Can Jainism be radical? In this special live-recorded episode of the Engaged Jain Studies Podcast, Arihanta Institute professor and lead organizer of the Vegan Studies Initiative, Jonathan Dickstein, PhD sits down with three emerging voices in the Jain community—Anjli Shah, Sahana Mehta, and Mohit Mookim—for an honest and thought-provoking dialogue about the intersections of Jain identity, social justice, and civic engagement.

 

Together, they explore questions: What does it mean to be a young Indian American Jain in the U.S. today? How are Jain values like non-violence, non-possession, and pluralism applied—or challenged—when confronting systemic inequality, racism, gender oppression, and climate collapse? Can Jainism, a tradition rooted in spiritual restraint, inspire the kind of structural change radical politics demands?

 

Tune in for a bold conversation on the future of Jain ethics, the role of intergenerational dialogue, and what it means to imagine a Jainism responsive to the moral urgencies of the 21st century.

 

 

 

        

 

 

 

Anjli Shah (she/her) is Relationships & Grants Manager at One Project, a nonprofit committed to nurturing a just transition to an regenerative democratic economy, where she helps develop grantee cohort programming and organize donors interested in shifting wealth and power to communities. Her work at the International Rescue Committee, Prevention Research Center, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have shaped her commitment to philanthropy that is accountable to social movements, and to a world beyond philanthropy. Grounded in the Jain axiom “Parasparopagraho jivanam” (“All life is bound together by mutual support & interdependence”), Anjli co-founded and led Jains for Justice, an informal collective that organized the Jain community around racial justice, gender justice, and civic engagement between 2019-2020. She is a former board member of the South Asian American Digital Archive. Anjli holds a BA in Neurobiology from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Nutrition from Case Western Reserve University, and is currently based in Los Angeles.

 

Sahana Mehta (she/her) is a South Asian organizer living in NYC. She is the High Net Wealth Program Manager at Resource Generation, a network of young people with wealth & class privilege working towards the equitable redistribution of land, wealth, and power. Politicized in 2013 through racial justice movements in the US and educational equity initiatives in India, Sahana has engaged with a number of intersecting social justice movements. Her work in South Asian communities has focused on challenging the rise of Hindu Nationalism, advocating for caste equity, and supporting diasporic gender justice infrastructure like South Asian SOAR. Sahana has worked with transnational gender justice organizations including MADRE, Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism, and Grassroots Global Justice Alliance to resource movements and challenge dominant philanthropic paradigms. Sahana is one of the creators of the archives for Andolan Organizing South Asian Workers, a domestic worker-led organization in NYC.

 

Mohit Mookim (they/them) is a land and housing justice lawyer at the Sustainable Economies Law Center, a nonprofit collective based in Oakland, California. Moh is also a member-leader with Resource Generation, organizing with other young people with class privilege redistributing wealth and power to social movements. They were raised in a big Jain family in New Jersey, and Jain principles were formative to their commitment to social justice. Moh studied philosophy and law at Stanford University, and they have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade.

 

Dr. Jonathan Dickstein specializes in South Asian Religions, Religion and Ecology, and Comparative Religious Ethics. He received his doctoral degree in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he wrote his dissertation on ancient Indian animal taxonomies and their relevance for religious ritual and dietary practice. Jonathan’s current work focuses on Jainism and contemporary ecological issues, and accordingly extends into Critical Animal Studies, Food Studies, and Diaspora Studies.

 

Jonathan has published in a wide array of interdisciplinary journals on topics such as veganism and politics, yoga and diet, Jain veganism, and the ethic of nonviolence (ahiṃsa). Jonathan considers himself a scholar-practitioner, having spent many years not only in libraries but also in public advocating for justice for both humans and nonhumans alike.