By Harinder Mahil

Pragna Patel will deliver this year’s Prof. Chin Banerjee Lecture in Anti-Racism at Simon Fraser University. The lecture is organized by the Institute for the Humanities (SFU), and co-sponsored by Dr. Hari Sharma Foundation, West Coast Coalition Against Racism (WCAR) and South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD). 

Ms. Patel is the co-founder and co-director of Project Resist; an organization focused on work with marginalized and vulnerable women and girls throughout the UK. She is the former director and founding member of the Southall Black Sisters (SBS) advocacy and campaigning centre for black and minority women where she worked from 1982 to January 2022.

Over those 40 years, she led on some of SBS’ most important cases and campaigns on gender-based abuse including the landmark case of Karanjit Ahluwalia, involving a South Asian woman who was convicted of the murder of her violent husband. The case eventually led to a reform of homicide law and created greater societal awareness of domestic abuse and the lack of effective state responses. She was also a founding member of Women Against Fundamentalism, and has written extensively on race, gender and religion.

Drawing on 40 years of feminist and antiracist activism, Ms. Patel’s presentation will reflect on her work in giving voice to some of the most marginalized black and minority women and girls in the UK.

The lecture will take place on November 5 at 6 PM at SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings Street, Vancouver.

The lecture was instituted by the Institute for the Humanities (SFU) in honour of Prof. Banerjee’s intellectual and political contributions over many decades at the University as well as in the community.

Professor Banerjee came to Canada with his family from the US in 1970 and began to teach English at SFU. His political activism began in earnest when he co-founded an advocacy collective, Indian People’s Association in North America (IPANA), in 1975. IPANA was an organization of progressive Indo Canadians living in North America who opposed imperialism and supported democratic rights and social justice in India.

Having engaged in various anti-racist struggles in the 1970s, Prof. Banerjee was one of the founding members and leaders of the British Columbia Organization to Fight Racism (BCOFR), which became a prominent anti-racist organization in the province. Among its significant achievements was to successfully mobilize various groups, from vastly different sectors, to stand together and oppose the Ku Klux Klan, which was attempting to establish a new base of operations in Vancouver in the early 1980’s.

He was one of the founding members and leaders of the Non-Resident Indians for Secularism and Democracy, which eventually became the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD).

Prof. Banerjee was the first president of the Dr. Hari Sharma Foundation for South Asian Advancement. The Foundation, since its inception, has coordinated international conferences and cultural events on migrant labor, racism, and the environment. The Foundation has also funded multiple research projects and scholarships.

A few weeks before he died, he came together with a group of progressive individuals and founded the West Coast Coalition Against Racism (WCCAR), an organization dedicated to fighting racism and Islamophobia.

Previous Prof. Banerjee lectures were delivered by writer Robyn Maynard (2022); Kshama Savant, a former member of Seattle City Council (2023); and Gord Hill, an Indigenous writer, and activist (2024).

Harinder Mahil is a human rights activist and is secretary of Dr. Hari Sharma Foundation.