Essays

Selected essays

Radha writes about film, literature, history, culture, and politics. She has written extensively on crime fiction and women in early cinema.

“Overlooked No More: Hansa Mehta Who Fought For Women’s Equality in India, and Beyond,” The New York Times

For Mehta, women’s rights were human rights, a conviction best exemplified when she was one of just two women, alongside Eleanor Roosevelt, to be selected as delegates to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights…”

“Rambling Genealogies: Nandshankar Mehta and the Forgotten History of South Asian Cosmopolitanism,” Literary Hub

Localism and cosmopolitanism are not at odds—it is only when the nation state is paramount that cosmopolitanism becomes suspect.”

“Why is the US an outlier when it comes to electing a woman head of government?,” Scroll.in

Women in America are subject to seemingly impossible expectations—especially women politicians. Their every move is scrutinised.”

“The Forgotten Female Action Stars of the 1910s,” The Atlantic

[M]ore than a century ago… actresses headed up some of the U.S’s most popular and successful action movies—even if they performed stunts in skirts that ended only a few inches above their ankles….”

“When Progress Ebbs: Career Women at the Turn of the 20th Century,” Los Angeles Review of Books

It’s common to believe that social progress moves in one direction — upward — and to conflate different kinds of freedoms: political, social, economic.”

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“It’s Time for More Period Dramas To Embrace the Diversity of People of Color,” CrimeReads

[All] sorts of Black Victorians in London engaged in a variety of activities… just as there were people of all different races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds living and going about their business in the capital of the British Empire.”

“Yes, Crime Fiction is Literature (and Other Observations on the Genre),” Kirkus Reviews

[It] is perhaps the accessibility of crime fiction—thanks precisely to its genre constraints—that obscures the sophistication involved in writing even the simplest crime story, and the sophistication involved in reading one.”