Equality Culture Club: Ruchira Gupta on writing for a young audience and the power of hope

In this edition of the Equality Culture Club’s interview series, we speak with author, journalist, and activist Ruchira Gupta about her young adult novels, I Kick and I Fly and The Freedom Seeker, and human trafficking, particularly from her perspective as the founder of Apne Aap, an anti-trafficking organisation. Ruchira shares why storytelling remains important, especially for a young audience; how her experience as a journalist has shaped her writing style; and what she envisions for a gender-equal future.

Q: Your books I Kick and I Fly and The Freedom Seeker blend storytelling with activism. What inspired you to tell stories centered on voices that are rarely heard, especially women and girls affected by exploitation?

A: I wrote these books because I have met girls like [characters] Heera and Simi.

As the founder of Apne Aap, I have seen girls at risk of being bought and sold. I have seen girls from red light areas and nomadic communities refuse to give up. I have seen how a girl can begin to like her own body again when she learns kung fu. I have seen the power of the women’s movement.

I Kick and I Fly comes from those real experiences. Heera is fictional, but her courage is drawn from girls I know. I wanted young readers to understand sex trafficking not as an abstract issue, but as something that happens to children their own age.

The Freedom Seeker came from another urgent reality. Simi and her mother flee India because of religious intolerance. They cross the desert. They meet smugglers. They are separated at the border. Simi is placed in a detention center. These are also not distant issues. They are happening to children and families now.

Both books are about girls who are pushed to the edge. But I wanted them to stand at the center of the story.

Q: Why have you chosen to focus on young readers for such heavy topics?

A: Young people already know that the world can be unfair. They hear about trafficking, migration, borders, detention, bullying, hatred, and violence. I do not think we protect them by hiding the truth.

We protect them by giving them stories that help them understand the truth.

In I Kick and I Fly, I wanted young people to know what some children their age go through. I also wanted them to know how to find clues to injustice. I wanted them to see that dreams can come true when girls find support, training, and community.

In The Freedom Seeker, I wanted young readers to imagine what it feels like to flee home. I wanted them to feel what family separation does to a child. I also wanted them to see the power of kindness. Volunteers, strangers, and communities can help a child survive.

Young readers are powerful. They can care deeply. They can stand up to bullies. They can become a force for good in their own communities.

Q: How has your background in journalism shaped your fiction writing style?

A: Journalism taught me to see.

It taught me to notice the locked door, the missing girl, the false promise, the frightened mother, the child waiting in a cold room. It taught me that injustice lives in details.

As a journalist, I followed the trail of missing girls from villages in Nepal to the brothels of Mumbai. As an activist, I saw the same systems again in red light areas, courts, police stations, schools, and border zones.

Fiction lets me go deeper into the heart of those facts. It lets me imagine what a girl thinks, fears, loves, and dreams. It lets me give her a voice that no police file or policy report can hold.

My fiction is built on witness. But it is carried by imagination.

Q: What role does hope play in stories about injustice?

A: Hope is not a soft word for me. Hope is a form of resistance.

In I Kick and I Fly, hope begins when Heera learns that her body belongs to her. Kung fu helps her stand differently. It helps her think differently. It helps her believe that she is not born to be sold.

In The Freedom Seeker, hope begins in love. Simi loses home, safety, and her mother for a time. But she also finds people who care. She learns that home is not only a place. It is also found in the people who refuse to abandon us.

Hope must be earned in stories about injustice. It cannot be easy. It has to come through struggle, friendship, courage, and community.

Without hope, we show children the wound but not the way forward.

Q: Do you have plans for future books? Any news you can share?

A: Yes. I want to keep writing stories about girls who are told they do not matter, but who change the world around them.

I am also working on a memoir called No More Cages. It tells the story of my journey from journalism to activism. It begins with my investigation into missing girls from Nepal and Mumbai. It moves into the founding of Apne Aap with women in prostitution. It also follows the long fight to change laws, language, and policy so that prostituted women and girls are seen as victims of trafficking, not as criminals.

I am interested in stories of migration, borders, caste, faith, memory, and freedom. I am especially interested in the girl who was meant to disappear, but speaks instead.

Icons, inspiration, and imagining equality

To close, we ask every Equality Culture Club guest about the people, stories, and ideas that shape their vision for a more equal world. From the future they hope to see, to the women who inspire them, to the books and films that have stayed with them, these reflections offer a glimpse into what fuels their work and optimism.

Q: What excites you most about the prospect of a gender-equal future?

A: A gender-equal future would not simply give girls a place in the old world. It would create a new world.

It would mean no girl is born with a price on her body. No girl is told that poverty, caste, religion, race, or migration status will decide her destiny. No girl is blamed for the violence done to her.

It would mean schools, courts, borders, markets, and technology are built around dignity. It would mean care is valued. It would mean safety is real.

Most of all, it would mean that the last girl is no longer last.

Q: Who is your favorite feminist icon and why?

A: Gloria Steinem has shaped my life in many ways.

She connects the personal and the political with great clarity. She understands that control over women’s bodies is linked to poverty, racism, caste, trafficking, war, and authoritarian power. She also listens.

That is rare. Gloria does not take over the voices of survivors or grassroots women. She stands beside them. She shares space. She uses her power to open doors for others.

I also want to name the women of Apne Aap. Many of them will never be called icons. But they are. They have fought traffickers. They have sent their daughters to school. They have gone to court. They have opened bank accounts. They have built new lives. They are my everyday feminist icons.

Q: What is one book that has shaped your life?

A: One book that shaped me is The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. It helped me understand how society teaches women to accept inequality as destiny.

I also return to A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I find Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi’s biography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, fascinating too. It is an honest account by a man born and bred in patriarchy and how he learns to change, imbibing lessons from his wife, mother, and the women in his life. It is compelling as it teaches us how men can embrace non-violence and their struggles to do so in a very transparent and vulnerable way.

Q: Do you have feminist media recommendations for people looking for similar material? 

A: For readers interested in trafficking and prostitution, I recommend survivor writing. Rachel Moran’s Paid For and Mocky Meiji’s Exit are very powerful. I also recommend the work of Vednita Carter and Taina Bien Aimé opinion pieces.

Feminist culture should not only show us what is wrong. It should help us imagine freedom. That is what I look for in books, films, and art. It is also what I try to write.

From giving voice to girls whose stories are too often overlooked to reminding readers that hope can be a form of resistance, Ruchira Gupta’s work demonstrates the power of storytelling to challenge injustice and imagine a more equal future.

To learn more about Ruchira’s work, follow @RuchiraAGupta on Instagram or visit ruchiragupta.com and apneaap.org.