushan1 @BhavreenMK @SubhashiniAli @PoMoGandhi
This is absolutely unacceptable! The police have reached Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to detain young people who gathered to protest against vote chori and demand accountability from Gyanesh Kumar.
Has the Modi government and the police forgotten even the sanctity and dignity of our Gurdwaras? What crime have these young people committed? Has the police ever shown the same urgency in tackling other crimes? And now, they are going all out against young people exercising their right to protest peacefully against an issue that is not a crime.
What a victory: the world's largest democracy fears citizens arriving by train. Barricade Jantar Mantar; call the silence support. Dissent has no postcode. Shut one gathering, seed a hundred. The government blocks roads; the revolution gains ground.
@SupriyaShrinate @sakshijoshii @bismil_prasad @INDIASGENZ @_YogendraYadav @dhruv_rathee
#Watch | Student and youth activists march from Gurudwara Bangla Sahib to Jantar Mantar amid the anti-CEC protest in New Delhi on Saturday, October 10, 2026.
Turn Delhi into a prison and call the jailer a statesman. What confidence: a government terrified of its own youth. Article 19 is not your gift. Neither is the ballot. You can block their trains; you cannot cancel India's next 75 years. #Jantarmanatar
@bismil_prasad @seemay @Raghav_Bahl @vijaita @iRoflChacha
@kavita_krishnan
Navina Jafa retweeted
Nearly 50,000 women and girls in #Gaza have been killed or severely injured in the past three years. Killings continue despite the ceasefire.
@UN_Women calls for full ceasefire implementation, international law upheld and protection #ForAllWomenAndGirls
unwomen.org/en/news-stories/…
Navina Jafa retweeted
“The best police forces in the world don’t win against their own citizens, they facilitate them.”
Why cops fail at Jantar Mantar.
A former Director, National Police Academy. 👇🏾
Navina Jafa retweeted
The cartoon frees #Gandhi from the stillness of sculpture and secures his place in India’s moral imagination. No crowd rises in applause, nor does any government slogan instruct the viewer to revere him. Gandhi appears in motion: spare, vulnerable and sustained by a moral discipline that transformed physical frailty into public strength.
A democracy keeps its proportion when power can be caricatured, in cartoons, reels, comedy and slogans. Navina Jafa writes.
Read here: thequint.com/opinion/gandhi-…
