Pratishtha Deveshwar: Birth of an Activist

Birth of an Activist

In 2021, Pratishtha Deveshwar (2020, MPP Public Policy) received The Diana Award, the UK’s highest honour recognising the next generation of humanitarian changemakers. Here she tells the story of how she became an activist and found her way to Oxford.

Students aren’t famous for their love of washing-up. But I bet I disliked it more than most when I first came to Oxford. You see, I hadn’t done the dishes on my own – or changed a bed, or done the laundry – since a car accident left me unable to walk aged thirteen. Living alone for the first time, I found all these routines incredibly hard – and that’s without even mentioning the challenge of reading for a Master’s in Public Policy!

Then again, I’m no stranger to overcoming obstacles. Let me tell you my story.

After the car accident, I spent four months in hospital – followed by three years confined to my bed. At first, I wasn’t allowed to sit up more than fifteen minutes a day. Going to school was impossible, because it wasn’t wheelchair accessible. People kept telling my parents to face facts and buy me a shop, so I might at least have a livelihood. Never mind what I wanted: a career, marriage, travel; all these things were unthinkable according to conventional wisdom.

But I had always loved school – and I knew instinctively that the only way out of my situation was through the power of education. My parents were amazing – my first, truest allies on the path to becoming an activist! They supported me as I worked with teachers and friends to find a way of continuing my studies. Once we found a system that worked, I worked all day, every day, only taking breaks for meals or phone calls with friends. When I couldn’t read any more, my mother read to me. It was tough, but eventually I graduated top of my class.

My next challenge was getting to university. Here, again, I had to overcome prejudice. What was the point, people said, in sending a young woman like me to university? Those people just saw the wheelchair; they never looked beyond it to the contents of my mind or my heart.

It was around this time that I first thought of advocacy not just for myself, but all people with disabilities – of which there are 28 million in India.

Finally, I made it to Lady Shri Ram College at Delhi University. It was there, in that all-female space, surrounded by a supportive community of students, professors and Principal, that I realised what women can do for each other. They were like an army behind me, urging me not to be afraid of sharing my story.

Not long afterwards, I made my first tentative steps as an activist. At first, it could not have been more grassroots. I literally just went outside the gates of my college and started talking to people. Always fiercely independent, I became a bit of a local figure, wheeling myself around the streets with shopping bags hanging off each arm of my chair.

Of course, I encountered prejudice and misogyny. But I also met people who wanted to listen or share their own stories. One encounter that stayed with me was a shopkeeper who invited me to visit his shop and make it wheelchair accessible. All the alterations I suggested were completed within 5 days of my visit. This, I learned, is how activism works: by meeting people, listening to their stories and telling your own, until you find common ground.

Soon I was asked to share my story in other colleges of Delhi University, and it just snowballed from there. That’s how I came to speak at the UN – because UN representatives attended a conference for young people where I spoke. Amazingly, they wanted me to join them at the Asia Pacific Regional Office in Bangkok. A second meeting followed, this time in Nairobi. Each time, I felt an immense weight of responsibility. I didn’t sleep on the plane, because I was too busy rewriting my speech – when so few people have a platform like this, you have to get it right.

Those experiences led to the Diana Award – but perhaps more importantly they led to Oxford. I came here looking for a way to take my advocacy to the next level. I found that but also, in Somerville, I found a home. Living in a building with fully adapted facilities was a revelation – but Somerville also welcomed me into its heart. College allowed my father to stay and help me settle in when I first arrived, and Jan even sent a message on his birthday.

As for my Master’s, I’m still coming to terms with everything I learned. Perhaps the most unexpected discovery was that my studies actually reinforced ideas about activism I’d built up over the years. I had expected Public Policy to teach me how to use the system to leverage change. In fact, it asked us to look beyond the numbers and create the right solution by empathising with the people affected. Exploring that idea revolutionised the way I think about the interconnectedness of our struggles, leaving me with an interest in intersectionality which I hope to explore in my next Oxford degree.

First, however, I need to spend some time in India, consolidating everything I’ve learned and figuring out how to share it forward – because, while I may be the first wheelchairusing Indian to attend Oxford, I don’t intend to be the last.

Living in a building with fully adapted facilities was a revelation – but Somerville also welcomed me into its heart.