Some lives exist only in files, headlines, or accusations. How do paperwork, policing, and media narratives quietly decide who belongs? What does democracy look like from below? Drawing on her book 'The Many Lives of Syeda X', journalist Neha Dixit will explore how journalism can recover erased histories, expose routine violence, and hold power to account. It examines media influence, gendered surveillance, majoritarian politics, and the slow erosion of democratic rights in contemporary South Asia. Furthermore she will highlight the struggles of urban poor workers, precarious labour, and income inequality, showing how economic marginalization intersects with political and social exclusion and will reflect on the hidden struggles and the everyday realities of citizens caught in the machinery of the modern state, amid shrinking media freedom and democratic backsliding.
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. For over two decades, she has reported on politics, gender, labour, and social justice in South Asia, producing investigative, narrative, and long-form journalism for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Caravan, The Wire, and others.
Her work has exposed extrajudicial killings, hate crimes, human trafficking, unethical clinical trials, and sectarian majoritarian violence. She has won over a dozen national and international awards, including the International Press Freedom Award (2019) from Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2017), and the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism (2011).
Her book, "The Many Lives of Syeda X" (Juggernaut), traces 30 years in the life of a migrant Muslim woman navigating Delhi’s informal labour economy, holding over 50 jobs without minimum wage. The book, a vivid portrait of urban India’s invisible workforce, was named Book of the Year 2024 by The Hindu and the Deccan Herald among others. It won the Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman and Kalinga Best Debut Award and a Special Jury Mention by the CG Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing.
Ms. Dixit's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by President's Leadership Fund.
