On Photographing Women: Ethics & Aesthetics

For someone who can be such a poser in front of the camera sometimes, getting clicked that day was traumatising.

It was a regular Thursday afternoon when I was travelling back home from college, taking my everyday metro route on the red line. My staple women’s coach was a bit crowded so I stood on its periphery- the border which divides the women’s coach from the general one.

Lost in my phone, I instinctively looked up as I felt someone’s eyes on me.

To my right, two boys were blatantly clicking my photo through the front camera on the pretence of taking a selfie. They slyly stood with their backs towards me, and got out of the way of the camera for a split second so that they could get only me in the shot. These 16 year olds then snickered at their masterplan they’d just devised, which had worked because they now had a girl’s solo photo in their phone.

 Having had noticed two female security guards sitting at the end of the first coach earlier, I swiftly glanced if they were still there. They were. “Beta ab tum dono perverts dekho” I thought as I hurriedly went to the guards who could to teach the boys a lesson.

“Excuse me! Waha ladies coach ke side mein do ladke ladkio ki photo le rahe hai. Aap please jaldi chalke dekhiye” I blurted and expected them to get up swiftly in that very instance.

The two looked at me blankly and finally one asked in a low, confused tone, “Photo le rahe hai?”

Was my story hard to believe? Or they just didn’t understand what I was saying?

“Haaan! Maine pakka dekha” I implored. I repeated myself once again and requested them to come with me once. The gates had opened for a station and I was scared if the boys might de-board and get away. I kept my eye on them constantly while talking to the guards lest they shift positions. They were still continuing with their antics with other oblivious women.

The gates opened for another station. Finally after hearing me say ‘please’ for the fifth time, they slowly stood up and walked behind me in that direction. One of them told me that they’ll observe first for themselves. “Haan theek hai. Aap khud hi dekh lijiye” I said, glad that they finally stood up. I was confident that the boys were still doing it at this point.

I stood near the periphery sideways, and in less than five seconds the boys did the same thing. “Arre haan, yeh toh kar rahe hai.” One guard exclaimed to the other. The other guard nodded and after a pause said “Ae hero!” But it was such a feeble shout that nobody around us took notice.

After three call-outs, the boys finally turned towards us, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Phone dikhao apna”, she finally said sternly. “Kya?” one of the guys said feebly.

“Photo le raha hai? Phone dikha apna” she said again, and finally people around us took notice. One of the boys nodded in agreement and started unlocking his phone. But he tapped the phone a solid 10-12 times.

“Arre who delete kar rahe hai phone kholne ke bahane! Roko unhe” I was shrieking at this point. But the guards didn’t move forward to grab hold of the phone or even going near them. And nobody said anything.

It almost felt like the guard was letting him make amends for his deeds. He finally handed over the phone with a small smile. I grabbed the phone feeling defeated already, just to see nothing in the phone gallery. The two boys then very conveniently scurried off and got down at the next station.

India doesn’t really have well-defined laws to distinguish violation of privacy from creative pursuits. The only photography law our country has pertains to regulations on land-based photography for certain locations. The erstwhile ban on aerial photography using drones has been lifted as of December 1, 2018.

In this case, how can one decide what constitutes professional work of art and what is an act of perversion? It is jarring to realise how the same medium can evoke appreciation and outrage alike.

I have been photographed by professional photographers randomly in various events and shows, and it has not bothered me. In particular spaces, there is a certain expectation that you can be photographed, hence building up an implied consent, unless a visitor explicitly refuses when they’re being clicked. 

But what happens on the street? When a well-dressed, DSLR carrying, usually male photographer captures your face from amongst the crowd? Are we led to believe that due to the nature of the equipment or status of the photographer, the lingering threat of perversion will not be there?

These questions were important to me not only as a woman accessing the public space, but also being the same well-dressed, DSLR carrying, unusually female photographer traversing the streets of Delhi every now and then. And not only for photographers, these are important questions for you too, if you’ve ever happened to occasionally take photos of people on the street.

For example, how is Mayank Austen Soofi, who uses a camera phone to take photos of people on Delhi streets, different from the two boys I encountered in the metro?

One of the things is that of intent. If you made the image, you own it. But what one does with it is a different question; a question that can make or break the right to that ownership.

Ownership is a legal issue and your image may be used by photographers for journalistic and artistic purposes if it was taken in public or an otherwise permitted setting, like Soofi uses for his blog ‘The Delhi Walla’.

But if the image is used for defamation, and perhaps intentional infliction of mental distress, or is a case of persistent or aggressive photography of an individual, one can book a case based on the nature of the photograph. After the Nirbhaya case, the Indian Penal Code was amended to include voyeurism as an offence in 2013. The accused would be liable for conviction under two circumstances:-

·         Any man who watches, or captures the image of a woman engaging in a private act where the victim’s genitals, posterior, or breasts are exposed or covered only in underwear. “Private act” includes when the victim is using a lavatory or doing a sexual act “that is not of a kind ordinarily done in public”.

·         When the victim consents to the capturing of the images, but not its dissemination

And what about if the image is a full-body shot of the victim wearing clothes? Essentially, if someone takes pictures of parts of your body to masturbate to once they get home, it’s not illegal. Moreover, there have been entire online communities dedicated to such behaviour on Reddit which are difficult to track since a lot of them are private.

One such subreddit came to the fore which went by the name of /r/CreepShots. It was shut down when it gained massive negative attention in the mainstream media. In protest, the redditors came up with another platform called /r/CandidFashionPolice. According to reports, it operates on the same premise of objectifying photographs of unsuspecting women including upskirts, but it is disguised and defended as a portal which critiques women’s fashion. It has survived the backlash and is still active today, although not accessible to everyone since it is quarantined by Reddit.

There might still be other secret or closed groups that a lot of us are unaware of. This is a kind of criminal case where one can become a victim without even knowing.

Nine Yards of Magnificence and Hardship

It’s a little after 4 PM in the evening when Suguna finally gets off the therai (loom) to make some tea for her husband. In a few more minutes, her children will return home from school and chaos will ensue. “I try and finish as much as I can before they come home. At 5 PM they will go to tuitions and I will again get some exact two hours to sit and work on this saree today, before going back to cook dinner at 7 PM.”  

Suguna.

Her husband, Prakash pops inside to see who has come to their house. As if the sight of a girl with a pen, notepad and a backpack is common at their house, he greets me with a warm “Vanakkam . . . Petti aah?” Are you here to interview us? 

“Sister has come from Delhi.” Suguna informs him as we move out to the Veranda.

Suguna comes from a family of weavers- “My earliest memory is of watching my naina weave a pattu Vetti. In those days we would not be allowed to play or watch TV. I never went to school because weaving is our family legacy and doing or knowing anything outside it was unimaginable in those days.” There is a beautiful blue saree spread out on the therai and she catches me looking at it. “I will finish it by tomorrow. Usually, we finish a saree in a day or two. But since it was Diwali and all these festivals came, so I lagged behind a little.”

“This is a simple silk saree without much zari work.” Prakash tells me. “When we get orders for heavy work and intricate designs, it takes at least ten to fifteen days to complete a Kanchipuram pattu podavai (Silk saree). For that we will get paid more, about four to five thousand per piece. The simpler the design, the lesser money we get.” I ask him if there is a minimum wage which is fixed by the government- “For those of us who work under Silk cooperatives in Kanchipuram, there is a fixed rate for every design. In a month we produce at least 10-15 sarees, but if I miss even a day of work, then it’s a loss of money.”

For a town that is known for its rich cultural heritage, beautiful temples and the production of Kanchi Silk, Kanchipuram and its market is extremely unremarkable at first glance. At least until you travel about five to ten kilometres out of town and catch sight of the Nesavalar (weaver) colonies.

Silk threads spread outside one of the houses to dry. Once dry, the number of threads will be counted before the saree is woven. 

The political affiliation of weavers in Kanchipuram is glaringly evident from the two leaves painted at the entrance of most houses- the AIADMK symbol. In the main market, called Gandhi Road, one can see cooperative societies housed one next to the other. Created in order to protect the weavers from private entities and industrial production of sarees, these cooperatives each employ the nesavalars; in the outskirts of the main town, one can see various colonies, housing members and weavers of respective societies.

Suguna and her husband work for Arignar Anna Silk Cooperative Society which was started in 1971. “The cooperatives are the reason why we are still surviving. Some days when the design goes wrong and a thread is missed, an entire saree gets wasted. Then our three-day labour is gone. I have begun to cook at weddings to manage our household nowadays.”

Unlike Prakash, Suguna appears to have a more positive outlook towards her profession – “In our community, a weaver is married off to a weaver only. What will I or he do with an educated partner, when weaving a saree requires at least two people? I was married off to him as a companion, not just for life but for work as well. But he is no more interested in this work.” 

I tell her how my family had brought several silk sarees for a family wedding, which were sold to us as Kanchi silk but no one ever knows how it is truly made. “He thinks our handwork has no value anymore. Like you just said, who will know whether the saree was hand-woven for days or machine produced within hours? My husband has lost hope in this profession. He laments not knowing any other skill.” As for her, she is extremely happy with life as it is. “I don’t regret my work. Some woman somewhere, perhaps even a bride will be wearing my creation. It fills me with pride.”

The therai inside Suguna's home. Kanchi pattu Saree in the making.

The president of Anna silk society, Mr Dayalan Chettian takes me through the dying area inside their office. Unlike Suguna, who is a small time weaver working under them, Chettian comes from the family of Mudaliyars (cotton weavers). In a very matter of fact manner, he tells me “all industries have a downfall at some point. The price of gold has gone up by so much and yet the kanchi silk and its weavers have had no improvement in their lives.”

Kanchipuram may be the centre of silk woven sarees, but most of the raw material is outsourced here. Chettian tells me how “Kanchipuram is only for weaving. We get the raw material from Hosur, Dharmapuri and Bangalore. Mulberry silkworm is cultivated and produced there. The Tamil Nadu Co-operative Silk Producers Federation (TANSILK) purchases it and from there we buy the silk threads in Kilo measures.”  

On Left: Silk purchased from TANSILK

On Right: Twisted silk post dyeing

The bundle of silk procured from TANSILK is raw and rough to touch before it is given to the dyers. The twisted silk (ready silk) is “dyed according to market preferences; for example, this was a month of festivals so we mostly made pink and red sarees.” Chettiar points at racks of red and pink silk left to dry outside.

After procuring silk, the bundles are given for dyeing. Dyeing is also a highly regulated process in Cooperative societies. The stained water is treated and filtered inside the factory premises before it is let out according to Chettiar. "Since we are highly popular, the government keeps a check on our activities in order to set an example through us. Inspections are regular at our dying areas, that is why water treatment machines are installed despite their exorbitant cost."

Silk being dyed inside Murugan Cooperative Society office.

However, the process isn’t over yet. The golden Zari is separately produced in Surat. In original Kanchi sarees “zari was always made of silver thread coated in pure gold. Heavier the saree more means more the gold.” Chettiar tells me.

At present, Surat is the largest producer of golden border zari. However, since the production in Surat is privatised, the government once again steps in to provide assistance. “The zari is naturally expensive and when you leave it on Private hands the costs are usually sky high. That is why we have the Tamil Nadu Zari Ltd. right here in Kanchipuram.” 

A government of Tamil Nadu undertaking, it was established in 1971 “to provide protection to the silk handloom weavers’ cooperative societies in the State engaged in the weaving of silk by making available the required quality of zari at the reasonable rates to save them from stiff competitions of the monopoly of the zari merchants in and outside of the State.” (TNZL, official site)

Each cooperative has the rule book. At the Kanchipuram Murugan Silk Handloom Weavers Society, I catch sight of the colour book. It is impressive how detailed the coolie (waged labour) is. The government, in order to protect the weavers from exploitation, had laid down the exact wage for the designs being commissioned. But this rate has barely changed in the past two decades, laments Raja.

Raja comes from a family of Sourashtras, a community of Gujarati silk weavers who had migrated to the Tamil country during the rule of Krishna Deva Raya of the Vijayanagar Empire in the 14^th century. Largely concentrated in Madurai, some of them are scattered across Tamil Nadu today due to demands of labour. Raja’s family is also a generation of weavers who were based in Coimbatore. “I don’t remember much as I grew up in Kanchipuram, but I have heard stories of my family legacy, of how they were patrons of the king once upon a time. Look at us now, how times have changed.”

I ask Raja if there is a difference in designing and making of a saree, based on each community. “No nothing like that. Who are we to design things; it is the mudalali (owner) who tells us what he wants.” He and Suguna’s husband Prakash share similar sentiments. “Back in the day, about ten to fifteen years back the cost of one gram silver was 10 rupees. Gold was about a thousand rupees per gram.”

“Now if you look at it logically, a pure Kanchi silk saree even then would have cost about forty to fifty thousand. And those were the days when not everyone could own a silk saree- it was a dream to even own few metres of silk with golden zari. Today, with inflation and the added cost of our coolie (wages) the silk saree costs no less than few lakh rupees. The simplest one will be worth at least fifteen thousand rupees.”

I quickly interrupt him to point out how even today silk sarees are the main attraction at all events and festivals in our culture. “Yes they are, but let me ask you, how many times have you gone to purchase a silk saree and checked if they were machine made or hand woven; if the Zari was truly gold or synthetic? When these retail shopkeepers throw so many colourful sarees in front of you, one forgets what is original and what is not. You won’t know the difference. They will throw 10 sarees in front of you, and confuse you.”

The Ministry of Textile had listed 22 varieties of designs solely under the monopoly of weavers, in order to keep their work in demand. However, in 1991, 22 designs were reduced to 11 and the remaining was shared with industrial manufacturers. At present, the nesavalar is left with only about five or six designs under his belt.

“A weaver takes fifteen days to produce minimum three sarees, but the machine takes one day to produce about five sarees. My labour is worth two thousand rupees; the man working at machines gets only three hundred rupees. Now you tell me if given a choice, what mode of production will you choose for good profits?”

The cooperatives societies are also mostly community specific according to him. “I am sure you must have heard about and even seen the massive Nalli showroom on your way here. Like your Sharma’s and Sastri’s in the north, a Nalli is the name of a community of weavers. Like a trademark, anybody belonging to their community attaches Nalli in front of their name. Nalli Chinnasami Chettiar was a small time weaver from here only. He mobilised his community people, made sarees and sold them individually; now look at them, there is not a single person in the weaving community who does not envy the Nalli people. Nalli is what it is today because of their strong community and camaraderie between them.”

I ask Raja why he won't sell saree's on his own like Nalli Chettiyar did. "Because times are different now. If Sir, (he points at Dayalan Chettiar) is able to sell a saree for thousand rupees to the retailer, I will not be able to get more than five hundred rupees. In fact, I will only get money if I sell it through mudhalali sir. That itself should tell you the value of us weavers today."

While they feel helpless about their current situation, there is still hope for their children. “I want my daughter to become a teacher. Let this life of hardship end with us.” Suguna tells us. My aunt strongly objects to it “But what about our culture? Please teach your children this wonderful art, namma kalacharam (the essence of our tradition).”

“And who will save them from this penury?” Mr Chettiar points to the small shacks clustered around one another. “Unlike their parents, the children should know they have a choice . . . a better future.”

----------X--------

My phone alerts me to the approaching Gaja cyclone in Pondicherry as the bus nears Thidivanam. I have one more bus to change before reaching home. My aunt nudges me “what a strange situation this is; everyone goes to Kanchipuram before the wedding and here we are doing the opposite.”

I have spent a large part of my life watching so many women drape the nine-yard wonder that is the Kanchipuram saree, and I have seen it passed on from one generation to the next as inheritance exclusively among women. Suguna's story is just one amongst the many, the worn and forgotten hands of the nesavalar, whose life in its entirety revolves around the white and golden threads of silk.  

A memory that will always stay with me is of watching Suguna take out one skirt after the other, all in colourful hues. “I can never weave a saree for myself. I don’t think any weaver can weave for himself. It just does not feel right. But for my daughter, I have made many, many things.”

“Do you make them from leftover threads?” I ask her.

“No, no. There is no such thing as leftovers. Every single thread of silk is counted and aligned in a saree. I save money every few months and ask mudalali (owner) to give me whatever comes off it. That is why they are all colourful. I just stitch whatever colour I get.”

“If you stay here a few more days, we will weave you a saree as well. Take it as a token of gift from namma ooru (our town) Kanchipuram” she offers. “Yellow is your colour, I can already tell.”

Let’s Talk Identity?

The concept of identity has always been very elusive to me. From ethnicity to spiritual existence, I too have no clue as for how to enter the conversation of identity. There seem to be endless ways of looking at this concept and yet never a definitive one. Perhaps most of us would keep questioning it over and again, like the foolish hamster running on a wheel. With the right food and gadgets and media content to binge on, we would take breaks in between but eventually not finish the pursuit of the identity crisis. Identity being too broad to converge in a singular paper, I would like to rather focus upon the evolution of the concept in my understanding and how I deal within the construct.

Now we all know identity within India is always the starter of the buffet, ethnicity being special. In a diverse country of over hundreds of ethnic groups and origins, in order to understand identity, you must be aware of what group you belong to. The comparison begins post that. You see, with a colorful history of colonization and invasion and communal riots and terrorism, we Indians are forced fed history as part of knowing our very roots! As educative as it may sound, biased opinions definitely changes the course of it. But we sure have a thirst for knowing where our ancestors are from or else it would almost become redundant to win a nasty fight if you are unable to insult your rival’s ancestry and shame their ethnic identity! So no matter the voice of reason or educational purpose or communal, our ethnic identity is our first lesson upon the concept, as a child.

My parents were no different, they proudly taught us about different races, caste, religion at a young age and along with, they introduced to our heritage: ethnic roots. Here, it is important to mention that I belong to a dual heritage-my father belongs to the Kachari tribe while my mother is an Ahom, an ethnic group who migrated to Assam during the 1200s.Now anybody from Assam or with the knowledge of its history would instantly identify both the groups as being different. Here is the big deal- the Kacharis were one of the original group of settlers in the land of Assam and thereby, an ego of being there first exists in the name itself. While the Ahoms although were migrants, had made home in the Brahmaputra valley and ruled it with pride, poise and an iron fist for nearly 200 years. The fact that Assam was secured against the mighty Mughals due to the Ahoms, carried extra credit for the indigenous group and anybody with their lineage. So there it was my parents’ ultimate pride of their individual identity and making sure we never take it for granted. Ironically their pride stance remained limited history only. Brahmanical practices took over eventually and now traces of their heritage only remain scantily amongst rituals and food and dress habits. However contemporary cultural practices have taken over most and so less of tribal roots truly now remain.

So that was my first identity-my ethnic roots. It was in middle school when I learnt about it, so impressionable as my mind was, I decided to share my pride in being a hybrid with my friends. It also made me feel cool, you see? Basically, my knowledge about ethnic identity was limited to heritage only but most cultural practices or even respective languages were no longer in circulation. I was simply happy to show off my parental lineage at any given chance. It is impertinent to mention that my knowledge about caste had just begun to be added to my vocabulary and my parents displayed our ST (Scheduled Tribe) status as a badge of honor that I must flash for my convenience or attention, it didn’t matter. As long as I don’t forget how precious that is. An extremely gullible pre-teen being given something to stand out and show off? I felt so cool for first couple of years. I felt somewhat fancy. This continued for first half of my teenage and so I was furious when discovered that I cannot change my surname legally to Kachari (my official surname is Saikia). I learnt that my paternal grandfather for some reason has changed his surname to Saikia and my father followed and 40 years later, it is nearly impossible to change documents all over. My sister and I were furious as, in Assam Saikia is a common name used by different caste and religion. I decided to rebel instead. If I couldn’t do it officially, I could do so on Facebook. So I took the Tai Ahom word for Miss-Nang and my original surname Kachari and unofficially became Nang Jolly Kachari. I was so proud to finally be able to flaunt both my parental lineage in my name somewhere!

That nonsense was 6 years ago. Now I am simply trying to quit Facebook altogether. Soon..

My concept of identity has been in transition since I was a child. It came in phases. So after my ethnic phase, I had moved to Delhi for my higher studies. The journey to the capital put a whole different spin into my understanding. Like a game changer. I had changed not just cities but also regions. I was a migrant. I was a foreigner. I still am.

The dilemma lay due to the drastic transition. Geographically North East is north east India but for the most part of mainland India, we are merely symbolism for exotification of beautiful landscapes and non-Indian looking features and that we live on trees. As much entertaining as these assumptions are, being a migrant has an immediate question upon your ethnic identity upon arrival. First, it was differentiating between my Assamese identity from the North East one. So few attempted to understand while others remained polite. I tried to be adamant about holding on to what I was taught to flaunt. But I hadn’t expected language to be my first hurdle. My little hometown has a multicultural history and I grew up with Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, etc. So when I arrived in the capital city, my knowledge of spoken Hindi was funny in comparison to the one spoken here. I was often made fun of the way I speak Hindi and called ‘cute’ in between a very serious discussion. I was constantly infantilized because my Hindi was not in par with the way Delhiites did. I became so conscious of fitting in that I began desperately to mimick just so my migrant identity isn’t open for attack. I wanted to blend in without jeopardizing my roots. And so I spent some time on what I thought was refining my spoken Hindi. I would flaunt it when back home. Oh, how naïve my younger self was.

During this entire language negotiation, another area of my identity was in foreplay. This primarily concerns my physical looks. Geographically Assam is located in a monsoon climatic region on the banks of the Brahmaputra river. With equal sun and rain, the skin pigmentation of most people is between dark and lighter shade. But hereditary gifted me lesser number melanin cells and hence, my skin is fair in color. Little did I know that my melanin count would one day be attached to my identity so close. A major stereotype of the North Eastern identity is the mongoloid facial features which are definitely not uniform across the entire region. Therefore, minus the non-mongoloid looks and a fairer skin color, I entered another phase of identity. In Delhi, people didn’t accept my north eastern/assamese identity while back home, often times I would be assumed to be a non assamese entity. I was perplexed!

Allow me to demonstrate my situation in detail. In a typical day during vacation, I would be mistaken to a non assamese and spoken to in either English or Hindi. The frustration somewhat peaks when I would converse in Assamese, but not be replied back in my own native tongue! I felt alien in my own place. To add to it, even when I am with my family, shopkeepers would change their language while speaking to me and whoever is accompanying. Imagine the cringe that fills my throat with rage.

 My friends would tell me it’s because I look so non Assamese. Like there is a definitive construct on how to look Assamese! When I started inking my body, a close friend of mine declared that I officially look totally unbelievable to my roots. Most believe to this day, that it is a compliment. To me, it’s another push to my identity crisis. While in Delhi, when answered where I came from I have been told over and again that I am not perceived as a north easterner or even Indian. Bulging eyes and a nervous laughter in the guise of a compliment didn’t help my cringe much. I began to detest my ethnic roots in the process.

Unable to find a footing within my ethnic identity, I began questioning it back. For example, when my parents would use caste and tribal identities interchangeably as convenient, I realized my dislike of the crooked nose Brahman who would arrive for every ritual in the house ever since I was a child. One of my tribal relative who is praised highly for his stringent Brahmanical practices comes to my mind instantly. As a kid, I would always cringe at the starvation and painfully long rituals involved every time someone passed away or got married. By the time I had started University, I began to dissect my own caste, class and religion. With so little tribal practices to hold on to, I have kept aside my ethnic identity on hold for now.

My family takes my identity dilemma as hilarious while I struggle to accept my belongingness without waiting for acceptance. I did figure out a silver lining in the situation though. As I was already assumed as a foreigner, it became easier to avoid judgmental stares while buying cigarettes and liquor while home. I realized that stigma attached to people who smoke or drink is reserved when it is not someone native. The word foreigner itself comes with particular prejudices in the first place and hence, no eyebrow is raised or shocking expressions come my way as I buy my poisons. My younger cousins and friends took advantage of it occasionally. I don’t mind. I had a secret power, I felt.

Transitioning into adulthood is no picnic, any adult would agree instantly. So when I began dealing with the adult realities of life, I realized how much effort it took while mimicking something constantly to fit in. Suddenly none of my identities were acceptable to me anymore. I had finally accepted that it’s okay not to be fluent in a 3^rd language. I hadn’t realized how far I had gotten away from my own language while in pursuit of another. I felt alien once again. “Oh sorry, I didn’t recognize you over there. I thought of you as some foreigner!” by a family friend once, didn’t help much. I couldn’t explain my cringe by now. You see, although I detached myself from being defined by my caste, class or even ethnicity to some extent, I definitely didn’t stop receiving my privileges that come along with. There is so much to leave behind, I began to accept the slow process of it all.

As I made my way through perks and pickles of identity, a whole different segment of the concepts opened up to me. I began to learn and understand about sexual and gender identity as well. Without my ethnic roots to limit what identity means to me, I eventually decided to not conform to any. As much love I have for my own culture, not accepting it all blindly was important. I settled onto selective participation within my cultural identity construct whilst coping with not belonging to any singular marker of my roots.

 In a country with a fetish for fair skin, I also changed my identity upon meeting people in public. Migrating to a place with a reputation for being unsafe, my paranoia of being attacked only increased manifold. So while interacting with unknown men, for instance in clubs or on tinder, I would simply create a fake identity to avoid being tracked down later. I almost got caught this one time in Hauz Khas when a group of guys began chatting with my friends and I. Now I was wearing colored contact lens and as usual I gave a random identity upon being asked. It just so happens that I was in the influence of alcohol and I announced my French inheritance to foolproof my disguise. Coincidentally there was a Turkish guy in the group who himself had naturally colored eyes, who challenged the authenticity of my eye color. Afraid of being caught, I went to the extent of asking the guy to poke my eye to clear his doubts, knowing full well he wouldn’t. Obviously, he did no such thing but I knew he didn’t buy my nonsense but I was adamant to not divulge any part of my actual identity.

Apart from faking different nationalities, I would often be asked if I am Korean, Japanese, Chinese and so on. The extent of it is ever changing and ever amusing. Most memorable would be the time when a guy on Tinder inquired if I grew up living on trees. It was too golden an opportunity to pass on and I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed it. I told how we really did live on trees, were taught hunting and gathering as mandatory training during childhood and that a caregiver would carry us around on her back till the age of 5! It is astonishing, the amount of ignorance that is attached to the North Eastern identity to rest of the country.

With my own concept of identity in a state of confusion, I gathered how subjectively diverse it is as well. From defending my inherited ethnic identity to dissecting it upside down, I have begun to refrain from particular terminologies of the same when asked where I belong. For example I would say ‘I am from Assam’ instead of saying ‘I am an Assamese’. At a time when religious terrorism is taking over the entire country, searching for an identity just so I could articulate it better for others is no longer a priority anymore. I no longer feel close to my ethnic identity, much to my parents’ disappointment but I daresay question problematic concepts within a construct they wear like a medal of honor.

Beauty and the Beast

Kashmir is a photographer’s delight. What began as travel photography by Europeans to aid the Orientalist project has now grown to become an integral part of various fields and professions. The valley reaches mainland India through various mediums and what is received from each source is an altogether different product. It is possible that the human mind does not fully comprehend what it sees. The ‘truth’ which exists out there, in absolute objectivity, is inaccessible to us. What reaches to us has been filtered by our senses and our experiential knowledge. Intaking reality through photographs, no matter how “life-like”, further waters it down. This is my attempt to identify the visual paths, the resultant manipulation and the reception of different ‘ideas’ of Kashmir.

Journalism, advertising, tourism and entertainment- these are the prime sources through which a non-resident familiarises herself with Kashmir. Each fragments Kashmir in different ways by choosing what to photograph in line with what it deems most relevant for the viewers.

When talking of journalism, one can not do so while considering it a unified whole. The mainstream media response to the valley differs according to where it comes from: Pakistan, India or Kashmir. Each play up certain aspects of a story and ignore the rest according to what suits its ideology. The Kashmiri media is the most “faithful” in its representation, sympathetic to the people’s concerns and their demands. Photos of students frustrated with snapped internet connection, curfew-harassed local traders, daily casualties and pellet-ridden bodies of young children inhabit the local dailies. Pakistani mainstream media tends to play up the dissenting voices coming from the valley, highlighting the dissatisfaction with Indian administration since it has its own stake. The picture below was featured in a news article first published in ‘Rising Kashmir’ and then in ‘Dawn’, a leading Pakistani daily. No wonder the general Kashmiri sentiment that Pakistan is more concerned about their problems than India.

Image Credit- Mukhtar Khan, AP

The mainstream Indian media rarely makes visible such graffiti from downtown Kashmir. Representation of such non-violent forms of protest is possible only in the background with stone-throwing protesters in the forefront. Photos of Kashmiris carrying Pakistani and IS flags are often circulated in print as well as broadcast with captions running under calling them anti-Indian or anti-national. Aamir Wani, a civil servant aspirant from Kashmir says that “This is in spite the realisation that they use the symbol without partaking the ideology. Pakistan is a major irritant for India and that is what they tap on to draw Delhi’s attention. And draw it does.” In complete contrast to the beastly nation-hating, army-killing image of the civilians such photographs create, newspapers try to partake in the sanitation of Kashmir too. Newspapers religiously print beautiful photos of snow-blanketed Srinagar to show the advent of winter every year. Lush saffron fields are a common favourite. Kashmir, the photos say, is dear because it is beautiful. The Kashmiris who try to take the land away from India must be stopped by any means.

In the face of such distortion, news websites like scroll.in, thewire.in, newslaundry.com etc. do a laudable job. “Death is our only Aazadi: The story of a Kashmiri Mother” by Nidhi Suresh is a great example. The piece is about a Kashmiri family, told through the voice of a mother, who used to host militants in their house in the 90s. When asked about the problems she faces while reporting from Kashmir Nidhi says that “people are unwilling to talk. They do not want to be quoted or photographed. As much as there is a collective want for azadi, they just want to be done with it. They are afraid of pushback.” Nidhi’s report does not give away the identity of her sources. There are photos of only the hands of the mother, her face cropped out. There are thousands of stories of personal struggle from Kashmir to which there are no names or faces to put to.

Source: Newslaundry

The reportage that comes out of these channels is different. It is heavy on nuance, perhaps because of their business model which relies on subscribers rather than advertisers. It is true that even these channels are not unbiased but they do have greater transparency. The biases are aired before the content. The concern about other news portals is the obvious spin they put to stories without disclosing their allegiances.

A resident of Delhi and a model, Anannya Prakash, 21, when asked about where he gets information about Kashmir from, says “it is usually Times of India or through Facebook pages like Fauji Brat or RVSP. They usually have videos which show how ungrateful Kashmiris are, willing to take help from the Indian army but ready to throw stones at them the next moment. I met a Kashmiri guy last summer when I was modelling and he told me that things were not the way I believed them to be. I have a mixed opinion now.”

Sidharth Khurana, a Canadian resident Indian says “some areas are supposed to be unsafe from what I’ve heard. Seems like an interesting place to visit though what with their culture, music and mountains of course.” When asked about what made him form such an opinion, “news” is all he says.

When considering representation through the visual medium, it is impossible not to talk of films, music videos, documentaries etc. though they are not strictly photographs. The representation of Kashmir as a third character in Bollywood songs of the 80s and the 90s has concretized the image of the region as an epitome of romance and beauty. Blockbusters like ‘Lakshya’, ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ and ‘Aiyaary’ glorify the Indian soldier protecting the state while off-beat low-budget movies like ‘Harud’ offer a sensitive portrayal. Which kind of portrayal of Kashmir finds public acceptance is obvious in the risk-value and popularity of the movies. On the other hand, while well-intentioned documentaries try to explain the ‘Kashmir conflict’, most dehumanise the Kashmiris by making them just cogs in the state machine. True, Kashmir is a land at undeclared civil war but is that all there is to the lives of Kashmiris?

Social media updates from Kashmir report the everyday lives of the people. Youngsters huddled together for a selfie in front of a beloved bike or posing before a beautiful lake, “red-cheeked” toddlers giggling into adoring camera lenses, photographs of traditional makhmal suits, cricket bats or sunglasses (since Facebook and Instagram can take business where word of mouth can’t) all paint a picture of normalcy. These photos are meant to be shared with family and friends. However, these very channels are bloated with photographs and videos of police brutality and civilian torture, most of them recorded by civilians but some released by the army too to intimidate protestors into inaction. Photographs in times of turmoil become evidence. In the Kerala floods of 2018 people from Odisha, who suffered their own share of floods earlier that year, advised Keralites to photograph their drowned vehicles with the licence plates visible to get assured insurance. Photographs became as powerful as stamped affidavits. The rise of photo-journalism as a legitimate field of reporting is a testimony to that. The almost simultaneous rise of tools of photo manipulation, though, raises new concerns. A lot of fact checking websites like altnews.in, boomlive.in and factly.in have come up in the last two years, each trying to verify sources and stories circulated on social media. They have debunked a lot of lies supplanted by photographs and videos, about terrorists infiltrating Kashmir, decreasing expenditure on arms as claimed by a government officer etc. Photographs too, like all evidence, is subject to tampering.

“To photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude.” This is exactly what advertisements set against the Kashmiri backdrop do.

Considering the above advertisement produced as an example, the obvious question which arises is who the advertisement is aimed at. Cashing on the “traditional” to sell western clothes stitched by “artists” can not be a campaign intended to work on the Kashmiris. The photo-advertisement excludes the local artist and replaces him/her with the professionals at Wills Lifestyle. It exoticises Kashmiri hand crafts to project it’s beauty and labour-value to the product being sold. The company using such methods is not even a foreign brand but an Indian one. A lot can be gleaned of the relationship India shares with Kashmir from its treatment in hands of Indian businesses and advertising campaigns.

Another industry at work in Kashmir is tourism. Government-issue or private travel books and travel blogs hypnotise readers with Kashmiri beauty offered on platter. Immaculate tulip gardens, Kashmiri women dressed in colourful traditional wear, pasture lollying in open grounds, mist-kissed mountains and more, all become anchors for tourists. Family vacation photos of shikara rides while wearing Kashmiri costumes, day stay in houseboats on the Dal Lake, picnic in the open grounds of Sonmarg and the snow of Gulmarg, camping in Pahalgam and paragliding in Aru Valley tell of a land of absolute beauty and peace.

Package tours stick to a certain route where disturbance is invisible and land almost photoshopped. They tell nothing of a boy sitting at home on his laptop typing out his frustration as gunshots ring outside in the street. Or a grieving family having lost a member to imprisonment, mental torture, rape or as collateral damage. Even the postcards a tourist takes back home freeze this sanitized image of Kashmir. This Kashmir is not of the Kashmiris. It is a museum, a source of revenue collection for the Indian administration. It helps that the locals have to participate in this image-creation since their economy depends on tourists.

Photographs, with the advent of mass printing and social media, are no longer intended for personal record but for circulation. Representation of the object being photographed changes with the intended audience. All photographs received through mass media channels are distorted by the ideology of the frame. Journalism, tourism, entertainment and advertising have different interests to serve. Reportage, whether for news or through documentaries, depends on the reporters or researchers, their allegiance and the consumers. Tourism, advertising and entertainment are businesses which must air brush to make the photographed object more appealing. What then becomes of the “truth value” of photographs?

The camera lens subverts the beauty-beast dichotomy. It can just as easily make the photographed object beautiful as it can beastify it. The coverage of Kashmir through different lenses forces us to rethink the truth value assigned to photographs. The beautiful Kashmir, the conflicted Kashmir, the tyrant Kashmir, the backward Kashmir, the suffering Kashmir, the homeland Kashmir- there are as many epithets for the region as there are cameras. The wielders of the cameras hold sway over public discourse in how far they can circulate what’s captured by their lens while limiting it within the set context. Should one expect the camera to record an “absolute truth” or accept each version as truth in its own right? Each capture is a fragment of the truth which may or may not produce a coherent whole when put together in a unifying project. This however is not a failure of photography but its strength. In knowing that every frame is an ideology, it ensures that the photographs are seen as evidence of that ideology and not necessarily of reality. Photographs need to be ‘read’ to understand and acknowledge the binaries of presence/absence, truth/untruth and beauty/beast which hierarchizes realities.

The State of Our Being

In the essay Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture, Clifford Geertz quotes Susanne Langer… “certain ideas burst upon the intellectual landscape with a tremendous force, they resolve so many fundamental problems at once that they seem also to promise that they will resolve all fundamental problems, clarify all obscure issues…” Soon however, “expectations are brought more into balance with actual uses”; the ‘grande idée’ “no longer has the grandiose, all-promising scope, the infinite versatility of apparent application, it once had”. The anthropologists of course are talking about major intellectual breakthroughs like “second law of thermodynamics, the principle of natural selection, or the organization of means of production”. But gone are the eras of polymaths, of decades of research that went into proving that the world is round. Today, the ‘grand idée’ makes and breaks everyday and is more popularly called #trends. 

Very little research has been conducted on this issue. There is no explanation as to why even well educated, liberal, progressive, intellectual minds are invested in this daily game of cultural Jenga. 

Concepts such as #trends and viral were originally imports from advertising and marketing jargons but nowhere have they seen the vitality like in today’s Indian politics, and journalism. One reason for the delayed but essential liberal-progressive adoption of digital marketing techniques for political agenda could be attributed to the unexpected ‘advertising-campaign’ that resulted in Modi’s win in 2014.  

Nevertheless, in post-Modi India, the great battle fought between the left and the right has only resulted in more Facebook and Insta profiles and more Whatsapp groups and forwards. 

And… #trends!

Recently, we had #farmersmarch, before that it was #sabarimala, and of course #urbannaxal. There are many more. There are world #trends, India #trends, regional/local trends and then of course #trends within specific interest groups like #deepveer or #jatreservation. Sometimes there are words that trend (like woke), sometimes it is song that trends (Kolaveri). Every time, the trend holds within itself the grande idée that promises a revolution teetering on the edge. But the day is done; the #trend is replaced by another #trend. You are still on Facebook. 

Its three days past the #kisanmuktimarch, and it is time to “disentangle ourselves from a lot of pseudoscience (pseudoscience according to Geertz, but for us it will be pseudoactivism) to which, in the first flush of its celebrity, it has also given rise”. After the initial excitement, more sensible views are now becoming more visible. These are not #trends but more like finding ‘needle in the chaff’ and often at the risk of being labeled a digital skeptic who questions everything that’s popular. The sensible and more restrained views agree to the two primary farmer demands - that of loan waivers and right price for farm produce but point out that the leadership of the mobilization have stayed silent on land reforms and have been pushing the recommendations of Swaminathan Committee report to their end without looking at Swaminathan’s report critically. Critically, Swaminathan – also known as the father of green revolution, has encouraged corporate farming and use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture which in turn has led to indiscriminate exploitation of water resources for irrigation and has degraded the quality of soil in India. The green revolution has led to a deeper agrarian crisis in the long run and has shifted the focus from food crops to cash crops endangering food security of the country. But once upon a time, green revolution was the #trend, the grand idée. Swaminathan has recently repackaged it as the evergreen revolution to suit better the current times. 

Revolution, and nothing short of it. Porn, is still the most searched content online. That’s how it has stayed, from the beginning. When Cyber Cafes charged over Rs. 50 an hour for a dial up internet service. There is something seductive about technology. Because most of it is secretive, hidden. Like space travel. Today, the 1.5 GB data access per day is Modi-Ambani’s greatest gift to the youth of India. Today we are witnessing unemployment among youth at the highest in last 20 years. Three young people from a Scheduled Tribe jumped in front a moving train in Rajasthan depressed over unemployment in November. 

Every year, just before the wedding season, some or the other celebrity brand endorsers get married to each other. Like setting the stage before rest of the country erupts in a joyous, teary eyed hetero-patriarchal pride. The social media outburst not only helps maintain the balance between tradition and consumerism but also helps hide nightmares like that of Nalgonda’s Pranay. 

This is where social media and journalism merge and it is impossible to tell between NEWS and PROPAGANDA. 

FAKE NEWS, you can still discern, but our dominant culture is defined not by what is reported but rather what is shared.

And who shares it. 

Let me share something(s) with you.

Malini Subramanyam – a journalist was asked to leave Chhattisgarh’s Bastar by right-wing vigilante group Samajik Ekta Manch who used stone pelting, threats and intimidation against the journalist for reporting Indian state’s human rights abuses against the people of the forests of Bastar. 

 

That’s the price a journalist paid for attempting to reveal what is otherwise ‘invisible’ in the media conundrum. Harassment of journalists is nothing new in democracy. Honest political reportage is almost radical activism in a climate of concocted and biased news reports. The murders of Shujaat Bukhari (Editor of Rising Kashmir) and Gauri Lankesh (Editor of Lankesh Patrike), Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who was behind the Panama expose (many Indians like Amitabh Bachhan featured in the black money leaks) and Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi (Editor of Saudi Arabian Al-Arab News Channel) were condemned by progressive citizens across the world as ‘murder of democracy’.

Journalists who still live to tell the tale struggle against extreme ‘censorship’ and monitoring by media houses themselves for reporting the truth about powerful politicians, businessowners or government officials. Media houses themselves are financed or owned by big corporations ensuring that journalists cannot function independently. There have been too many corporate takeovers, too many editorial resignations, for Indian media to recover its independent voice immediately. Some journalists lost only their job while other media houses who continued reporting unlawful activities were slapped with huge defamation cases against them by big corporates.  
 

Power is impunity. 

Indian journalism was rocked by #metoo allegations against prominent journalists and editors like MJ Akbar, Vinod Dua, Debdutt Ghoshthakur in 2018. Defamation cases against survivors followed. 

The biggest cover-up still remains in the endless chains of murders from Sohrabuddin to Justice Loya. 

No one has a count of the number of deaths in the wake of Vyapam scam. 

Ram Chandar Chhatrapati was the editor of local newspaper Poora Sach (Complete Truth) who first exposed godman Ram Rahim’s rape crimes and died of 5 bullet wounds in 2002.

Regional news have their own flavor. Nothing beats the inimitable style in which journalists report in their local language. Issues reported are often of some immediate context to readers. Power cuts, chain snatching gangs, corruption expose in the building of a road, sex scandals involving local politicians, sex rackets busted in neighbourhood, that’s the desi viral in hinterland India.

It is impossible to tell how much of national or international news trickles down to those pages. As a child I remember the tragic death of astronaut Kalpana Chawla and continuous Kargil War articles that shaped much of our imagination. There is no estimation possible of the amount of regional news that makes it to national news as well. While the Kathua rape case from Jammu received much attention from national media and social media, the outrage over Unnao rape case from Uttar Pradesh slowly withered away.

 

Hindi, on the other hand, serves both as a builder of pan-north-Indian national opinion as well as a language of north Indian regional masses. Accordingly, the writing styles in Hindi media undergo rapid experimentation. If you are a Hindi reader of both regional and (inter)national sensibilities you cannot help but notice how even BBC Hindi reports news in a melodramatic voice imitating the regional voices.  

 

Magazines like Samkalin Teesri Duniya (Contemporary Third World), online news portals like MediaVigil and Bhadas have also contributed to a lot of national Hindi political news reporting and enjoy a wide reach among politically aware readers. Due to shortage of funds or crackdowns by state machinery for reporting the truth, many such independent or people-backed initiatives have died down.

  

It doesn’t make any difference now. News, politics, social media and standup comedy have all become one, merged into one other. There was a time I was presenting shows in All India Radio and we used to be given 5 headlines of news to be read out between the shows. I worked there for a month in 2008. After 2014, AIR started hosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann ki Baat show. AIR also appeared in audio based social media networks like SoundCloud. Sometimes I feel with all this technological progress modern human race has made, where it hid traces of fascism within it? 

Today, it is important to be on social media, to observe who is sharing what, what is published by whom, and before believing in anything, one has to cross check, before acting, even our outrage can wait.

 

Back in the days when I worked in advertising, creative copywriters were paid to think of ideas that could be made viral for brands online. One thought of ridiculous videos, often bordering on shock or crass humour to make content saleable. I often thought in quiet time that advertisements itself are the most widespread virus that have infected the once Open Source internet. In journalism, a story may need planning for months. It might involve identifying leads, negotiating with parties involved in the issue, travelling, often escaping the notice of anyone who does not want a particular story to come out. Journalism involves coming back to the desk, and then endlessly fretting over your report, negotiating again for the balance of truth and pragmatism in a mass publication. Journalism, unlike social media is not just opinion.

P.S. This thing of social media, is just the feeling to run away from everything, you are just surfing on and on, maintaining a link with others yet trying to find an escape from it, like opening up multiple tabs, scrolling, but it is not very easy to find that escape, everything you do, you are being tracked and that feeling of being followed, being stalked stays with you. That is why SEARCH is such an important word. We/you/I are constantly in search of something.

these networks have snatched away our communities from us

think of a spider web

but instead of looking at what it connects look at what it separates

look at each end of the network

you will find an isolated individual.