Divya Kandukuri

Divya Kandukuri is an Ambedkarite feminist activist, trainer, writer and media practitioner.
She is the founder of The Blue Dawn, a mental health collective that upholds anti-caste and feminist politics in its functioning. The Blue Dawn has been working on bringing discussions on caste and mental health to the forefront of India’s mental health discourse through its social justice lens towards mental health. Divya has also been a trainer for The Blue Dawn and works with social workers, media professionals, and mental health professionals to equip them with tools to incorporate discussions on the caste system, feminism and social justice into their practices. In addition to her work with The Blue Dawn, she is an independent media practitioner and video producer. Drawing from her lived experiences as an inter-caste, inter-faith individual, she focuses on inter-relations of caste, gender, pop culture, and mental health. She is currently producing a podcast series for Suno India on cinema, culture and literature from a feminist standpoint featuring feminist writers, activists, and filmmakers from India.

Currently, Divya also works as a Senior Projects Associate at Zubaan, a feminist publication house and an active archiver of feminist and women’s movements in South Asia. Her role involves working with Zubaan Projects, which works with a particular focus on historically marginalised and oppressed groups.

Divya has gotten her International Diploma in Narrative Practices in 2021. She had published a chapter in Prof Radhika Gajjala’s book titled Digital Diasporas: Labour and Affect in Gendered Indian Digital Publics and a short illustrated story titled ‘Selavu’ published in The Bystander Anthology by Kadak Collective.