Interview with Shailaja Dixit- 2025 Community Spotlight
Shailaja Dixit is the Executive Director of Narika, a leading organization dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic violence and empowering women through advocacy, education, and community programs.
Narika’s Mission: To promote domestic violence survivors’ independence, empowerment, and well-being by helping them through advocacy, support, and education. Narika offers a confidential helpline, emergency safe nights and transportation, legal resources, groups, individual therapy, financial workshops, transitional housing and more. To promote domestic violence survivors’ independence, empowerment, and well-being by helping them through advocacy, support, and education. Narika offers a confidential helpline, emergency safe nights and transportation, legal resources, groups, individual therapy, financial workshops, transitional housing and more.
https://www.narika.org/
Q: What do you think is the role of the arts in addressing social issues such as domestic violence?
Shailaja Dixit: Well, I think art has actually multiple roles in not only addressing social justice, but in finding pathways to healing. So maybe unpacking it for folks in the community and at large, then also finding pathways to healing. Also the arts serve to lift narratives and perspectives that are not heard otherwise. So what do I mean by that? I think art can really help tell us very difficult stories where perhaps our filters would go up, but art has a way of touching our heart.
and so circumventing things that might not fully be understood by us if it was just told through statistics or language alone–art uses every modality there exists from you know expression, voice, music depending on what art. So there are multiple mediums so people's filters go down a bit. I think you're less defensive. You're less trying to debate the issue versus actually understanding which is the first step to resolving something. Then I think when the stories are told through art and people come together and connect with it on a very human level, even for the artist and for those who are listening there is some healing that happens. I mean after all, expression is one way of release and release is so important for healing. What art can do, I don't think we do enough of it. I don't think folks who are engaged with social justice fully engage as much as we could with the arts. I know why, we are all overwhelmed and busy and running after funds, but I think art should not be forgotten.
It's very powerful for those who are seeing it, those who are creating it and those who are actually performing or presenting it.
Q: My second question is, how do you think the telling of the story of Janki Bai of Allahabad is impactful?
Shailaja Dixit: Well, it's everything I just talked about, right? In a way, it is telling something that might feel is a figure shrouded in some kind of, I would almost say myth or in the fog of the annals of history which often happens with women's stories. It’s a story maybe misunderstood but then there is this powerful reclaiming of a certain narrative and then a presentation of perspectives. This is a recognition of someone who was a pathbreaker and all of that through art, which is building community um and maybe you know raising some conversations which we typically would not have in our day-to-day life or raising a perspective about um a person who may be seen in a certain way when we are just reading mainstream stories. But if we delve into what this person experienced, what they reclaimed, and what that could mean for us, because we have to learn from history and then apply it to our current day.
I think all of that can be so powerful, and for that to happen through a beautiful medium such as kathak and music, and I think transformative art, that would be amazing. So I think that this will create conversations and thoughts that would not happen without the story being framed the way I think your team is pulling it together.
Q: This is domestic violence awareness month, October. What do you think people should know?
Shailaja Dixit: Where do I start? Where do I start? I think I don't know if there are a lot of people who are not aware. Honestly, we have to go beyond awareness. It is awareness month. Every month is awareness month. But I think there is a focused intentionality in this month for us to really recognize how pervasive it is, how it impacts folks around us, for us to actually call it and name it. Many of us actually know what's happening around us.
If you ask in any room full of people whenever I open a presentation, I ask, "Do you know someone who's a survivor?" Nobody says I don't. Everybody knows some aunt, some uncle, some friend's uncle, some friend's friend, some friend's sister. Everybody knows someone. The question is, do we center it in our consciousness to say “what do we know about this someone? Why did that happen? Why does it happen so often?” Anywhere from 40 to 60% of women, and I say women mostly because that's the population we work with, are impacted. Although domestic violence can impact every gender and not only binary genders, if you think about 50 to 60% of women are reporting domestic violence and we know that that's under reported. So that’s saying almost 70-80% of women may have experienced some form of domestic violence or experienced an unhealthy relationship that harmed them. Then we have to at some point stop and ask what is it that we are becoming aware of? We have to address that there is something intergenerational and systemic that we may have a part in. We have to acknowledge that it’s not just something that is happening to someone else.
So maybe this is a month to focus on what is our role and what we are seeing around us. What does this mean for the community? What does this mean for our family units? What does this mean for the values we live? And what does it mean most importantly for what we permit in our community day after day?
Q: Are there things that people can do in their day-to-day lives to address the issue of domestic violence?
Shailaja Dixit: Absolutely. And it's not that you have to do something even every day or in a certain way. You don't have to be the one providing direct service. You don't have to be the one who's maybe marching on a street or going up and speaking for some policy in a formal meeting. I think we find our way to do something and it can be as simple as what is actually the most difficult thing, such as examining our relationships, examining what power we allow. What biases do we allow?
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So I think we can um definitely examine our relationships, and especially the kind of gender bias, gender stereotyping that we allow. What kind of power hierarchies do we allow in our family? What kind of narratives do we support which could be as simple as jokes in a group. There's so many times that survivors find it hard to believe that folks will believe survivors. And that's because generally the response from folks when somebody shares they've been harmed: “What did you do?” “Why don't you adjust?” or “This is how it's always been.” We know what a non-compassionate, almost judgmental answer can look like. So I think the simplest thing we can do is look at our own relationships. See what we perpetuate in the name of respect and boundaries with folks around us. If somebody reveals to us that they have been harmed, how do we respond? Is it compassionate? Is it believing? Is it non-judgmental?
Then what is it that we support in terms of the larger community? Can we give our time or talent or resources such as money to the larger organizations that are trying to support those who have already been harmed? So, find your way of supporting. It doesn't have to be everything and you can't resolve everything. You don't even need to do it every day, but maybe once a month or when you're faced with a choice of how you behave, you make the right choice.
Q: This is a very difficult topic. How do you stay engaged and how do you think we can all stay engaged and resilient?
Shailaja Dixit: This is my passion. I cannot explain why. I've never been able to give a satisfactory answer why, but it is almost unbearable to me that somebody who's without power, their voice is not heard. And that's what happens in domestic violence, that there is somebody without power whose freedom of making choices has been taken away. So, this to me is my life's passion. But yes in partly answering how do we all stay engaged, I hope people find their own answers. I would not assume to know how everybody would do it but my suggestion would be that we consider this a practice like we do anything else. Whether it's art, yoga, or our health, or our food. I think this kind of raising your voice and your power and strength against injustice is a daily practice. So to have anything that has daily practice you do the things that you have to do to rest. So you must rest. You can't fight all the time. Actually, I don't even consider it a fight. I consider it a practice. So do it with love. Don't get disheartened if something doesn't change the next minute.
It's like all those tales. You plant a tree and then you just know it's going to bear fruit. You may not be around. So have patience, and take help. Be in community of those who are doing the work. Take help. Maybe think of it as a chorus. You don't all have to sing all the time. You can pause, take a breath, let others carry on the singing, and then you join back in so they can take a breath. And definitely for me, I don't try to resolve. I don't think I'll ever solve the problem completely or that I can be the answer for everything. I'll just do what I can do in my corner of the world and do it as best as I can with a lot of love and with all my friends who are engaged in it. And I think that brings me joy. So if it doesn't bring you joy, you can't keep it up. Find a way to do it that brings you joy.
Q: We are living through very difficult times. What do you think can bring us hope?
Shailaja Dixit: I can start with a small example: When I first started this work in 2012 it was very difficult to talk to anyone about it. It is wonderful the kind of reception and warmth and acceptance we get from the community when we ask for support and resources. When we ask to have awareness events it's amazing. I think we should recognize all the good things that are done and the movement forward our community as a whole is making. More conversations are happening and there are people stepping up to give resources. Anytime we put a call out to say this family needs to maybe rebuild their home, the kind of response we get from the community, it's very heartwarming. So, first of all, we must recognize that there is an innate humanity in all of us and there are very good and kind people, which is why organizations like us even can carry on our work.
So, it's not all bad. The second thing that gives us hope is that we are part of the community. We do have strength. We do have a choice. We can make a difference. And that difference could be one family, one person in front of you. But that's when you change one life, you change three generations after them. Especially for a mom. When you change what a mom does, you change what the entire family does. You change what the children do in the next generation. When we hear the news nowadays or feel overwhelmed, we forget how much power we have and how much joy we can give by simple simple acts. We don't have to make them complicated. Simple acts can bring profound changes in someone's life. And then I think our youth are our final hope. The kind of conversations I see them have, the things they engage with, their energy, their willingness to really pick up an issue and talk about it, their way of looking at boundaries, consent, their fearlessness. If we as an older generation are looking for something to do, then one thing is like nurture that really. If we love on our youth, especially right now our LGBTQ youth, I think that's a lot of hope for us all.
I do want to raise that when we ask ourselves do we want to do this work or do we want to engage with this fight we must recognize that it is a privilege to be able to look away. If you are able to look away from a problem you are in a place of privilege. There are many who cannot look away from it. Survivors who are impacted can't look away from the violence. So anytime you recognize you have a choice to look away, I think it's important for us to recognize we have the privilege. And if you have the privilege, you've got to use the privilege to support the cause in a way that feels meaningful to those who are impacted. So we have to learn how to take the lead from those who are impacted. But I think we should not and we cannot look away when we have a choice because many people don't have a choice.