Sohini Jana on Women in Peacebuilding, Resilience, and Faith

• The conversation with Sohini Jana, a peacebuilder and author from India, highlights how personal disruption, like the loss of a loved one, can lead to a deeper understanding of peace and a calling to peacebuilding.
• Sohini’s work in Kashmir demonstrates that effective peacebuilding is about empowering local communities to lead their own change.
• Women, especially those who have navigated societal disadvantages, possess unique, creative, and resilient approaches to peacebuilding.
• Sohini believes that true strength in faith comes from being open and honouring another’s truth, even when it’s unsettling.

Introduction

In this conversation, we speak with Sohini Jana, a development practitioner, conflict analyst, writer, and advocate for inclusion, diversity, and minority rights. With over a decade of experience in community activism, including work in regions like Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, she has championed the rights of marginalised communities and religious minorities. A 2019 South and Southeast Asia Fellow at KAICIID in Lisbon and part of the EU-funded Global Exchange on Religion in Society program, Sohini has led interfaith dialogues and contributed to reconciliation and violence-prevention efforts in India. Through her storytelling and writing, she continues to amplify voices that are often left unheard.

It’s one thing to speak of peace from a distance; it’s another to feel it break open inside you. Sohini Jana, who has been in peacebuilding for more than a decade, puts it, “Disruptions and chaos in your personal life are when you realise the value of peace.”

For Sohini, that disruption came with the passing of her mother in 2011. As in many families in India and across the world, women are the quiet peacekeepers, the anchors holding things together. When that anchor was gone, chaos inevitably followed. Out of that loss came a realisation that peace is not abstract, but essential to how we live, connect, and work, every single day.

Sohini turned towards peacebuilding as her path, not as a career option, but as an internal coping mechanism. Along the way, she found her mentors in two of the great thinkers of their time: first, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Her path then led her to her second inspiration, Swami Vivekananda.

On Starting her Journey

Sohini’s journey from personal disruption to a professional calling soon led her to the complex landscapes of Kashmir, where she was tasked with helping to establish a think tank. “I was asked to build a team, a very young, enthusiastic team that had zero sense of direction. It was my job to mentor them and get them to understand a few basic principles of peacebuilding,” she recalls.

Even as she guided others, Sohini was undergoing her own learning curve. “Before going to Kashmir, I read all the books you can possibly read on identity, on history, on conflict. But nothing prepares you for conflict. Nothing. Because a conflict is constantly evolving. I came in thinking I knew about this conflict. But once I got on the ground, I realised I had no lived experience.”

That realisation led her to begin what she calls a “listening tour.” Meeting locals, religious stakeholders, and elected officials across villages. “I just listened to their stories, to what they had to say about the situation. Listening helped me gather perspectives, decode how things were working.”

Over time, her role became one of quiet facilitation rather than direction. “I always believed they knew better than me. What they did not have was somebody who would help them channel it in a way that would ensure they were heard.” For a year and a half, she worked with them to design programmes, build conversations, and conduct primary research with the limited resources available. When the team was ready to take ownership, she knew it was time to step away. “I often joke that the think tank had a Bengali surrogate mother. It was a gestation period, and once it was complete, I handed over the charge to the local team and left.”

On Women as Peacebuilders

When asked what unique strengths women bring to the peacebuilding table, Sohini resists easy generalisations. “I wouldn’t want to box women into categories. Women have exhibited creative agencies in many different ways because women have been structurally at a disadvantageous position in our society, if you look at the Indian subcontinent. So women have had to navigate systems and structures that are not naturally inclined to support them. If they still want to contribute, if they still want to be heard, they have had to exhibit creative agency in many different ways to negotiate with their world.”

On Being an Author

Her book, Dialogue for Women’s Agency, co-authored with Dr. Kanchan Mehra, is filled with stories of how creativity born out of necessity becomes a powerful tool for peacebuilding. She highlights the Kashmiri poet, Lal Ded, explaining that women “have woven poetry, which has been something like the kind of parables that will bring wisdom to a commoner who is probably not as educated.”

Similarly, she speaks of Angami, a veteran peacebuilder from Nagaland who was one of the first Naga women in the security forces. Sohini describes how Angami transitioned “into bringing mothers from different tribes together to build community and advocate against drug abuse.”

In a more contemporary context, Sohini points to Dr. Ruha Shadab, who is currently working on a leadership incubator to “train young Muslim women to get into more positions of leadership. That’s because she identifies that gap where Muslim women are discriminated against and don’t get career promotions and opportunities.”

On Getting her Faith Tested

Just as women find creative ways to claim space, Sohini has found that peacebuilding also tests the very ground one stands on, including faith. “If your faith is not tested, you’re never going to be deep and resolute in it.”

One such test came early in her career. During a fellowship, a colleague shared how caste-based discrimination in Hinduism had pushed him to convert to Christianity. “As a natural empath, my first instinct was to say, ‘Oh no, Hindus are not this way. I’m not this way.’” Only later did she realise that in trying to defend her tradition, she was unintentionally invalidating his experience. Her mentor reminded her, “If you have faith, that’s great. But you never show up in a way that invalidates someone else’s experience. What you can offer in return is your presence and your ability to listen.”

“I remember asking myself, if Hinduism is really like this, then why am I Hindu? I was only 26 or 27, still figuring out what being Hindu meant beyond the few rituals I saw at home. We have become stronger and more anchored in faith because of that as well. Unless I went back to the history of the value system I swear by, I could not really come back and say, ‘Yes, your experiences are true, and I’m sorry for what you experienced. Please let me know how I can support you.”

For peacebuilders, the lesson here is that resilience in faith does not mean closing yourself off. It means being secure enough in who you are to honour another’s truth, even when it unsettles your own.

Sohini’s reflections carry the weight of someone who has walked through loss, wrestled with doubt, and stayed open to the wisdom of others. “I don’t think I’ve perfected it. But every time my faith or my work is tested, I return to it stronger.”