ARTIST Ian Njuguna IAN NJUGUNA is a visual artist born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, where he currently resides. He works in Illustration, motion design, and graphic design. Njuguna's art style is characterized by a blend of whimsy and photorealism, often weaving together elements of fine art and cartoon styles. His practice is a commitment towards what he calls "African stories." ARTIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

WRITER Nidhil Vohra NIDHIL VOHRA is a writer, filmmaker, and a Cinema Studies and Peace & Conflict Studies student at the University of Toronto. His work has been published in NDTV , The Tribune , and The Varsity . WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

Bangalore-based Reliable Copy is an intentionally designed independent publishing collective reshaping the landscape of contemporary art distribution and curation in South Asia. Rooted in friendship, knowledge-building, and a redefinition of what sustainability in art book publishing looks and feels like, their practice bridges transnational modernisms to turn the ‘lull’ in visual art into a space of possibility, where language, community, and curiosity meet at their respective limits to sketch new worlds. | Essay · FEATURES Essay · Bangalore Beyond the Lull Bangalore-based Reliable Copy is an intentionally designed independent publishing collective reshaping the landscape of contemporary art distribution and curation in South Asia. Rooted in friendship, knowledge-building, and a redefinition of what sustainability in art book publishing looks and feels like, their practice bridges transnational modernisms to turn the ‘lull’ in visual art into a space of possibility, where language, community, and curiosity meet at their respective limits to sketch new worlds. Mukhtar Kazi, Untitled (2025). Part of The Sea and the Sahel series. Acrylic on raw linen. In The Significance and Relevance of Early Modern Indian Painters to the Contemporary Indian Art (1971) by Nilima Sheikh , a Fine Arts dissertation published by Reliable Copy, the artist speaks of a “lull” in terms of Modernist painting in India. She reflects on how the Modernist movement emerged out of a reckoning with Mughal artistic traditions, as well as influences from British art. In the conclusion of the dissertation, Sheikh writes: “The task of the individual painter in India is perhaps more difficult because he has to start from scratch and question the basic premises; there is no concerted movement to whose ideologies he can subscribe or even reject as the reference for his own work.” Cover page of The Significance and Relevance of Early Modern Indian Painters to the Contemporary Indian Art (1971) by Nilima Sheikh, published by Reliable Copy in 2023. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. This ‘lull’ still continues to push artistic practices in South Asia to innovate and find unique solutions in order to create meaningful and thought-provoking works. Reliable Copy, a publishing house founded and led by artist duo Nihaal Faizal and Sarasija Subramanian in 2018, is an example of an initiative that has embraced this ‘lull’ as a challenge. In 2021, while helping plan an online conference for emerging arts professionals in South Asia, I kept hearing about Nihaal and Sarasija’s work—my colleagues based in India loved them. At the time, I was working at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka in Colombo, under the guidance of art historian and curator Sharmini Pereira , aiming to start my own writing and publishing practice. At the museum, I was exposed to her immense experience in publishing and the peripheral work of building the publishing house Raking Leaves, with a predominant focus on South Asian artistic practices. When I finally met Nihaal and Sarasija, it was both a revelation and a relief to know that people of my own generation were passionate about independent publishing just like I was and were excited to share more with me. Independent publishing, such as Reliable Copy’s practice, transcends one-off zines and DIY publication models, as well as the nefarious art-world entity of the biographical coffee-table book that is merely aesthetically pleasing. Reliable Copy’s practice prioritises substance, critical thinking, knowledge-building, deliberation, and intentional decision-making. They are currently engaged in two main publication series. The Fine Art(s) Dissertation Series highlights (un)published dissertations from the prominent Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda as a pedagogical tool. The Wiggle Room is a playful take on contemporary art from an international standpoint, bringing together artistic practices that aim for freedom or seek to “wiggle” out of conventionalities. A common thread emerges in how they have positioned one book after another since 2018. “As the publishing practice has evolved, we have been attempting more and more to play the role of positioning the artist, the book, and their contexts,” says Sarasija. This essay unveils different ways in which I have encountered this common thread in Reliable Copy’s work during my years as a fellow dreamer of an independent publishing practice. The Surroundings of the Practice At my first meeting with Nihaal and Sarasija, I was surrounded by a host of books on a busy, traffic-filled day in Bangalore. Our meeting exposed me to the extensive labour that goes into the publication of a book. Each book’s design identity, layout, paper, fonts, and printing technology had been well thought through. I was gifted several books published by them, including Mochu’s Nervous Fossils – Syndromes of the Synthetic Nether , The 1Shanthiroad Cookbook , edited by Suresh Jayaram, and Sculptor’s Notebook by Pushpamala N. Nihaal; Sarasija said they wanted the books to travel far. Flexing Muscles (2019) by Ravikumar Kashi caught my attention due to the artist’s detailed treatment of flex banners in Bangalore. The book includes an essay in both Kannada and English, accompanied by photographs. Kashi’s in-depth artistic analysis, of a subject that I had encountered yet ignored during my visits to Bangalore, was a unique way to re-experience that city from my desk in Colombo. Mochu’s book was of a completely different tenor yet felt similar—the artist’s rich imaginarium was salient in the big blue typography, almost-dystopian imagery, and the bright yellow cover. Despite a personal aversion to speculative theory and related fiction, I held onto this book as a reminder to myself of what books can do to their readers: intrigue, move, tell stories, and impart new knowledge and perspectives. In December 2023, I, too, took a leap and published a book with three artists. Sarasija spent hours with me, the designer, and one of the artists to ensure consistency in terms of colours, fonts, paper, and printing options in India (the book was to be mainly distributed in Delhi). This level of friendship-building and support is rare, at least in the phase of the career I am in, as a writer trying to be independent. When they recently sent me a copy of the newly minted publication Supporting Role by Jason Hirata from the Wiggle Room series, I realised that for Reliable Copy, friendship is the core. They began the series in 2023 with the publication High Entertainment by David Robbins, an artist they had developed a strong connection with during their At The Kitchen Table exhibition in 2021. Hirata’s Supporting Role has emerged from the same premise, extending a close relationship with another artist who was present in At The Kitchen Table . The Wiggle Room series’ conceptualisation is immersed in the contemporary and the emerging. Each publication interrogates the meaning of “art,” particularly in relation to contemporary technologies, digital platforms, and the artist’s evolving role within broader socio-cultural and economic structures. Art is never for art’s sake. Cover page of Sculptor’s Notebook (1985) by Pushpamala N, published by Reliable Copy in 2022. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. Beyond the Limits of Language Supporting Role’ s editor’s note refers to Marcel Duchamp ’s thinking about aesthetics, language, and fine art: “What [Duchamp] makes abundantly clear is that language serves a purpose, is essential and inevitable, but that it also comes with certain limits. Sometimes as soon as one’s language is carefully delineated, it starts to impose itself, it becomes an obstacle.” Duchamp, as an art historical example, helps contextualise Hirata’s practice as presented in the book. The book is an extension of Duchamp’s idea, which continues to hold true for most linguistic endeavours. While we encounter many labels and descriptors of visual artworks, the publication never presents what might be considered a conventionally ‘visual’ artwork. We do encounter two works by him: A Storied Past (Il sogno di una cosa) (2022) and the series Grave Fatura (2023–24), but they are not conventional paintings, prints, photographs, or sculptures. The book is composed of an edited selection of texts developed by Hirata to accompany his artworks: labels for the wall, invitations to exhibitions, essays, scripts, press releases, checklists, invoices, curricula vitae, and other paraphernalia he has preserved while working in contemporary art production and display in Berlin. These roles—often performed by those around the artist, such as partners, friends, and family—are frequently overlooked. Hirata’s book documents these contributions across his career, mainly through language-based materials. They are primarily text-based artworks with two qualities innate to books—mobility and reproducibility on paper—enabling sustained engagement beyond the confines of a white cube space. While Duchamp’s critique of language remains relevant to Hirata and the visual arts today, Nihaal and Sarasija push language to its limits. Many of us, myself included, forget its role in and around contemporary art. Though we may begin with the intention to explain and contextualise, the specialised vocabulary often alienates unfamiliar audiences. Supporting Role invites us to see language not as a mere support, but as an artwork in itself. Before Wiggle Room , Reliable Copy had already facilitated unexpected transitions through time and space with language and ephemera surrounding artmaking. Their curatorial project at the kitchen table , first exhibited in 2021 at 1Shanthiroad Studio/Gallery in Bangalore, travelled to the Ark Foundation for the Arts in Baroda in 2023–24. The project considers how publishing practices could inform exhibition-making and curatorial processes. “Through this introduction of artworks as records and documents—as secondary material—and together with cookbooks and videos, at the kitchen table spills its premise across the exhibition and its documentation, the library and the gallery, and the event and its eventual publication,” the catalogue states. The display explored food, with particular attention to the channels and platforms through which food travels, inscribed with material, trace, memory, and cultural politics. It included cookbooks, menus, anthologies of recipes from literary fiction, family archives of ‘secret’ recipes, historical records, and visual and textual references to the feasts held for occasions such as birthdays, funerals, or festivals. The moving image works were particularly compelling, with some questioning, mimicking, or parodying the performative format of instructional cooking shows. Carolyn Lazard’s A Recipe for Disaster (2018) incorporates footage from Julia Child’s The French Chef (1972), which used open captions and images for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. Reflecting on this in the twenty-first century, Lazard foregrounds accessibility as a necessary aspect of social infrastructure, especially in mainstream media. The Community of the Practice During my visit to Bangalore in July 2024, Reliable Copy had just moved into a new studio. We were in the midst of a long-planned book exchange between Reliable Copy, Raking Leaves, Mumbai-based Editions JoJo, and myself. Nihaal, Sarasija, and I spoke at length about how independent publishing had evolved for Reliable Copy after their residency at Amant Art and their debut at Printed Matter’s Art Book Fair in New York earlier that year. This is when I began to consider Reliable Copy as a curatorial practice that exceeded the scope of independent publishing. By their fourteenth publication in late 2024, their carefully chosen collaborations had culminated in a new focus: actively strategising how to disseminate their books or how, as artists might say, to put the work “out there.” Nihaal spoke animatedly about a new project they had initiated: Total Runtime , a curated moving image programme that activates Reliable Copy’s publications. Featuring moving image works by artists previously published by the press, Total Runtime is mobile, flexible, and an answer to the ‘lull’. Its first iteration in New York brought together nine films, two book trailers, seven artists, and one publishing house. The participating artists included BV Suresh, David Robbins, Kiran Subbaiah , Mariam Suhail, Mario Santanilla , Mochu, and Pushpamala N. The next iteration, at Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair, showcased films by David Robbins and Jason Hirata, celebrating the latter’s new publication Supporting Role with Reliable Copy. In late 2023, they also launched Press Works, their own distribution platform, making publications by renowned international independent art book publishers accessible to local audiences. These included Primary Information and New Documents (United States), Kayfa-ta (Gulf), kyklàda.press (Aegean archipelago), Editions JoJo (India), and numerous self-published titles. The curation of this platform is deliberate and thoughtful, drawing on a network of publishers they regard as models of interest. Participation in international art book fairs continues to expand their network and deepen engagement with the global independent publishing community. Each trip to a fair introduces Reliable Copy to new publishers and, in turn, allows them to introduce readers like myself to these practices. Guided by their own interests as readers, Nihaal and Sarasija explore the wider practices behind the books and aim to offer Indian audiences not just individual titles but an understanding of broader publishing patterns. A notable example of this curatorial pattern is the Los Angeles-based New Documents , recommended to me by Sarasija. The Halifax Conference (2019) presents a transcript of a 1970 conference held at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, capturing a cacophony of voices and opinions typical of such events. Intrigued by this, I was particularly drawn to New Forms of Art and Contagious Mental Illness (2023), a collection of transcripts and pamphlets by medical scientist Carl Julius Salomonsen , who argued in 1919–20 that Modernist art constituted a kind of “contagious mental illness.” The book offers a fascinating view of Modernism as something misunderstood, even pathological, in its own time. Its format, resembling a legal document, evoked, for me, a history of ownership and transmission. Until then, my knowledge of modernism had been shaped largely by the Sri Lankan context, due to my museum work on Sri Lankan modern and contemporary art. This book allowed me to see how Europe perceived the movement as it unfolded: not from a scholarly perspective, but through the lens of a medical professional. It felt as though Nihaal and Sarasija had noted my interest in modernist art and fed it back to me through their recommendations, often sent via WhatsApp or email, regardless of distance. These messages and emails lead me to one of the most enduring aspects of Reliable Copy: its ethic of community and friendship. Jason Hirata and Sarasija Subramanian with Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–1923) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Photograph by Nihaal Faizal. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. Friendship and Publishing I first met Nihaal and Sarasija in Bangalore, during a conference organised almost serendipitously by a mutual friend. Although we have never shared a formal panel as colleagues, I have attended nearly every talk the duo has given, not out of professional obligation, but out of friendship. I have always approached their practice not as a peer, but as a friend and fellow dreamer. At a particularly difficult moment, I wrote them a long, disillusioned email, venting about the challenges of starting my own publishing practice. I spoke of the scarcity of funding and the exhaustion that comes with trying to be creative in an industry already strained by lack, especially in South Asia. Their response was generous and clear-eyed. We discussed pragmatic paths forward, and their questions led me to reconsider what sustainability might truly mean—for work, and for myself. What they offered was not false assurance, but something more lasting: the reminder that while financial stability may always remain elusive, what must persist is commitment—uncompromising, careful, and rooted in a sense of purpose. At the time, I was still grappling with what exactly my priorities were as an independent writer and curator (I still am). They reminded me that patience was not a waiting room, but a form of practice. “Once the light comes on,” they said, “you will not be able to turn it off.” Community is the spine of independent art book publishing, as Nihaal and Sarasija have told me, and as I have come to understand it myself. This community is made up of artists willing to experiment with form and failure, designers who treat legibility and beauty as twin priorities, distributors who care as much about access as they do about profit margins, and a readership that reads not out of habit but out of care. Sustainability, then, cannot be reduced to financial viability alone. It rests on the presence of a community that cares enough to read, respond, and stay. Sarasija and Nihaal have observed a growing interest in the Indian market among international publishers, mainly because there are no dedicated art bookshops or art book fairs in South Asia, and no traditional infrastructure for these books to circulate. My siblings and friends who attend such fairs in the global North have noticed this firsthand. My sister’s visit to Forma’s Art Book Fair in London resulted in a video call from the fair and a parcel of discounted books mailed to me in Sri Lanka. Similarly, for Nihaal and Sarasija, there is a community of publishers that reduces their prices for the Indian market, allowing their books to circulate more widely. There is, for Reliable Copy, a network of publishers who lower their prices for Indian readers; not as charity, but as a gesture of circulation. This atmosphere, shaped by generosity rather than competition, stands in stark contrast to the saturated and often exclusionary contemporary art market. Independent publishing here is marked by specificity and thematic intention. People are not just selling books, but also exchanging ideas, paying attention, and bringing each other’s work home. For Nihaal and Sarasija, the warmth of printed matter is not abstract. It is embedded in the everyday ethic of this community. I remain hopeful about art book publishing, not only as an industry but as a practice shaped by care. My engagement with Reliable Copy has deepened my conviction. The so-called lull of independent publishing is passing. A new generation is ready to learn from it, and to begin again, as every serious artistic movement once did.∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Essay Bangalore Reliable Copy Art History Art Institutions Contemporary Art Publishing Design Visual Art Installation Book Publishing Curiosity Language Community Nilima Sheikh Fine Arts Modernist Painting India Mughal British South Asia Nihaal Faizal Sarasija Subramanian Lull Sri Lanka Colombo Curation Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sharmini Pereira Publishing House Raking Leaves Independent Publishing Zines DIY Dissertation Education Knowledge Pedagogy Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda Art practice Suresh Jayaram Pushpamala N. Nihaal Ravikumar Kashi Kannada Mochu Color Theory Jason Hirata David Robbins Marcel Duchamp Aesthetics Production Friendship Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 2nd May 2025 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Arshia Haq describes Discostan as a “diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay.” The music is often inspired by the performative traditions of radical, avant-garde artists and musicians, a practice that defines Discostan's community engagement model. | Live · INTERACTIVE Live · Global A Set by Discostan Arshia Haq describes Discostan as a “diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay.” The music is often inspired by the performative traditions of radical, avant-garde artists and musicians, a practice that defines Discostan's community engagement model. Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. Just dance, now. At the end of our June 2021 online live event—a six-hour-long series of panels, showcases, readings, and performances—a “ diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay ”. Founded by Arshia Fatima Haq, Discostan is heavily invested in community engagement and social practice. For In Grief, In Solidarity , Haq curated a DJ set for us to let loose. SAAG Visual Designer Prithi Khalique produced the visuals, using recurring motifs from our event videos. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Live Global Music DJ Diasporic Discotheque Community Building Social Practice Art Activism Internationalist Solidarity In Grief In Solidarity Visual Design Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 5th Jun 2021 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

I have weathered many rumblings— this house reverberating through the years with yells · FICTION & POETRY Poetry · United States I have weathered many rumblings— this house reverberating through the years with yells Imdad Barbhuyan, To Hold and To Let Go (2024). Digital photograph. Ghostmother I stare at you on the swing sweater over your sari, smile like my mother’s—teeth straight as a mare’s You summon the wind: forward, back forward, back Tendrils of hair frame your face, my mother's cursive brushes letters forward, back forward, back your ashen hand reaches through the photograph, grabs my wrist आओ— my flesh twists in your grip you insist, pull me forward, आओ— I open my eyes, find you pregnant Feel, you command in Nepali my selective ear translates on impact you guide my hand to your belly Is this her? I ask, anticipating a kick below my palm Yes, you smile at the gift of a future girl तिम्रो आमा (this we know) I follow you through the house not-yet-destroyed you never saw the earthquake relief cushions my voice Oh छोरी, your head tilts in pity I have weathered many rumblings— this house reverberating through the years with yells I hold back explaining how earthquake is different I wonder at the Nepali word for reverberate uncles fill narrow hallways, tall and lithe in school uniforms they do not see me I am your shadow swollen with your pregnant belly.∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Poetry United States Ghostmother Poet Disappearance Ceremony Maternal Motherhood Translation Body Home Voice Nepal Nepali Nepali American Intimacy Asexuality Femininity Touch Family Matrilineal Art Creative Writing Ghazal Love Pain Memory Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 10th Apr 2025 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir takes a bricolage approach to historicity, with disciplined attention to the material. Even as they slip into Creole and Guyanese Hindi, his poems remain anchored in the texture of “Ghee Persad” or on the decks of a ship carrying his Indo-Caribbean ancestors in “In Ships [Honoring Mahadai Das' 'They Came in Ships.'” INTERACTIVE FLUX · Poetry Reading by Rajiv Mohabir with Marginalia AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir takes a bricolage approach to historicity, with disciplined attention to the material. Even as they slip into Creole and Guyanese Hindi, his poems remain anchored in the texture of “Ghee Persad” or on the decks of a ship carrying his Indo-Caribbean ancestors in “In Ships [Honoring Mahadai Das' 'They Came in Ships.'” SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Live Colorado Event Reading FLUX Poetry Published Work Historicity Oceans as Historical Sites Indo-Caribbean Ghee Water Personal History Guyana Antiman The Cowherd's Son The Taxidermist's Cut Cutlish Creole Guyanese-Hindi Georgetown Seawall Histories of Migrations Mahadai Das Babri Masjid Ram Temple Ayodhya Mughal Pandemic Love Story Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Live Colorado 5th Dec 2020 FLUX: An Evening in Dissent A selection of readings by Rajiv Mohabir—some published by SAAG earlier this year—to help pause, unwind, and slow time in the act of close reading and listening. Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID-19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

As Sino-Indian tensions rise in the new Indian Union territory of Ladakh at the Line of Actual Control, Ladakhi craftswomen like Sonam Dolma are returning to Kashmir to sell their authentic pashmina shawls. THE VERTICAL The Artisan Labor Crisis of Ladakh As Sino-Indian tensions rise in the new Indian Union territory of Ladakh at the Line of Actual Control, Ladakhi craftswomen like Sonam Dolma are returning to Kashmir to sell their authentic pashmina shawls. Mir Seeneen In the upscale neighborhood of Rajbagh in Srinagar, Sonam Dolma awaits a high-stakes meeting at an eatery amidst Kashmiri portraits and vintage décor. Her Ladakhi tribe’s prized Pashmina shawls made of fine Kashmiri cashmere are sought after by Kashmir’s elite who eschew mass-produced replicas for craftsmanship. In the quiet corner of the café, away from the bustling streets, Dolma prepares to showcase her wares to discerning clients—wives of bureaucrats and businessmen—who value quality and authenticity above all else. Just miles away from this serene scene lies a neighborhood scarred by floods, where Dolma’s tribe finds refuge after their daily trade expeditions. Despite this contrast, these Ladakhi women navigate Kashmir’s high society with grace, armed with exquisite products and a commitment to purity in a world of imitations. The group’s trade trips to Kashmir have become recurrent ever since Chinese troops showed up at their homeland’s hinterland in May 2020. Oblivious to the standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where Beijing has grown its military presence, the women are making their rounds of the posh localities of Srinagar with shawls in hand. This internal drive for living has come just five years after New Delhi stripped the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. Their homeland is a new spark plug in South Asia; they live in a constant state of fear. In fact, the rise of the new front—LAC—has already proven deadly. In a military standoff, Sino-India troops have suffered casualties . But beyond these border games, Beijing has forced new orders and routines compelling the Ladakhi craftswomen to return to estranged Kashmir. These young women frequent the fraught region of the valley for sustenance. Prior to their recent visits as mobile merchants, they would mostly feel at home in Kashmir. But everything changed when New Delhi sliced Ladakh from Kashmir in a cartographic attempt to redefine the contested land in the summer of 2019. Carving a union territory out of the United Nations’ registered disputed region eventually proved costly for the government of India. It provoked China—now the ominous third party of what New Delhi calls a “bilateral issue” between India and Pakistan. However, beyond Beijing’s belligerence, the decision to make Ladakh a federal entity has far-reaching consequences for the cashmere brand and its craftspeople. With China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) occupying the winter mainstay of the Pashmina goats in Ladakh, cashmere is losing its source of thread. Ladakh’s Changthang area—the land of nomads located in the east of Leh on the Chinese border—has long been a breeding ground for the Pashmina goats. The severe temperature of the area, the experts say, makes the Pashmina thread of Changthang very thin, which in turn makes these goats the source of the finest cashmere in the world. The Chinese incursions have now made it a literal no-go zone for the nomads rearing these goats. Although China is showing no signs of retreat, the military occupation has created an existential crisis for the native animal and has raised serious concerns around the globe. The nomads are reporting increasing numbers of goat deaths. These deaths—due to the occupied winter habitat of Pashmina goats—have cast shadows on the global brand. In the main towns of Leh, the Pashmina dealers are linking the supply slump to the rise of China in Ladakh. Despite the dilemma, the cashmere craftspeople are banking on their old ties with the valley. In the larger din emanating from the LAC, their Kashmir move has become symbolic. While New Delhi has separated them from Kashmir in this territorial juggling, Beijing has reunited them . New anxieties are on the rise, however, as the processing of Pashmina may be shifted out of Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh by the Indian authorities, a move that may create an impact on the cashmere wool industry. Faced with diminishing income and mounting unpredictability, Dolma made the difficult decision to seek refuge in Kashmir. At noon when most of the citizenry works, she arrives to strike some profitable exchanges. Dolma on her way to a Srinagar neighbourhood where she sells her stuff to customers. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Dolma tells me how she was born into a family of weavers in a small village 260 miles from Ladakh’s capital, Leh. She learned the art of crafting Pashmina shawls from her grandmother, who in teaching her, passed down centuries-old techniques. Dolma reflects on the journey: “The foreign incursions into Ladakh forced me to confront the fragility of life, to adapt, and evolve.” But the looming specter and uncertainty brought by a massive troop build-up, cast a dark shadow over Dolma’s once-peaceful existence. “We spend months preparing the handicraft stuff before arriving in Srinagar for work," she says. For Dolma, these rendezvous in serene corners of the city held significance beyond mere transactions. She was not just selling shawls—she was preserving a legacy, a tradition that had been passed down through generations. In a market flooded with facsimiles, she was a purveyor of authenticity, valued for her discerning eye and commitment to quality. Away from Ladakh, Dolma considers Kashmir the second home for Ladakhi entrepreneurs like herself. This Himalayan region is their main economic link to the rest of the world, aside from being the preferable market for their indigenous products. During the post-Covid distressed times, they counted on Kashmir’s booming domestic tourism. “Kashmir has never disappointed us,” says Tenzin, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “But somewhere down the line, the region’s uncertainty reminds us of our home now. It was a peaceful land before they changed its status in the summer of 2019.” The demand for a separate entity—a union territory—was a longstanding political cry in Ladakh, mostly from the members of the ruling mainstream party. The campaign gained steam after the political party swept the regional polls. Experts feared that slicing Ladakh from Kashmir would alter the course of the disputed land. But in the run-up to August 2019, when campaigns against Article 370 became fierce, Ladakh witnessed a political wave culminating in its new territorial identity. Lately, the process in Kargil has intensified with shutdowns of demand for statehood ; even the famed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk went on a 21-day hunger strike . With the altered political reality, most of these women are now anxious about the war frenzy created by the armies in their homeland. They realize how the militarization was triggered by the summer shift—when New Delhi justified the abrogation of Article 370 as a move “to end discrimination” with Ladakh and its people. But the unilateral decision backfired when the Chinese army showed up at the LAC and clashed with Indian forces. Since then the skirmishes have stopped, but the boots remain on the ground . While the border brouhaha has given Ladakh global coverage in recent times, these girls have become weary of the hyper-media attention. Like their Kashmiri counterparts, they don’t make peace with the pugnacious news debates focusing on their homeland. The mainland television media’s so-called war bulletins have only heightened tensions. What’s further creating a false sense of alarm is New Delhi’s dithering response to the LAC situation. The region has now become a new strategic zone forcing the right-wing government to build a fair-weather highway connecting Leh with Srinagar that opened this past winter. The snowbound thoroughfare used to be cut-off for six months. But now, the Indian government’s urge to keep an unflinching eye on the PLA has put men at work during extreme conditions, including the construction of a tunnel connecting Ladakh with Kashmir. Still, these young Ladakhi women see hope in Kashmir where their products are quite popular among the urban elites. However, if the status quo isn’t restored at the LAC anytime soon, these Pashmina girls of Ladakh fear losing cashmere to Chinese aggression. In the wake of this militarized uncertainty, some of the girls believe their visits to Kashmir, this estranged part of India, might alleviate their financial situation. “Life is tough back home,” continues Tenzin, while waiting for her client inside the cafeteria, and uncertainty has only escalated after the recent border tensions between India and China. Away from Ladakh, these girls share rent, rage, and respite in Srinagar before heading back home with seasonal earnings. “Most of us belong to poor families,” Tenzin continues with a thoughtful stance. “For us, our families come first. But it’s very hard to stay focused amid the changed reality now. Be it troop build-up or frontier tensions, the sense of normalcy has taken a big hit. Regardless of everything, Kashmir is the same to us as it used to be when the people of Ladakh were part of it,” she says. “Sadly, for some of us, a sense of estrangement has come to define this relationship now. And the change is there to see.” Padma Tsering, a quintessential Ladakhi woman in her early thirties from Nyoma, has been selling Pashmina in Kashmir for the past couple of years. “We’ve cultivated our customer base in Kashmir and rely on them for our livelihood,” she says. Despite their limited political awareness, Ladakhi girls like Tsering find hope in Kashmir. “There’s a sense of security Kashmir offers despite the surrounding tensions,” says Phuntsok Wangmo, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “It’s our preferred market with loyal customers, even during post-Covid times.” Dolma showcases her shawls in Srinagar during a business meeting with her client. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Meanwhile, Dolma’s wait ends as Sadaf Khan, a young Kashmiri woman, arrives at the café. Khan expresses interest in buying shawls from the weaver. “My cousin recommended Dolma to me and vouched for the quality of the shawls,” says Khan. The café comes alive with the buzz of business, some chatter, and laughter. After bidding farewell to her client, Dolma steps out into the busy thoroughfares of the city; walking home reflectively after another successful trade. ∎ In the upscale neighborhood of Rajbagh in Srinagar, Sonam Dolma awaits a high-stakes meeting at an eatery amidst Kashmiri portraits and vintage décor. Her Ladakhi tribe’s prized Pashmina shawls made of fine Kashmiri cashmere are sought after by Kashmir’s elite who eschew mass-produced replicas for craftsmanship. In the quiet corner of the café, away from the bustling streets, Dolma prepares to showcase her wares to discerning clients—wives of bureaucrats and businessmen—who value quality and authenticity above all else. Just miles away from this serene scene lies a neighborhood scarred by floods, where Dolma’s tribe finds refuge after their daily trade expeditions. Despite this contrast, these Ladakhi women navigate Kashmir’s high society with grace, armed with exquisite products and a commitment to purity in a world of imitations. The group’s trade trips to Kashmir have become recurrent ever since Chinese troops showed up at their homeland’s hinterland in May 2020. Oblivious to the standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where Beijing has grown its military presence, the women are making their rounds of the posh localities of Srinagar with shawls in hand. This internal drive for living has come just five years after New Delhi stripped the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. Their homeland is a new spark plug in South Asia; they live in a constant state of fear. In fact, the rise of the new front—LAC—has already proven deadly. In a military standoff, Sino-India troops have suffered casualties . But beyond these border games, Beijing has forced new orders and routines compelling the Ladakhi craftswomen to return to estranged Kashmir. These young women frequent the fraught region of the valley for sustenance. Prior to their recent visits as mobile merchants, they would mostly feel at home in Kashmir. But everything changed when New Delhi sliced Ladakh from Kashmir in a cartographic attempt to redefine the contested land in the summer of 2019. Carving a union territory out of the United Nations’ registered disputed region eventually proved costly for the government of India. It provoked China—now the ominous third party of what New Delhi calls a “bilateral issue” between India and Pakistan. However, beyond Beijing’s belligerence, the decision to make Ladakh a federal entity has far-reaching consequences for the cashmere brand and its craftspeople. With China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) occupying the winter mainstay of the Pashmina goats in Ladakh, cashmere is losing its source of thread. Ladakh’s Changthang area—the land of nomads located in the east of Leh on the Chinese border—has long been a breeding ground for the Pashmina goats. The severe temperature of the area, the experts say, makes the Pashmina thread of Changthang very thin, which in turn makes these goats the source of the finest cashmere in the world. The Chinese incursions have now made it a literal no-go zone for the nomads rearing these goats. Although China is showing no signs of retreat, the military occupation has created an existential crisis for the native animal and has raised serious concerns around the globe. The nomads are reporting increasing numbers of goat deaths. These deaths—due to the occupied winter habitat of Pashmina goats—have cast shadows on the global brand. In the main towns of Leh, the Pashmina dealers are linking the supply slump to the rise of China in Ladakh. Despite the dilemma, the cashmere craftspeople are banking on their old ties with the valley. In the larger din emanating from the LAC, their Kashmir move has become symbolic. While New Delhi has separated them from Kashmir in this territorial juggling, Beijing has reunited them . New anxieties are on the rise, however, as the processing of Pashmina may be shifted out of Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh by the Indian authorities, a move that may create an impact on the cashmere wool industry. Faced with diminishing income and mounting unpredictability, Dolma made the difficult decision to seek refuge in Kashmir. At noon when most of the citizenry works, she arrives to strike some profitable exchanges. Dolma on her way to a Srinagar neighbourhood where she sells her stuff to customers. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Dolma tells me how she was born into a family of weavers in a small village 260 miles from Ladakh’s capital, Leh. She learned the art of crafting Pashmina shawls from her grandmother, who in teaching her, passed down centuries-old techniques. Dolma reflects on the journey: “The foreign incursions into Ladakh forced me to confront the fragility of life, to adapt, and evolve.” But the looming specter and uncertainty brought by a massive troop build-up, cast a dark shadow over Dolma’s once-peaceful existence. “We spend months preparing the handicraft stuff before arriving in Srinagar for work," she says. For Dolma, these rendezvous in serene corners of the city held significance beyond mere transactions. She was not just selling shawls—she was preserving a legacy, a tradition that had been passed down through generations. In a market flooded with facsimiles, she was a purveyor of authenticity, valued for her discerning eye and commitment to quality. Away from Ladakh, Dolma considers Kashmir the second home for Ladakhi entrepreneurs like herself. This Himalayan region is their main economic link to the rest of the world, aside from being the preferable market for their indigenous products. During the post-Covid distressed times, they counted on Kashmir’s booming domestic tourism. “Kashmir has never disappointed us,” says Tenzin, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “But somewhere down the line, the region’s uncertainty reminds us of our home now. It was a peaceful land before they changed its status in the summer of 2019.” The demand for a separate entity—a union territory—was a longstanding political cry in Ladakh, mostly from the members of the ruling mainstream party. The campaign gained steam after the political party swept the regional polls. Experts feared that slicing Ladakh from Kashmir would alter the course of the disputed land. But in the run-up to August 2019, when campaigns against Article 370 became fierce, Ladakh witnessed a political wave culminating in its new territorial identity. Lately, the process in Kargil has intensified with shutdowns of demand for statehood ; even the famed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk went on a 21-day hunger strike . With the altered political reality, most of these women are now anxious about the war frenzy created by the armies in their homeland. They realize how the militarization was triggered by the summer shift—when New Delhi justified the abrogation of Article 370 as a move “to end discrimination” with Ladakh and its people. But the unilateral decision backfired when the Chinese army showed up at the LAC and clashed with Indian forces. Since then the skirmishes have stopped, but the boots remain on the ground . While the border brouhaha has given Ladakh global coverage in recent times, these girls have become weary of the hyper-media attention. Like their Kashmiri counterparts, they don’t make peace with the pugnacious news debates focusing on their homeland. The mainland television media’s so-called war bulletins have only heightened tensions. What’s further creating a false sense of alarm is New Delhi’s dithering response to the LAC situation. The region has now become a new strategic zone forcing the right-wing government to build a fair-weather highway connecting Leh with Srinagar that opened this past winter. The snowbound thoroughfare used to be cut-off for six months. But now, the Indian government’s urge to keep an unflinching eye on the PLA has put men at work during extreme conditions, including the construction of a tunnel connecting Ladakh with Kashmir. Still, these young Ladakhi women see hope in Kashmir where their products are quite popular among the urban elites. However, if the status quo isn’t restored at the LAC anytime soon, these Pashmina girls of Ladakh fear losing cashmere to Chinese aggression. In the wake of this militarized uncertainty, some of the girls believe their visits to Kashmir, this estranged part of India, might alleviate their financial situation. “Life is tough back home,” continues Tenzin, while waiting for her client inside the cafeteria, and uncertainty has only escalated after the recent border tensions between India and China. Away from Ladakh, these girls share rent, rage, and respite in Srinagar before heading back home with seasonal earnings. “Most of us belong to poor families,” Tenzin continues with a thoughtful stance. “For us, our families come first. But it’s very hard to stay focused amid the changed reality now. Be it troop build-up or frontier tensions, the sense of normalcy has taken a big hit. Regardless of everything, Kashmir is the same to us as it used to be when the people of Ladakh were part of it,” she says. “Sadly, for some of us, a sense of estrangement has come to define this relationship now. And the change is there to see.” Padma Tsering, a quintessential Ladakhi woman in her early thirties from Nyoma, has been selling Pashmina in Kashmir for the past couple of years. “We’ve cultivated our customer base in Kashmir and rely on them for our livelihood,” she says. Despite their limited political awareness, Ladakhi girls like Tsering find hope in Kashmir. “There’s a sense of security Kashmir offers despite the surrounding tensions,” says Phuntsok Wangmo, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “It’s our preferred market with loyal customers, even during post-Covid times.” Dolma showcases her shawls in Srinagar during a business meeting with her client. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Meanwhile, Dolma’s wait ends as Sadaf Khan, a young Kashmiri woman, arrives at the café. Khan expresses interest in buying shawls from the weaver. “My cousin recommended Dolma to me and vouched for the quality of the shawls,” says Khan. The café comes alive with the buzz of business, some chatter, and laughter. After bidding farewell to her client, Dolma steps out into the busy thoroughfares of the city; walking home reflectively after another successful trade. ∎ SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase A landscape view of Ladakh. Dolma's homeland now facing the heat of the lurking dragon. Courtesy of Masroor Khan. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reportage Ladakh Srinagar Kashmir Sino-Indian Relations China India Geopolitics Indian Union Article 370 Line of Actual Control People’s Liberation Army Changthang Labor Craftsmanship Artisans Indigeneity Settler-Colonialism Displacement Statehood Military Operations Police Action Sonam Dolma Militarization MIR SEENEEN is a freelance journalist based in Srinagar. She has worked with many international news organizations which includes The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat Magazine, TRT World, among others. 3 May 2024 Reportage Ladakh 3rd May 2024 Cracks in Pernote Tauseef Ahmad · Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth 2nd Dec Crossing Lines of Connection Arshad Ahmed · Chanchinmawia 14th Oct The Lakshadweep Gambit Rejimon Kuttapan 29th Mar Chats Ep. 7 · Karti Dharti, Gender & India's Farmers Movement Sangeet Toor 29th Apr Mahrang Baloch's Struggle Against Enforced Disappearances Shah Meer Baloch 18th Feb On That Note:

Alarms of change sounded in 2024 for the first time in Sri Lanka’s history—the leader of the controversial far-Left JVP was elected President, and the majority coalition in parliament is now led by the Marxist party. But not everyone was sold from the outset, perhaps for reasons manifest now in the current president’s follow-through on promises to the poor and respect for the historically marginalized. | · THE VERTICAL Reportage · Colombo The Citizen's Vote Alarms of change sounded in 2024 for the first time in Sri Lanka’s history—the leader of the controversial far-Left JVP was elected President, and the majority coalition in parliament is now led by the Marxist party. But not everyone was sold from the outset, perhaps for reasons manifest now in the current president’s follow-through on promises to the poor and respect for the historically marginalized. Sujeewa Kumari Weerasinghe, Full bloom (2022), oil on canvas. Sri Lanka finally has a new face at the helm—a man who brands himself as a political outsider, people’s man, and harbinger of change. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who assumed the presidency in September 2024, is navigating Sri Lanka’s road out of a crippling economic crisis that caused the masses to lose faith in the island’s political dynasties. But Dissanayake’s victory is arguably more about citizens’ disillusionment with the status quo than it is about a real belief in his politics, which are controversial particularly for his party’s history of violent insurgency during the 1970s and 1980s ; it is otherwise difficult to explain a surge in popularity from 3 percent in the 2019 election to 42 percent in the 2024 election . 2024 also marked the first instance of a president failing to claim an outright majority on first-preference votes alone, and the number of spoiled or invalid votes was the highest in history at 300,000 , more than double compared to 2019. Ultimately, all signs of an island, divided in its voting intentions. “We didn’t get anything we hoped for,” said 37-year-old government bank employee Iresha, speaking to SAAG ahead of the election about the political situation of the country over the last five years. “Politicians made empty promises. They didn’t do what they promised they would. They did what they wanted to do. Because of that, right now we are thinking that the JVP is the solution.” Sujeewa Kumari Weerasinghe, Tinted narratives 1 (2018), Mixed media on canvas. The JVP, or Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, is the political party Dissanayake is the leader of—as well as a member of the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance that claimed victory in September’s presidential elections, as well as a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections that followed two months later. The faith people have in the JVP is significant not just because they have never been in power before, but because they were responsible for two violent Marxist insurrections against the Sri Lankan government in the 1970s and 1980s that led to tens of thousands of deaths and disappearances . “They murdered people, they closed down the shops, they destroyed government property,” said rickshaw driver Chaminda Pushpakumara, explaining why he was unable to support the JVP in the election. “In 1987, it was really tough.” Pushpakumara opted instead to support incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took the reins of the country in 2022 following a desperate economic crisis caused by an ill-fated fertiliser ban, a decline in tourism amid the COVID-19 pandemic , and financial mismanagement by then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Widespread protests triggered his resignation, and he fled the country. Wickremesinghe was elected in a secret ballot less than two weeks later. He was unpopular with protesters, who saw him as a crony of the Rajapaksas, as he had served as acting Prime Minister just before Rajapaksa’s resignation. Three years after the economic crisis began, some families are still struggling to stay afloat. Auto-rickshaw driver Ajantha Gunadasa said his family sometimes has their electricity cut when they’re unable to pay the bills. “If we eat today, then we have to go to work tomorrow,” he said. “If we pay our light bill and electricity bills, then we don’t have any money for food.” It was this frustration that led him to vote for Dissanayake. Unlike Pushpakumara, he was not put off by the JVP’s past. “Who hasn’t done something bad in this country?” he said, reflecting on the decades of violence inflicted on the Tamil minority by the Sinhalese government—an issue that primary candidates engaged with far less in the most recent election than in previous ones, perhaps because the cost of living was the primary factor in most voters’ minds. “The people who came to power on a racist platform have destroyed the country,” said Gunadasa. Sujeewa Kumari Weerasinghe, Presence of the past iii (2019), oil on canvas. Former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa is one such example—when he was the defence minister, he oversaw the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tamils in Sri Lanka’s northeast in 2009, during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Although Gunadasa voted for Rajapaksa in 2019, like many others, the economic crisis changed his view of the Rajapaksa clan. “When your parents were your age, they would have lived in so much fear in Jaffna,” Gunadasa tells me, after finding out my family is from the island’s north. It’s true. I grew up hearing stories of how my mother had to flee home, fearing for her safety during the Indian Peacekeeping Force’s (IPKF) occupation in 1987 , when her house was shelled by the Sri Lankan Army. Despite his victory, Dissanayake’s electoral campaign did not connect with all voters, especially those from marginalised communities: Electoral maps show that he failed to appeal to Tamil voters in Sri Lanka’s northern, eastern and central provinces especially. This may be in part because of his positions prior to the election on several key issues. He said he would not seek to punish anyone accused of war crimes or human rights violations—including those committed against Tamils. He also campaigned against a ceasefire during Sri Lanka’s civil war in the 2000s, which was harmful to Tamil communities in the country, whose lives were torn apart by the conflict. Since they came into power, his alliance, the NPP, have dismissed the Thirteenth Amendment, which promises devolved powers to the north, as “ not necessary ”. And Dissanayake’s pre-recorded presidential address to the nation did not include subtitles or a translation in Tamil, making it impossible for many to understand, and prompting criticism from Tamils on social media. Tamils instead voted overwhelmingly for Sajith Premadasa in the last election , a two-time presidential hopeful and son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa. The elder Premadasa served as President from 1989 to 1993 before he was assassinated by a suicide bomber from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE ), the militant group who fought for an independent homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka. It might seem like the mood among Tamils has shifted in the months following Dissanayake’s victory, as the NPP swept to power across all the districts in the Tamil homeland in November’s parliamentary elections. Tamil scholar Mario Arulthas argues , however, that this is not symbolic of the death of Tamil nationalism, but rather a hope for a better economy and a frustration with Tamil politicians. And, he points out, Dissanayake’s government has continued to arrest Tamils for participating in memorialisation events for their civil war dead—reneging on election promises and suggesting a continuation of the status quo. Local government elections held in early May showed a swing away from Dissanayake’s NPP alliance once again. Dissanayake’s government is failing to meet election promises made to more groups than just Tamil voters. Dissanayake initially promised to renegotiate the bailout deal Sri Lanka struck with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under Wickremesinghe, which led to widespread austerity measures that affected the poorest Sri Lankans the most. Dissanayake has since backtracked , claiming the economy “cannot take the slightest shock”. Although the mood in Sri Lanka is hopeful a few months into AKD’s presidency, the working class is yet to be fully convinced. Little has changed in the country’s cost of living, with the poorest citizens facing yet another year of eking out a living. Dissanayake’s government has shown some sympathy, raising minimum wages by TK percent or amount—but it remains to be seen how far these changes will reach. Sujeewa Kumari Weerasinghe, Full bloom (Anatomy) (2022), oil on canvas. Gundasa’s wife was one of the many voters who spoiled her ballot. Ahead of the election, she was emotional as she explained that, as a young person, she was unable to get a job despite completing her education—a fate her children are also experiencing. Her 22-year-old daughter is unable to get a job or afford private education in Sri Lanka, while, the couple says, the children of wealthy politicians are studying at private universities abroad. “I am not voting for anyone,” she says, adding, “that’s my policy.” Corruption and the economy were the backbone of Sri Lanka’s 2024 vote, which represented a landmark shift in the country’s politics. Although Dissanayake’s promises to create a Sri Lanka that treats all its citizens equally still remain far-off goals, particularly for the country’s poorest and minority communities, his first six months in office have so far shown a willingness to shake up the status quo. “I am not a magician, I am a common citizen,” Dissanayake said as he took oath as the president of Sri Lanka. Perhaps those words were said with an awareness that the common citizens of Sri Lanka have power beyond what anybody had previously imagined—power to dismantle the ruling class and put their faith in a man who might just change it all. As for whether he really will, only time will tell. If he doesn’t, the citizens will surely have something to say. Sujeewa Kumari Weerasinghe, Full Bloom (Anatomy iii) (2022), oil on canvas. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Reportage Colombo Tamil Sri Lanka Indian & Sri Lankan Tamil Communities Sinhala Nationalism Sri Lankan Civil War Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam JVP Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna National People’s Power alliance Marxist insurrection NPP Democracy Leftist Economic Crisis Poverty Impoverished Histories Sajith Premadasa Dissanayake Dissent Minority Anura Kumara Dissanayake Ranil Wickremasinghe Gotabhaya Rajapaksa Aragalaya Mario Arulthas Discrimination Post-Aragalaya Moment Thirteenth Amendment Genocide Militarism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 16th Jul 2025 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Notes on the new SAAG design system: appropriating the predator-drone, aesthetic intimacy, international motifs, and other stories. BOOKS & ARTS Experiments in Radical Design & Typography Notes on the new SAAG design system: appropriating the predator-drone, aesthetic intimacy, international motifs, and other stories. Divya Nayar How does a magazine like SAAG understand space & geography? How does it grapple with the many South Asian communities—those acknowledged as such, and those that aren't—to begin to identify the wrongs we must right from a long legacy of media that construed and continue to construe "South Asia" so narrowly? When I set out to design a whole new SAAG, these questions were on my mind. Unconsciously, material things—street signs we passed by, patterns we'd been looking at for years but noticed again for the first time—gave me some answers that buttress our current design system, allowing for a conversation within the team from many countries. These ideas came from my own subjective personal experiences, yes, but that intimacy I felt led all of us as a team to wonder: what might everyone else find intimate? How do we bring it all together? The design system is an expression of solidarity—finding commonality in what we all see or read; wear or draw—while admitting exception and difference, and also that this is, of course, an ongoing process. Disaster Timeline: Cover Artwork Our first issue allowed us to think about space on a broader level too. More specifically we asked: How does networked space see? Through the eyes of capital and the modern surveillance state—much like the seeker-head of a predator drone—the human subject has reached the zenith of abstraction. Humanity is now a set of data points, and collective struggles, in turn, simply distant blips on a radar. Visibility doesn't come easy. In an attention economy with content tethered to the whims of capital, only the profitable survive. Large-scale disasters cannibalize attention, obscuring the slow devastation occurring across regional, social, bodily, and psychic scales on a continuous loop. It’s a circular timeline. In a sense, the apparatus of surveillance defines the contour of strife: what better way to capture that present state of invisibility than to mimic how the predator drone sees the regions discussed in the issue? Thus, Mukul Chakravarthi's cover art for Issue 1 attempts to capture the cold cartographies of collective strife through the aesthetics of the modern surveillance state. The appropriation affirms our editorial commitment to deeply human narratives that emerge in the form of rigorous local reporting but also critically in the aesthetic responses of struggle and dissent, many of which you will find in the issue. The custom display face was derived from a grid system mapping the eight main cities—from Islamabad in the west to Naypyidaw in the east—that feature in the first issue. It was an exercise conceived to be just as spatial as it was typographic. The intention was to construct a display face that gave form to regions that otherwise figured in the margins of the globalist imagination. Iconography The iconography is the foundation of Volume 2. I truly hope you come to remember these icons and the content and forms of creative work they represent. The process began with my own archival, oral history and mixed-media research, which led to a great deal of conversation and more findings from the whole design team. The iconography is inspired by textiles across many South Asian countries and communities. It is a visual representation that interweaves recurring patterns across geographies and peoples. Each icon is a recurring motif in textiles from seven or more contemporary South Asian nations, and countless communities within them. SAAG's general approach to "South Asia" is pertinent here. We deliberately do not construe "South Asia" specifically in terms of geography. As our archives indicate, this is because we recognize that: 1. Diasporic communities originating in the subcontinent exist in countries as far east and as far west as any map will show. 2. "South Asia" is generally conceived of as countries within the subcontinent, but the history of its terminology is often nationalist, divisive, and problematic for many people, even within the region's most populous country. As Benedict Anderson has argued, it is also a construction to some degree of the rise of area studies; its arbitrariness can be seen in its inconveniences: some countries in what is academically considered "Southeast Asia" share more historical, cultural, and linguistic similarities with those considered "South Asian," and vice versa.* For the purposes of our iconography, we researched motifs stretching from Laos to Iran, as well as the Caribbean. Typography & Colophon Our web typography was also selected carefully. Our primary typeface, Neue Haas Grotesk by Monotype type foundry, reflects our association with the radical origins of sans typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk . It's a remarkably sturdy sans that allows us to be flexible: based on the theme of each issue, we want to use a new display font entirely. We hope it keeps you on your toes. The body text for the work we publish was previously set in Erode by Nikhil Ranganathan and Indian Type Foundry (ITF), a startlingly original, idiosyncratic, and yet almost unobtrusive typeface that we greatly admire. Currently, we use Caslon Ionic by Paul Barnes and Greg Gazdowicz at Commercial Type, based on the influential Ionic No. 2 that has been pivotal to newspaper typesetting for over a century. We pair it with Antique No. 6 , also at Commercial Type, designed initially as a bold version of Caslon Ionic . Meanwhile, each issue of Volume 2 will use a different display typeface. For Issue 1, we chose the spiky and precise TT Ricks by TypeType. For Issue 2, we chose Marist by Dinamo. Our colophon—conceived by Prithi Khalique and designed in many iterations and styles by Hafsa Ashfaq—is a nod to our print future, inspired by one of the works first cited when SAAG began: Rabindranath Tagore's painting Head Study , a work of dazzling ingenuity that provides the metaphorical architecture for our identity. Of all the decisions we made, this one came the easiest to us. A design system that coheres around our collective past feels best to embody our aspirations for the future: we cannot predict the future, but we can take stock of the conceptual frameworks our many contributors provide to us. Moving forward, the design system will move much like the issue artwork itself: fluidly adapting to best represent the radical potential of the present in its aesthetic form. Website Our new website is a complete overhaul and a sharp contrast to the original SAAG website as well. We think fondly of what we made for Volume 1: its maximalist, wild, and mysteriously glitchy exterior paired with very serious work and dialogue. But if the eternal doom scroll has taught us anything, we are inundated with maximalist content. What we wanted was care, intentionality, attention, and flexibility: an ease to the user experience that reflects the care we took to make every choice inspired by South Asian custom, movement, or labor. We hope that our new website—designed and developed by myself and Ammar Hassan Uppal, with help and feedback from editors and designers on the team alike—flows much more organically, whilst feeling both tactile and geometric. We felt that the digital space shouldn't distract from the ideas and concepts of the difficult material discussed in Issue 1 of Volume 2 as well as in the archives. It should enhance it. What you see is also a website intended to take on the spirit of the issue currently featured, adapting at each turn. At the same time, we wanted to inject a little whimsy into the experience: easter eggs sprinkled throughout the website, which we hope you'll find. We hope to evoke a more orderly and idea-focused experience of SAAG’s content and challenge the dominant sense that the "avant-garde" need be synonymous with disorderly maximalism; instead, we eschewed both maximalism and minimalism—as well as the neo-brutalist response to minimalist design—with a warmer color palette and approachable typography. In Volume 2 of SAAG, we hope to demonstrate that we take the intellectual and conceptual happenings and developments in the worlds of design, typography, web development, etc., just as seriously as anything else. Stay tuned for forthcoming content and events on the many political-aesthetic challenges contemporary designers face, as well as how they understand, learn, teach, and reckon with the histories and legacies of design. Top of mind for us throughout this process was affect and emotion: how one might feel when one logs onto the website or reads one of our pieces? We do hope you feel welcome . ∎ * Benedict Anderson, A Life Without Boundaries ( Verso , 2018) How does a magazine like SAAG understand space & geography? How does it grapple with the many South Asian communities—those acknowledged as such, and those that aren't—to begin to identify the wrongs we must right from a long legacy of media that construed and continue to construe "South Asia" so narrowly? When I set out to design a whole new SAAG, these questions were on my mind. Unconsciously, material things—street signs we passed by, patterns we'd been looking at for years but noticed again for the first time—gave me some answers that buttress our current design system, allowing for a conversation within the team from many countries. These ideas came from my own subjective personal experiences, yes, but that intimacy I felt led all of us as a team to wonder: what might everyone else find intimate? How do we bring it all together? The design system is an expression of solidarity—finding commonality in what we all see or read; wear or draw—while admitting exception and difference, and also that this is, of course, an ongoing process. Disaster Timeline: Cover Artwork Our first issue allowed us to think about space on a broader level too. More specifically we asked: How does networked space see? Through the eyes of capital and the modern surveillance state—much like the seeker-head of a predator drone—the human subject has reached the zenith of abstraction. Humanity is now a set of data points, and collective struggles, in turn, simply distant blips on a radar. Visibility doesn't come easy. In an attention economy with content tethered to the whims of capital, only the profitable survive. Large-scale disasters cannibalize attention, obscuring the slow devastation occurring across regional, social, bodily, and psychic scales on a continuous loop. It’s a circular timeline. In a sense, the apparatus of surveillance defines the contour of strife: what better way to capture that present state of invisibility than to mimic how the predator drone sees the regions discussed in the issue? Thus, Mukul Chakravarthi's cover art for Issue 1 attempts to capture the cold cartographies of collective strife through the aesthetics of the modern surveillance state. The appropriation affirms our editorial commitment to deeply human narratives that emerge in the form of rigorous local reporting but also critically in the aesthetic responses of struggle and dissent, many of which you will find in the issue. The custom display face was derived from a grid system mapping the eight main cities—from Islamabad in the west to Naypyidaw in the east—that feature in the first issue. It was an exercise conceived to be just as spatial as it was typographic. The intention was to construct a display face that gave form to regions that otherwise figured in the margins of the globalist imagination. Iconography The iconography is the foundation of Volume 2. I truly hope you come to remember these icons and the content and forms of creative work they represent. The process began with my own archival, oral history and mixed-media research, which led to a great deal of conversation and more findings from the whole design team. The iconography is inspired by textiles across many South Asian countries and communities. It is a visual representation that interweaves recurring patterns across geographies and peoples. Each icon is a recurring motif in textiles from seven or more contemporary South Asian nations, and countless communities within them. SAAG's general approach to "South Asia" is pertinent here. We deliberately do not construe "South Asia" specifically in terms of geography. As our archives indicate, this is because we recognize that: 1. Diasporic communities originating in the subcontinent exist in countries as far east and as far west as any map will show. 2. "South Asia" is generally conceived of as countries within the subcontinent, but the history of its terminology is often nationalist, divisive, and problematic for many people, even within the region's most populous country. As Benedict Anderson has argued, it is also a construction to some degree of the rise of area studies; its arbitrariness can be seen in its inconveniences: some countries in what is academically considered "Southeast Asia" share more historical, cultural, and linguistic similarities with those considered "South Asian," and vice versa.* For the purposes of our iconography, we researched motifs stretching from Laos to Iran, as well as the Caribbean. Typography & Colophon Our web typography was also selected carefully. Our primary typeface, Neue Haas Grotesk by Monotype type foundry, reflects our association with the radical origins of sans typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk . It's a remarkably sturdy sans that allows us to be flexible: based on the theme of each issue, we want to use a new display font entirely. We hope it keeps you on your toes. The body text for the work we publish was previously set in Erode by Nikhil Ranganathan and Indian Type Foundry (ITF), a startlingly original, idiosyncratic, and yet almost unobtrusive typeface that we greatly admire. Currently, we use Caslon Ionic by Paul Barnes and Greg Gazdowicz at Commercial Type, based on the influential Ionic No. 2 that has been pivotal to newspaper typesetting for over a century. We pair it with Antique No. 6 , also at Commercial Type, designed initially as a bold version of Caslon Ionic . Meanwhile, each issue of Volume 2 will use a different display typeface. For Issue 1, we chose the spiky and precise TT Ricks by TypeType. For Issue 2, we chose Marist by Dinamo. Our colophon—conceived by Prithi Khalique and designed in many iterations and styles by Hafsa Ashfaq—is a nod to our print future, inspired by one of the works first cited when SAAG began: Rabindranath Tagore's painting Head Study , a work of dazzling ingenuity that provides the metaphorical architecture for our identity. Of all the decisions we made, this one came the easiest to us. A design system that coheres around our collective past feels best to embody our aspirations for the future: we cannot predict the future, but we can take stock of the conceptual frameworks our many contributors provide to us. Moving forward, the design system will move much like the issue artwork itself: fluidly adapting to best represent the radical potential of the present in its aesthetic form. Website Our new website is a complete overhaul and a sharp contrast to the original SAAG website as well. We think fondly of what we made for Volume 1: its maximalist, wild, and mysteriously glitchy exterior paired with very serious work and dialogue. But if the eternal doom scroll has taught us anything, we are inundated with maximalist content. What we wanted was care, intentionality, attention, and flexibility: an ease to the user experience that reflects the care we took to make every choice inspired by South Asian custom, movement, or labor. We hope that our new website—designed and developed by myself and Ammar Hassan Uppal, with help and feedback from editors and designers on the team alike—flows much more organically, whilst feeling both tactile and geometric. We felt that the digital space shouldn't distract from the ideas and concepts of the difficult material discussed in Issue 1 of Volume 2 as well as in the archives. It should enhance it. What you see is also a website intended to take on the spirit of the issue currently featured, adapting at each turn. At the same time, we wanted to inject a little whimsy into the experience: easter eggs sprinkled throughout the website, which we hope you'll find. We hope to evoke a more orderly and idea-focused experience of SAAG’s content and challenge the dominant sense that the "avant-garde" need be synonymous with disorderly maximalism; instead, we eschewed both maximalism and minimalism—as well as the neo-brutalist response to minimalist design—with a warmer color palette and approachable typography. In Volume 2 of SAAG, we hope to demonstrate that we take the intellectual and conceptual happenings and developments in the worlds of design, typography, web development, etc., just as seriously as anything else. Stay tuned for forthcoming content and events on the many political-aesthetic challenges contemporary designers face, as well as how they understand, learn, teach, and reckon with the histories and legacies of design. Top of mind for us throughout this process was affect and emotion: how one might feel when one logs onto the website or reads one of our pieces? We do hope you feel welcome . ∎ * Benedict Anderson, A Life Without Boundaries ( Verso , 2018) SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase The display-face superimposed on the cartographic grid system it arose from. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Presently The Editors Design Disaster Aesthetics Drone Warfare Surveillance Regimes Iconography Textiles Benedict Anderson South Asia as a Term Cartography Colophon Rabindranath Tagore Affect Web Design Design Process Typography Indian Type Foundry TypeType Dinamo Head Study Commercial Type Caslon Ionic Ionic No. 2 Akzidenz Grotesk Neue Haas Grotesk Antique No. 6 Monotype Divya Nayar, formerly Design Director at SAAG, is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer currently at Code and Theory. She is based in Queens. 12 Mar 2023 Presently The Editors 12th Mar 2023 Mukul Chakravarthi is a Senior Product Designer at Fidelity Labs, a Visiting Critic at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and former Adjunct Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is also a typographer, interaction designer, and architect based in San Francisco. PRITHI KHALIQUE is a visual designer and animator based in Dhaka and Providence. Hafsa Ashfaq is a visual artist, graphic designer, currently an editorial designer for DAWN . She is based in Karachi. Ammar Hassan Uppal is a professional designer and web developer based in Lahore. Into the Disaster-Verse Kamil Ahsan 12th Mar Climate Crimes of US Imperalism in Afghanistan Shah Mahmoud Hanifi 16th Oct Chats Ep. 8 · On Migrations in Global History Neilesh Bose 4th May FLUX · A Preface Divya Nayar · Kamil Ahsan · Vishakha Darbha 5th Dec FLUX · A Panel on SAAG, So Far Shreyas R Krishnan · Kartika Budhwar · Nur Nasreen Ibrahim · Aishwarya Kumar 5th Dec On That Note:

Photojournalist NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati in conversation with Shubhanga Pandey COMMUNITY Photo Kathmandu & Public History in Nepal AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Photojournalist NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati in conversation with Shubhanga Pandey SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Interview Nepal Archiving Photojournalism Photo Circle Photo Kathmandu International Festival Nepal Picture Library Library Archival Practice Exhibitions Pedagogy People's Movement II Skin of Chitwan Indigeneity Indigenous Art Practice Indigeneous Spaces Dalit Histories Anthropocene Journalism Jana Andolan II Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Insurgency Public History Public Space Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Interview Nepal 25th Nov 2020 The archive of Nepal Picture Library is there to diversity our narratives of the past and begin to look at historically marginalized histories of specific communities, whether that be along the lines of caste or ethnicity or gender. Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

“How do you laugh at untrammeled power? Either you are completely terrorized by it, or you completely delegitimize its authority by laughing in its face and doing the most absurd things.” COMMUNITY Experimentalism in the Face of Fascism “How do you laugh at untrammeled power? Either you are completely terrorized by it, or you completely delegitimize its authority by laughing in its face and doing the most absurd things.” Meena Kandasamy RECOMMENDED: The Orders Were to Rape You: Tigresses in the Tamil Eelam Struggle , the newest book by Meena Kandasamy (Navayana, 2021). RECOMMENDED: The Orders Were to Rape You: Tigresses in the Tamil Eelam Struggle , the newest book by Meena Kandasamy (Navayana, 2021). SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Chennai Sociolinguistics Avant-Garde Form Experimental Methods Dalit Literature Dalit Histories Indian Fascism Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Tamil Tigers Auto-Fiction Bhima Koregaon Marxist Theory André Breton Absurdity Explanation Affect Translation Tamil Eelam Personal History Failure Narrative Structure Meena Kandasamy is an anti-caste activist, poet, novelist, and translator. Her poetry collections, novels, and essay collections include Touch , Ms. Militancy , The Gypsy Goddess , When I Hit You , Exquisite Cadavers , The Orders Were to Rape You: Tamil Tigresses in the Eelam Struggle, and most recently, Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You . In 2022, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL), UK, and awarded the PEN Hermann Kesten Prize. She holds a PhD in sociolinguistics. 7 Sept 2020 Interview Chennai 7th Sep 2020 A State of Perpetual War: Fiction & the Sri Lankan Civil War Shehan Karunatilaka 10th Jan Kashmiri ProgRock and Experimentation as Privilege Zeeshaan Nabi 21st Dec Origins of Modernism & the Avant-Garde in India Amit Chaudhuri 4th Oct Humor & Kindness in Radical Art Hana Shafi 19th Sep Authenticity & Exoticism Jenny Bhatt 4th Sep On That Note:

Since his electoral victory in 2014, Narendra Modi’s Hindutva brigade has attempted to render Muslims invisible through hypervisibility. Mob-lynchings "don’t just happen” to Muslims. Thook Jihad is to be expected. By applying microscopic, misinformative attention to Muslim businesses, homes, and livelihoods throughout the country, the BJP has forced Indian Muslims to constantly create hideouts for their humanity. However, as Modi’s monumental loss in the recent Lok Sabha polls indicates, Muslims refusing to accept the social and psychological invisibilization are already leading the charge for a brighter electoral future. Since his electoral victory in 2014, Narendra Modi’s Hindutva brigade has attempted to render Muslims invisible through hypervisibility. Mob-lynchings "don’t just happen” to Muslims. Thook Jihad is to be expected. By applying microscopic, misinformative attention to Muslim businesses, homes, and livelihoods throughout the country, the BJP has forced Indian Muslims to constantly create hideouts for their humanity. However, as Modi’s monumental loss in the recent Lok Sabha polls indicates, Muslims refusing to accept the social and psychological invisibilization are already leading the charge for a brighter electoral future. Saara Nahar Play (2023) Watercolour on Paper 22 x 30 inches Artist · FEATURES REPORTAGE · LOCATION Bulldozing Democracy LOCATION AUTHOR . AUTHOR . AUTHOR . 10 Jan 2025 th . Letter from our columnist . When I was a child I was fascinated by the bulldozer that visited my street everyday and picked up trash from a nearby dumpyard. Bulldozers served as a good spectacle for us kids. We were intrigued by its ability to pick tonnes of trash in a matter of minutes. If you look up the term, “JCB ki khudai” (Bulldozer digging) on YouTube , you'll find dozens of innocuous videos with millions of views. In recent years, however, that imagery has changed. Today, these bulldozers produce the most horrid spectacle for kids and adults alike. Many Indian Muslims see the bulldozer as akin to an armoured tank, a tool of terror, seeking to uproot what holds their families together and stores their tangible memories and artefacts—their home. In recent years, the bulldozer has transformed from a harmless machine to a super villain serving extrajudicial punishment to its victims without trial. What stands in the way of its unrelenting arm is “enemy” territory, and the bulldozer shows no mercy. A few months ago, a dozen Muslim homes were bulldozed in Madhya Pradesh for allegedly storing beef, and men were jailed under the NSA (National Security Act) in what many Muslims widely perceived as vengeful action by the state government. In July , a Muslim man committed suicide after his home was demolished in an anti-encroachment drive in Lucknow city in Uttar Pradesh, in which hundreds of homes were demolished in a Muslim majority neighborhood. The Indian state suggested that displaced people buy alternative housing, similar to their statements on resettlements in 2015 . Other adjoining posh neighbourhoods were also meant to be demolished but were spared after an intervention by leaders of the ruling BJP and protests by the locals. In August, a sprawling 20,000 square feet bungalow—that belonged to Haji Shahzad Ali, a Muslim and former leader of the Congress party in MP—was bulldozed after he was accused of violence. A 2024 estimate by the Housing and Land Rights Network ( HLRN ) shows that government at the local, state, and federal levels demolished 153,820 homes in 2022 and 2023, resulting in the forcible eviction of more than 738,438 people from rural and urban areas across the country. Muslims were among the worst victims of these bulldozer drives. Illegal housing is a prominent issue in India. Ghettoisation, socioeconomic inequality, and mass migration to metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai adds to the problem of illegal housing. News outlets have reported between 55,000 and 65,000 illegal housing developments in India between 2016 and 2024. The issue becomes uniquely problematic when homes of Muslims are selectively targeted and are considered a fight against “ Land Jihad. ” Every now and then, there's news of a major demolition drive against the so-called “illegal homes” belonging to Muslims. Similar to the Haji Shahzad Ali case, the demolition is alleged to happen as a response to crime. Later, however, the public is informed that the demolition and the crime are unrelated, although the way it plays out is as explicit revenge. The mainstream media hails it as quick justice, all while the underlying principles of natural justice are openly violated. In November 2024, the Supreme Court of India finally passed a strong verdict against these arbitrary bulldozer drives putting an end to the retributive demolition drives, but by now much damage has already been wrought. What about those who’ve already fallen victims to this “lawlessness?” After every forced demolition and eviction, I used to wonder where these people are meant to disappear off to? They can't bury themselves underground or dive into the sea, but we hardly hear of them once the dust of the bulldozer's destruction settles. As much as this violence instils fear, it can never successfully lead to the psychological and physical retreat of an entire community. This may make you wonder—what is the best way to invisibilize over 200 million people? Bulldozing is only a symptom of the malaise that plagues India today—a cog in the larger machinery of violence. You cannot press a big red button and expect them to immediately disappear for once and all. You can’t erase them through force and violence. So, what do you do then? A real life solution to this rather troubling rhetorical question has been developed by the Hindutva nationalist forces, who relentlessly target Muslims throughout India. All while, encouraging non-Muslim citizens to distance themselves from the Muslims for their own safety. Let me demonstrate this with a recent example of the insidious way in which, through hypervisibility and violence, Muslims are forced to disappear from public life. A recent 'directive’ in the state of Uttar Pradesh asked eateries that were situated along the path of a Hindu pilgrimage to display their names. A move intended to make the “Muslim” identities of the servers, cooks, and owners clear to the buyers and discourage commerce. It started after an anti-Muslim boycott was called by a far-right Hindutva cleric, who accused Muslims of mixing meat in vegetarian food and thook jiha d —a conspiracy that Muslims spit in the food of Hindus to wage a holy war. Despite the dehumanising, absurd, and defamatory nature of this message, the state did nothing to counter the request and instead mandated shopkeepers to prominently display their names on their shops. Consequently, many Muslims were forced to shut down their shops to avoid conflict, police harassment, and mob attacks. Many faced economic losses. Some were fired by their employers after allegedly being pressured by the police. It's important to note that Uttar Pradesh is opposed to Halal food certification, which is limited to the nature of food (vegetarian or non-vegetarian) and not the identity of the person cooking, serving, or selling it. The government knows that most things that are Halal for Muslims are permissible for Hindus as well, and nobody can stop Hindus from selling them. Here, however, the state was adamant that merely displaying the religious identity of vendors and cooks can ensure the purity of food and protect the religious rights of Hindu devotees. The process is simple. First, a campaign is initiated to make Muslims seem impure, unhygienic, and Thook jihadists. Naturally, Muslims are compelled to refute these false narratives. Due to the meat sales facing on and off bans, many Muslim businesses already suffer without any compensation. To rub salt in the wound, Muslims who run vegetarian eateries get accused of mixing meat in the food. Subsequently, a demand for segregation is imposed, and Muslim businesses are singled out, marked as targets by the state—by the very state that falsely claims to be against mixing the rules of food with the rules of religion. Where's the escape from all this? It's a heads-you-lose and tails-I-win dynamic. If you’re a Muslim, you can't cook meat on holy days for Hindus. If you do then you are probably mocking someone. If you don't, then you are conspiring to pollute vegetarians. You’ll be targeted either way. While the order has faced backlash, and has now been stayed by the Supreme court, it's not a one-off instance. In the last decade, we have witnessed this strategy play out in real time with the spread of an all pervasive vitriol that targets every aspect of Muslim life in India—from the God they pray to, to the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the language they speak, and now their homes, jobs, and families. What is supposed to be an innocuous and essential activity for others becomes a malicious conspiracy for Muslims. Undoubtedly, this humiliation has been sustained through violence and victim blaming. In one month since the election results were declared on June 4 , at least 12 Muslim men were brutally lynched across India. Perhaps, even most Muslims with no knowledge of English now know the meaning of the rather complex English word ‘lynching’. It's something that worries all of them and yet it has gradually become so mundane that it outrages only a few of them. After the recent wave of attacks, many Muslims questioned the silence of a now significantly stronger opposition party and even forced them to raise their voice in Parliament. For the opposition parties, however, this silence was a matter of convenience. In the past, they sought Muslim votes by acknowledging the threat of Hindutva, but continued to do nothing. They gaslit Muslims into not saying a word. For their voices to be heard, Muslims need to make their votes count and use every platform to organise, speak, and negotiate. Modi's reduced numbers in the parliament in 2024 has already proven this. The growing menace that systematically works to erase Muslim voices from the national discourse through various forms of terror is comprehensive. Sometimes it is done through withholding online content and other times through threats and legal cases. This is what happened with the fact checker, Mohammad Zubair , who was arrested in six consecutive trumped up cases. He was recently booked under sedition for exposing a hate speech. Note here that the severity of action against the hatemonger is nothing compared to the charges against Zubair. In August 2024, two Muslim migrant workers from West Bengal were attacked by a mob of cow vigilantes in Haryana. One of them succumbed to his injuries. The other , however, managed to escape. Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini said that "It is not right to call it mob lynching,” because beef is illegal in Haryana. We don't know how the CM assumed that the two men had consumed beef. Around the same time, an elderly man was assaulted in a moving train by a mob on accusations of eating beef. On July 6 2024, the police in Uttar Pradesh booked two Muslim journalists for calling the murder of a Muslim man a ‘mob-lynching’. They were charged for creating communal unrest through malicious misreportage. All they did was report the family's version of the event. This is not an isolated incident in which those reporting on violence against Muslims have been targeted. On one hand, the Indian government has stopped publishing data on lynchings after calling its own methodology unreliable and on the other it attacks and tries to discredit every voice that investigates it. The few voices reporting on the lynchings are facing threats and censorship, gradually forcing them into silence. Indian Muslims see meanings twisted out of context everyday. For instance, a lynching is not reported as a lynching. Instead, it’s reported as the response to or punishment for a “robbery,” “child kidnapping”, or something similar. At the same time, a group of prominent right-wing clerics openly calling for genocide is dismissed and those calling them out might be booked under criminal charges. Reporting on this type of speech is considered “disturbing the peace.” The mainstream media has also shown little interest in these cases. The last decade saw a wave of hateful attacks through the news, social media, films, poetry, and music, to further invisibilise Muslims. Hate speeches are not confined to obscure corners, they dominate public discourse and are amplified by TV anchors and prominent social media influencers. A recent Human Rights Watch report pointed out that 110 out of 173 poll speeches by PM Modi contained Islamophobic remarks. Modi referred to Muslims as infiltrators and people producing more children. He even alleged that if the opposition won power, they'll give away the gold of Hindu women including their Mangalsutras to Muslims. Throughout the polls, BJP constantly published cartoons depicting Muslims as evil people eyeing the resources that belonged to Hindus. The PM’s message trickled down into the abyss of the bottomless cesspit, leading to more unhinged commentary by other leaders. This kind of hate mongering during elections is a first for India. It's a culmination of years of propaganda by WhatsApp troll armies and TV anchors like Suresh Chavhanke who dehumanise Muslims on live TV, and clerics like Yati Narsinghanand Giri who openly support the idea of a genocide of Muslims. The combination of these tactics seeks to marginalise Muslims and to systematically erase their presence in public life. The burden of proof and the onus to act in an "acceptable" way disproportionately falls on the Muslims. If they protest or turn bitter, that would reinforce negative stereotypes. Muslims must stay aware of these traps and not become silent. Be it the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests or the biggest political upset of Mr Modi's career in the recent Lok Sabha polls–in which he lost the majority in the parliament–Muslims have played a great role in these pushbacks. They have displayed resilience and resistance on many occasions which proves that they haven't given up on their citizenship. So, silence should not be an option. As a strategy, it is suicidal. Instead, they need to make their presence felt and reclaim public space. They must seek accountability from both the ruling party, as well as the opposition they voted for in large numbers. It's hard to predict how Muslims can break this cycle of violence and propaganda but what is clear is that they'll have to firmly stand up for themselves first if they want others to join them. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Opinion Madhya Pradesh Demolition Uttar Pradesh Hindu Extremism Hindu Fascism Hindutva Thook Jihad Halal Muslim invisibility hypervisibility Invisibilizing Muslims Citizenship Amendment Act mob-lynching Dehumanization Land jihad bulldozing bulldozers Ghettoisation Ghettoization illegal homes BJP National Security Act Religious Conflict religious divide Lok Sabha Archive of Absence Career Politicians Modi Civil Society Displacement Economy Vendors Construction Despotism Disappearance Dissent Enforced Disappearances Extrajudicial Killings Execution Forced Disappearance Ghost Workers Human Rights Violations India democratic backsliding nationalism democracy housing urban development Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note: