Jeeja Ghosh
Jeeja Ghosh is an Indian disability rights activist who was born with cerebral palsy. She grew up in Calcutta and studied at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy and La Martiniere for Girls. She earned an Honours degree in Sociology from Presidency College and completed a Master of Social Work at Delhi University. In 2006, she completed a second master’s degree in Disability Studies from Leeds University in the United Kingdom.
Ghosh has worked as a disability advocate at national and international levels. She led Advocacy and Disability Studies at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy in Kolkata and has served as a consultant for CREA and TARSHI. She coordinated the Disability Rights Initiative for the Eastern Zone with the Human Rights Law Network and currently works with EnAble India in Bangalore.
She was the first elected board member of the National Trust (2008–2011) and served as president of the ISAAC India Chapter from May 2017 to July 2018. She contributed to the Parallel Report on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and represented civil society at the UNCRPD hearing in Geneva in September 2019. She was the State Icon for West Bengal for the Election Commission of India and won the Best Icon award in 2022.
Ghosh is also active in writing and the arts. She acted in the film One Little Finger: Ability in Disability, and the documentary I Am Jeeja won a National Film Festival award for best film on social issues in the non-feature category. Her poems, River of Time, were published in 2017. She is part of the inclusive theatre group Katha Kalam and their production Black Hole are Not Black, about the Nirbhaya incident.
In 2012, she was removed from a SpiceJet flight, a case that reached the Supreme Court. The court awarded Rs 10 lakh in damages for violation of aviation rules and for discrimination.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 00:05 (CET).