Bharadwaj was born an American citizen, to Krishna and Ranganath Bharadwaj, who were pursuing their PhDs in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the United States. Bharadwaj returned to India at the age of 11, gave up her US citizenship at the age of 18, and joined the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, to study mathematics, completing the five-year integrated course in 1984.
Activism
Having been exposed to horrific working conditions of laborers in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar during her time as a student at IIT, she moved to work with Niyogi’s Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha in 1986. Determined to provide holistic development of the workers, Sudha got her law degree in 2000 from a college affiliated to the Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University in Raipur. While being associated with Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, Bharadwaj fought passionately against corrupt bureaucrats to ensure proper wages were paid to the workers in the mines and plants located in Bhilai. She also engaged in issues of Dalit and tribal rights, specifically the right to land, the right to education, health and for security against corrupt landlords. Bharadwaj also wrote a critique of Binayak Sen's imprisonment, strongly condemning the judgment delivered by the District and Sessions Court, Raipur. She is also a Visiting Professor at the National Law University, Delhi and is the vice-president of the Indian Association for People's Lawyers.
Arrest
On 4 July 2018, Republic TV aired a program in which Arnab Goswami claimed that Sudha Bhardwaj had written a letter to a Maoist named Prakash stating that a "Kashmir like situation" has to be created. Sudha issued a public statement contesting these claims. She called the attack malicious, motivated and fabricated, and added that she was targeted for publicly condemning the arrest of Surendra Gadling in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence and two other lawyers in Sterlite protests. She was arrested by the Pune Police on suspicion of being involved in Maoist terror activities 26 August 2018, along with five other accused across the country. Human rights defender and Freelance journalist, William Nicholas Gomes condemned the arrests of Sudha Bharadwaj and demanded Immediate and unconditional lift of the house arrest orders on Sudha Bhardwaj in a letter to Justice H.L. Dattu Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission. On 26 October 2018, a Pune Sessions Court rejected the bail applications of Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves, observing that the material collected by police, on the face of it, shows their links with Maoists.. On May 29, 2020, a National investigations Agency court in Mumbai again rejected Bharadwaj's plea for interim bail on medical grounds.
