Arihanta Institute’s Jonathan Dickstein recorded a special live episode of the Engaged Jain Studies Podcast, featuring a conversation Anjli Shah, Sahana Mehta, and Mohit Mookim. The event focused on the application of Jain principles and practices to pressing social justice issues such as wealth inequality, gender oppression, racial discrimination, and food justice.

 

What do “next gen” Indian American Jains think about the role of Jainism in 21st century politics and social change? Listen to the podcast to find out!

 

 

 

 

 

Listen to top figures in the fields of Jain Studies, Religious Studies, Vegan Studies, Compassion Studies, and Social Justice discuss pressing issues of everyday relevance. Together let’s move beyond the realm of personal spiritual growth and connect philosophy, religion, and spirituality to the important task of caring for the wellbeing of society. Learn about your world and how to change it on the Engaged Jain Studies Podcast. Brought to you by Arihanta Institute, an IRC 501(c)(3) nonprofit California Corporation.

 

 

 

Jonathan Dickstein, PhD, an Assistant Professor at Arihanta Institute beginning May 2023, 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.

 

 

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.

 

 

Moh 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.

 

 

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.