Rahila Gupta is an independent journalist, author and activist, who has been at the forefront of the feminist movement in the UK and globally since the 1980s. She is Trustee of Southall Black Sisters, a group which has campaigned and advocated for black and minority women escaping violence for 40 years.

Rahila Gupta grew up between India and England, and was a journalist in London during the Thatcher years. She has written for the Guardian, New Humanist, New Internationalist and openDemocracy among other magazines, journals and websites.

Her books include a collection of essays she edited, From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters in 2003; Provoked, the story of an abused woman who killed her violent husband and she also co-wrote the screenplay for the film which was released in 2007; Enslaved, on immigration controls, was published in 2007. Her play, a monologue in verse, Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong, ran in London, Edinburgh, New York, and four cities in India 2012-2014 and was nominated for a number of awards. She was a member of the writing team on a BBC drama series, Westway, from 2000-2002. She was awarded the Flame Award by UKAFF (UK Asian Film Festival) for Championing Women’s Rights in 2018.

She has edited and contributed to Turning the Page (2019), an anthology of writings by the Southall Black Sisters support group, and is a Royal Literary Fund writing fellow. Her book Planet Patriarchy: Global Tales of Feminism and Oppression, co-authored with Beatrix Campbell, was published in 2025, and her most recent book, British Feminism Through a FiLiA Lens was published in October 2025.