Post by Kiran Trehan

𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲, 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲 — 𝗔𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗮 𝗕𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗮 Anita Bhalla's family arrived in Birmingham in the 1960s from Kenya. A city that was not ready for them. Institutions that were not built for them. A media industry that could not yet imagine them. And yet. From the Grunwick picket line to one of the first Asian women on British television. From community activist to helping build the BBC Asian Network. From outsider to architect of Birmingham's cultural and civic life. But this memoir is not really about a career. It is about what you do with power once you have fought to earn it. BBC journalist Reeta Chakrabarti credits Anita with giving her the foot in the door that became a 30-year career. That is not a footnote. That is a deliberate act of structural generosity the kind that rewrites who gets to belong. The title comes from how Anita describes her mother. Fierce. Purposeful. Quietly unstoppable. It became her inheritance. And her practice. This is the question the book leaves with you: When systems were not designed to include us — and we broke through anyway — what is our obligation to those still outside? Leadership is not the title. It is not the platform. It is not even the recognition. It is who you reach back for. Deliberately. Repeatedly. At personal cost. Inclusive leadership is not a framework. In Anita's hands, it was a way of being. That is the lesson. And in a world still debating whose stories deserve to be told, it has never been more urgent. Anita Bhalla Raj Mann Reeta Reeta Chakrabarti