Beyond Victims #2026 - India Edition
Our third edition of Beyond Victims 2026 Series brings you stories of inspiring women political leaders from India.
Dive in to read stories of Ragini Sonkar, Ramya Haridas, Iqra Choudhary, Priyanka Jarkiholi, Bhakti Sharma and Sushma Bhadu.
Dr. Ragini Sonkar
(Member of the Legislative Assembly, Uttar Pradesh)
In the state assembly, Sonkar demanded that the state budget incorporate a comprehensive four-point welfare package for ASHA workers: direct appraisals, comprehensive health insurance, dedicated overnight resting rooms at Community Health Centres (CHCs), and rural transport scooties to enhance mobility. She also regularly organizes community health camps that screen for chronic non-communicable illnesses like diabetes, addressing systemic rural healthcare gaps. Simultaneously, she leverages her legislative seat to lead inquiries into police transparency, extra-judicial encounters, and institutional discrimination against Dalit students in higher education.
- Multiple Sources
Ramya Haridas
(Member of the Legislative Assembly, Kerala & Former Member of Parliament)
Made history as the second Dalit woman elected to the Parliament from Kerala and the youngest MP in her cohort. During her tenure in the Lok Sabha, she focused her legislative work on rural labor markets, public infrastructure, and marginalized group welfare. As a member of the Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs, and Public Distribution, she pushed for trackable metrics in grassroots civic defense. Haridas consistently championed the rights of smallholder agrarian workers and MGNREGA laborers, advocating for wage regularity, expanded social safety nets, and local infrastructure to prevent rural migration. Across her public service career, she has audited public utilities, driven drinking water pipeline expansions, and secured resources for isolated rural communities.
- Multiple Sources
Iqra Choudhary
(Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha)
Trained in International Law and Politics in London, she is one of the youngest Muslim women in Parliament. Her governance model emphasises localised ground gains by systematically auditing central and state financial allocations for rural road connectivity, public education infrastructure, and community health centers across her constituency of Kairana. Translating complex international relations and policy frameworks into actionable village-level advocacy, she has built a paradigm focused on institutional transparency, communal cohesion, and direct accountability from line ministries.
- Multiple Sources
Priyanka Jarkiholi
(Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha)
Representing Chikkodi in Northern Karnataka, Jarkiholi is an active voice on parliamentary panels, including the Committee on the Empowerment of Women, where she tracks policy execution on cyber safety and equitable resource distribution. She strategically utilises unstarred parliamentary questions to extract precise operational data from Union Ministries, targeting regional infrastructure bottlenecks and resource disputes. Jarkiholi routinely challenges slow project timelines, demanding line-item breakdowns of financial allocations, pending bureaucratic clearances, and land acquisition delays to safeguard the civic and economic interests of her constituents.
- Multiple Sources
Bhakti Sharma
Former Sarpanch, Barkhedi Abdullah Gram Panchayat, Bhopal District, Madhya Pradesh (2015–2020)
She left international opportunities in the US and ran for Sarpach, to transform her village. Named one of India’s 100 most influential women, she executed a massive digital and utility overhaul as Sarpanch of Barkhedi Abdullah. Sharma eliminated village deficits by building solar-powered streetlights, securing 24-hour electricity, moving 80% of dwellings into brick houses, achieving 100% financial bank account enrollment, building roads connecting villages to schools, building tap water connection, and ensuring all homes had proper toilets, winning the title of ‘model village’. To fight female foeticide, she fiercely celebrated every girl's birth by gifting family financial tokens and planting trees. She also leveraged local statutory channels to mandate women’s participation in Gram Sabhas.
- Multiple Sources
Sushma Bhadu
(Former Sarpanch, Dhani Miyan Khan Gram Panchayat (encompassing Salem Khera, Chapla Mori, and Dhani Miyan Khan), Fatehabad District, Haryana (2010–2015)
She leveraged local statutory authority to dismantle patriarchal customs, publicising her anti-ghunghat (veil) crusade by discarding her own veil in front of 2,000 residents from 25 neighboring villages.
She transformed regional development metrics by securing a 10 million grant to construct a women’s tailoring center, partnering with Punjab National Bank for vocational skill sponsorships, and obtaining state funding for a village-wide water-boosting system. She deployed localized administrative measures to eliminate school dropouts. She also established an anonymous whistleblower reward system for reporting illegal sex-determination tests, reversing local gender demographics to achieve a child sex ratio of 51 girls to 44 boys in the 0–6 age group and earning the Union Government's Nirmal Gram Puraskar for her panchayat.
- Multiple Sources
Project Manager: Riya Hira
Contributors: Sanskruti Raghav, Shashwat Shukla & Riya Hira
Edited by: Akhil Neelam & Sugandha Parmar
Design: Riya Hira
Template: Vida Seraphina (https://vidaseraphina.dk/)
Thank you for reading Beyond Victims!
This year’s Beyond Victims Series will span across six editions, covering stories of inspiring women’s political leadership across South Asia. Join our mailing list to get all of them in your inbox.
Find us on our social media & make sure to tag us while you share Beyond Victims series.
If you come across similar stories of women's leadership in South Asia, please email us at:
Resources & References for this Edition:
https://www.thehindu.com/elections/candidates/Kerala2026/ramya-haridas-63/#:~:text=As%20per%20the%20election%20affidavit,0%20are%20serious%20in%20nature.
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/interview/lies-do-not-work-in-the-long-run-truth-cant-be-suppressed-says-ramya-haridas#:~:text=Her%20first%20speech%20in%20Parliament,Mathew%20caught%20up%20with%20her.
https://prsindia.org/mptrack/17-lok-sabha/ramya-haridas#:~:text=100%20under%20the%20control%20of,02.07.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/congress-has-the-common-mans-support/article28743691.ece#:~:text=The%20only%20woman%20MP%20from,Alathur%20against%20sitting%20MP%20P.K.
Comments