The first time my father had forgotten to pick me up from school was when I was in third grade.

My only solace was when he hugged me after finally arriving two hours later. All I could do
before that was to sit and cry intermittently, in an empty classroom with a few teachers. This was
my first encounter with my father‟s job. However, it was only a few years later that he sat me
down to explain how he works in the Central Bureau of Investigation of the Government of
India- our country‟s most prestigious criminal investigating agency. He said that he had arrived
late on those occasions at school because he invariably would be caught up interrogating an
accused of some ongoing case, even though he would promise my mother to pick me up. The
most significant seed of curiosity in investigation and analyses of crimes were sown in my mind
by whatever I could fathom from his work. His stories of consequent developments and behind
the scene planning nurtured other such seeds.

My father would tell me stories like a crime-thriller, never divulging everything in the first
narration itself. Owing to the naivety of a young child, my understanding remained oblivious to
the finer shades and intensity of what constituted a criminal act, but over the years of re-visiting
the same old countless narrations he nuanced my understanding. Gradually, he got more
technical: more categorical of adding minute details about how the intent is as important as the
act of crime; commissions and omissions in the exact chronology; and what finally helped him
and his team to trace the loose ends of a crime through dramatic breakthroughs. He would
explain how the developing countries like ours not only needed strong law enforcement agencies
but also holistic structures to meet the legal, investigative and policing challenges for socio-
economically large and diverse populations. He would also garnish his stories with criminal
codes of law with their colonial legacies, for what constitutes a crime is a by-product of both
space and time.

At the end of each such narrative, we would have a separate discussion on the human side to the
crime: whatever we could gather to be the psychological aspect of the accused. Only later had I
learned something similar- the “banality of evil” as discussed by Hannah Arendt. In my attempt
to emotionally support my father as an empathetic daughter and witness the impact his work had
on him over the years, it were also those stories of criminality and the discussions we had around
it- wherein I built parallel background stories of my own. Nevertheless, certain externalities of
his profession were his perception of the criminal mind and his visibly alert mannerisms when in
public- which then became a huge impetus for me to understand what went inside his mind. He
had developed a largely errorless instinct and yet he would confess his difficulty in trusting
people.

Formation of the Ideational Nebula-

My general inclination toward Humanities guided me while studying History, Economics and
Political Science in High School. It was here that I developed a special interest in studying
Political Science, and I had scored an all India 99.9 percentile in the subject. Thus, I found
myself with an opportunity to study Bachelors in Political Science in one of Asia‟s best colleges-
Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. It was here that I realized for the first
time how places of knowledge have been the arenas of intellectual imagination: domains of
liberation for humanity and the very edifice of civilizational values. Here, I was being exposed to
theories and realities, alike- to not just appreciate diversified philosophies of the East and the
west, but also to develop familiarity with the practice of reflective thinking. On the one hand I
was learning about Plato and Machiavelli, and on the other I was reading Gandhi and Ambedkar.
Moreover, a close scrutiny of Comparative Politics educated me in identifying a generic “civic
culture” of the political system, whereas the inter-paradigmatic theories of International
Relations along with Indian innovations in Foreign Policy trained me toward pertinent
contextualization. Therefore, my enriching educational experience was impacting me in more
ways than I could tell- through the dynamism of a verbose classroom deliberation and a myriad
of castes, cultures, regions and class and the “complex inequality” therewith.

However, what rather streamlined my lessons in college was something that Karl Marx had
called praxis. It was the sweet spot where theory met practice in such a way that none was
inferior to the other but had absolutely equal significance for the very existence of the other.
Marx had said that philosophers had only interpreted the world in various ways, but he was
ideologically so similar to the Father of our Nation when he said- that the point however was to
change it. This would come to my mind when I would meet a group of around thirty children
ranging from age five to sixteen, as a part of my voluntary work under the National Service
Scheme (NSS) after college hours.

At the primary level, the point of my voluntary work was to teach them and educate them in
Mathematics, language and the Sciences, but through gradual interactions we would delve
deeper. Their requirements made up a large spectrum. For me, they were based on their cognitive
levels, different psychological complexes, but most importantly, the challenges associated with
their gendered upbringing. The only binding factor for all those children was their class. In the
heartland of the urban hustles of New Delhi, lied a village called Zamrudpur where they lived.
The unforgiving disparities between theory and reality would transpire every time I sat with them
in that hour of the day, and there was definite dissonance in me. What could I do beyond
listening to their honest demands of being with them for “more time”? I used to think what went
inside their minds as I taught them about the world outside of the books, and when they told me
anecdotes of a sibling or a parent or a school bully or a nasty neighbour. As young and guileless
kids, they would invariably be impacted by something at home or at school and that was my first
understanding of what makes children the way they are. The sowing of the seeds of inclination
toward psychological reading of societal situations had perhaps started.

On the other hand, through multitude of activities in college clubs like debating, dramatics and
music, I refined my sense of expression which culminated into my election as the General
Secretary of the Department of Political Science. This position allowed me to have profound
interactions with eminent intellectuals and political thinkers of India like Dr. Kiran Bedi, T.M.
Krishna and Kamla Bhasin. This sharpened my observatory and analytical skills that proved to
be remarkable in citing the spot for praxis- shaping my research interest. I could draw patterns.
Facilitated by the newly developed perspective on de-facto criminal indices; the understanding of
criminality deeper than what was stimulated by the early exposure through my father; and
peeling the layers of my conversations with those children. Both prominent and latent influences
got me aware of how systemic the challenge was. I realized to what extent can fear penetrate and
how violence is more than a physical act of aggression. The time spent with the children was
becoming debilitating, perhaps giving way to possibilities. Thus, my empathy was giving way to
action.

Face to Face with Conflict-

One of my most powerful memories of a field research project had taken place in my final year
of college. My team and I had stayed in villages affected by Left Wing Extremism in the state of
Bihar which stands to be one of the most under-developed regions of my country. Left Wing
Extremism remains a unique internal security threat to India where the state is at loggerheads
with local leaders of certain remote tribal areas, owing to their unshaken ideology of violent
aggression and ambush against any symbol of State‟s authority. Through interviews and in-depth
discussions with close to six hundred women and children of those villages, we got a clearer
picture of what their lives comprised. They lived in caste afflicted destitution and deprived
amenities. Poverty, destitution, illiteracy, lack of infrastructure, but most of all, a questionable
law and order situation made me wake up to reality. It was an „academic‟ lesson that no other
experience could have possibly taught. I knew that across its diverse demography, development
indicators were concerning. They were neglected in nearly all social indicators and not
surprisingly, their children suffered just as much. With the highest number of poor people of the
country who lived in Bihar, disillusionment in the juvenile age-group found refuge in alcoholism
and substance abuse. I felt incapacitated to gather everything I had undergone and witnessed as
„data‟ for my research paper. I was living all that my father had told me in his stories. I knew that
I needed to do more.

Through the next set of years, my very understanding of working in the social sector found a new
path owing to my socio-political sensibilities of reading society and how it should manifest in
educating and protecting children. I worked with the mindset of working toward establishing
systematic curriculum for children from the margins with vocational skilling that aimed at
mainstreaming them above their relative disadvantage of caste, class and gender. By then, I had
shifted my modus-operandi of countering the loopholes of policy execution in criminal justice, to
the studying of criminality and making of a „criminal‟. I continued to work during the COVID-
19 pandemic with an organization in hand-holding kids of a remote Himalayan village to cope
with the new normal. In my attempt to work at the roots from an academic point of view,
studying Masters in Political Science further consolidated my cause.

Unfortunately, children have always found themselves at the receiving end of disadvantages, as
there is little they can do for themselves. Thus, what I seek to keep at the heart of my research is
rehabilitative justice vis-à-vis juvenile delinquency. Not only is it a matter of deep socio-political
and economic significance demanding deep care and sensitivity, it is also about channelizing the
lost years of their lives into re-building courage, dignity and potential as the future for any
country. Justice as a contextualized means to reach societal progress is over justice that merely
serves an end in itself.

The Ultimate Academic Impetus-

What I have been able to fathom from the extensive hours that I have spent with children is the
fact that no matter what age of being a juvenile, there are matters of the mind that need attention
before analyzing occurrences of any kind. „Criminal‟ psychology is only one of the many
occurrences, perhaps the most hard-hitting. My personality and sensibilities would have been so
different had I not been a Indian girl from the least developed region of the country; not worked
so closely with children; had I not been a citizen of the world‟s largest democracy and witnessed
its unfavourable circumstances for children and their rights. However, what keeps me
encumbered in my context is exactly what keeps me going.

This sense of direction lying at the core of all my pursuits makes me a better candidate for
applying to Arizona State University in order to study Criminology and Criminal Justice with a
holistic approach. Beyond my academic prowess, it is my analytical keenness to the study of the
„mind‟ behind the crime that is testimony of my sincere honesty to study Criminology. My
admission not only provides me with the opportunity to study in one of the finest universities of
the world but also expose myself to the huge arena of theories and findings. Criminology
becomes the intellectual zenith for a student of Political Science who had wanted to derive
research out of the meeting point of the sociological and psychological approach to studying
human behaviour. Arizona State University, with its inter-disciplinary and liberal outlook, allows
me to train in legal theories as well. This curriculum offers a unique amalgamation of theory and
practice- making praxis our common motto.

I intend to work on juvenile delinquency especially with the children in correctional homes with
a research based on theories of rehabilitative justice that finds relevance not only in India and the
developing world, but subalterns across the globe. Children have been found to be at the lowest
rungs of deprivation facing the most helpless brunt of abuse. How juveniles are impacted during
the administration of justice is also what I shall be equipped to closely observe study and analyze
at Arizona State University. Thus, at the center of this possibility, is the long cherished dream of
working with young but distraught minds of those children that has been at the very core of all
my endeavours. My goal is to be trained and skilled in not just studying the juvenile through
their minds but concurrently with innate and acquired sensibilities. Thus, studying Criminology
and Criminal Justice is the best impetus germane to further my research interest that aligns with
an issue so challenging, yet so close to my heart.