Dia Chakravarty

Early life

Chakravarty was born in Bangladesh to parents of two different faiths. Her Muslim mother, Sultana Kamal, is a lawyer and human rights activist who runs a legal aid organisation in Bangladesh. Her Hindu father, Supriyo Chakravarty, is also a lawyer. Her parents both decided to keep their respective religions after marriage. She is her parents' only child. Her maternal grandmother is poet Sufia Kamal.

Because of Chakravarty's parents' and grandparents' activism and anti-fundamentalist stance, her family have been under threat on and off her whole life. She has grown up with threatening telephone calls and her home had been firebombed twice.

Chakravarty attended a school in Sylhet her parents set up which taught the British Council-regulated O-level curriculum and examination syllabus. The school took students up to the age of 14, after which her schooling was mostly tutorial-based. Later, she entered the mainstream education system to continue with her O-levels. She achieved seven O-levels.

She then got a partial scholarship to sixth-form college in Oxford, to board and sit her A-levels, after her parents remortgaged their family home, she left for the UK in 2001. Her lawyer mother, who had spent most of her life doing voluntary work until then, moved to Dhaka, to take up a full-time job. Chakravarty read Law at the University of Oxford and became a barrister in 2008.

Political activism

Chakravarty started her career as a tax consultant in London before moving into communication and public affairs. From July 2012 to December 2013, she was a Deputy Director at The Freedom Association where she spent 16 months making the case for freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of the press. In January 2014, she was appointed Political Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance.

In August 2014, Chakravarty appeared on BBC Two's Newsnight, discussing consultancy culture in the public sector. In November 2014 and March 2015, and October 2016, she appeared on BBC One's Question Time. In January 2015, she contributed on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions?

Singing career

Chakravarty took her first music lesson from Prateek Enda in Sylhet and had an early start in her musical training in Rabindranath Tagore songs. She specialises in Bengali music, however, since moving to the UK, she has added Hindi songs to her repertoire. She now takes lessons from London-based singer-master Anuradha Roma Chowdhury.

Chakravarty performs in London and abroad. In August 2014, her debut album A Bloom in Vain and Other Songs was released.

Personal life

In October 2007, Chakravarty married Duncan Hall. She met her husband while at school and decided to settle in England after completing her university and Bar examinations. Chakravarty is also involved with Udayan, a Bengali cultural group.