A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. COMMUNITY Discourses on Kashmir A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. Huma Dar · Hilal Mir · Ather Zia Just over a year after the repeal of Article 370 from India's constitution, pro-India Kashmiri political parties called for an alliance. What did it all mean? In our second panel from October 2020, Kashmiri activist-scholars Ather Zia & Huma Dar, and journalist Hilal Mir, discuss the predominant discourses of Kashmir that pervade public and international narratives with Editor Kamil Ahsan. The wide-ranging discussion discusses Indian-occupied-Kashmir, India as a settler-colonial state, journalism & how the Azadi Movement and the repeal of Article 370 are depicted, and the many self-serving narratives that don’t take Kashmiri realities into account. Just over a year after the repeal of Article 370 from India's constitution, pro-India Kashmiri political parties called for an alliance. What did it all mean? In our second panel from October 2020, Kashmiri activist-scholars Ather Zia & Huma Dar, and journalist Hilal Mir, discuss the predominant discourses of Kashmir that pervade public and international narratives with Editor Kamil Ahsan. The wide-ranging discussion discusses Indian-occupied-Kashmir, India as a settler-colonial state, journalism & how the Azadi Movement and the repeal of Article 370 are depicted, and the many self-serving narratives that don’t take Kashmiri realities into account. SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Watch the panel on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Panel Kashmir Intellectual History Settler-Colonialism Longue-Duree of Kashmiri Struggle Movement Organization Revolution Colonialism Burhan Wani People's Alliance for Gupkar Subaltern Studies Palestine Affect Internationalist Solidarity Media Blackout Radicalization Narratives Bollywood Occupation Genocide Pogroms Erasure Mass Protests War Crimes Movement Strategy Emancipatory Politics Humanitarian Crisis Activist Media International Law Hindutva Military Crackdown Military Operations Kashmiri Struggle Discourses of War Nationalism HUMA DAR 's paternal family was ethnically-cleansed from Srinagar, Kashmir in 1948 for demanding plebiscites under the UN Resolutions. Her maternal family, exiled from Kashmir after accepting Islam during the Dogra regime, fought for Independence from the British. With a background In interdisciplinary Studies, Dar lectures in the departments of Gender & Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies at University of California at Berkeley and in the Department of Critical Studies and Philosophy at California College of the Arts. Dar’s work is focused on the intersections and co-formations of race, religion, class, caste, gender, sexuality, and national politics of South Asia and South Asian diasporas, centered on intellectual and political activism for social justice, especially in Indian Occupied Kashmir. Her published work includes “Cinematic Strategies for a Porno-tropic Kashmir and Some Counter-Archives” in the Journal of Contemporary Theory and pieces in several edited volumes focused on South Asia. Dar is a feature writer at Pulse Media , a collaborative political, activist, and academic weblog, and is a published poet. She is a founding member of the working group on “Muslim Identities & Cultures,” and organized the feminist conference, Boundaries in Question on the theme of Women and War, both at UC Berkeley. HILAL MIR is a freelance Srinagar-based journalist. He has previously reported for Greater Kashmir, Hindustan Times, The Huffington Post, and Kashmir Reader . Ather Zia is a political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and columnist. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley, the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir, and The Frame , and the co-editor of Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak , Resisting Occupation in Kashmir, and A Desolation called Peace. Her work has received the Gloria Anzaldua Honorable Mention award, the Public Anthropologist Award, among many others. She is the founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and is the co-founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective . 24 Oct 2020 Panel Kashmir 24th Oct 2020 To Posterity Paweł Wargan 30th Apr Occupation and Osmosis Ryan Biller 26th Oct Chats Ep. 7 · Karti Dharti, Gender & India's Farmers Movement Sangeet Toor 29th Apr Exhaustion & Emancipation Asad Haider 10th Mar The Craft of Writing in Occupied Kashmir Huzaifa Pandit 24th Jan On That Note:

While Pakistan doubles down on deporting Afghan Refugees, filmmaker Rani Wahidi covers the story of an Afghan musician, Javid Karezi, and his family, to bring to light the difficulties Afghan refugees face after migration. BOOKS & ARTS The Limits of Documentation While Pakistan doubles down on deporting Afghan Refugees, filmmaker Rani Wahidi covers the story of an Afghan musician, Javid Karezi, and his family, to bring to light the difficulties Afghan refugees face after migration. VOL. 2 PROFILE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Untitled, digital embroidery on fabric. Mohammad Sabir (2024) ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Untitled, digital embroidery on fabric. Mohammad Sabir (2024) SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Profile Quetta 14th May 2024 Profile Quetta Afghan Refugees State Repression Afghan Deportations The Failed Migration Documentary Film Musician Taliban Undocumented Afghan Refugees Faiz Ahmed Karezi Rani Wahidi Dari Farsi Proof of Registration Card Incarceration Civil Society NGOs CNIC Afghanistan Employment Unemployment 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. It’s late 2022 and singer Javid Karezi is sitting on stage with his harmonium surrounded by his new band. They’re at a wedding ceremony in Quetta, Pakistan. Karezi is mid-song when a middle-aged man interrupts him. Up until now, Karezi’s singing has only caused guests to leave. The man—apparently the host—asks Karezi to sing a song in Pashto. Karezi is taken aback by this request—he is being asked to sing in a language he is not fluent in. He tries to put it off, but eventually decides to ask his fellow bandmate, Waseem, to sing the requested song instead, and sits off to the side. This is a scene from documentary filmmaker Rani Wahidi ’s film, The Failed Migration , where she follows the Karezi family’s journey of deportation from Pakistan to Afghanistan. As a celebrated singer, the son of renowned Afghan singer Faiz Ahmed Karezi, and a sixth generation musician, Karezi is used to being in the spotlight. But when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, life took more turns than he could have ever imagined. In August 2021, after their successful takeover of Kabul , the Taliban banned music —leaving Karezi and his fellow musicians devoid of their livelihoods. By April 2022, Karezi, his wife, and 5 children, packed up their lives and moved to Pakistan by way of the Chaman border crossing—and they weren’t the only ones. They joined the growing community of roughly 4 million Afghan refugees . A majority of them have lived in Pakistan since the late 1970s and about 1.7 million are undocumented. If not for films like Wahidi’s The Failed Migration , the struggles experienced by generations of Afghan families in Pakistan would be largely ignored, likely due to xenophobia, political disputes, and the government’s neglect of these very issues. “Musicians have a gift and the Taliban took that from them. Anyone can open a shop, but not everyone has such a skillset, so to take that from someone is very bad,” Wahidi says, adding that while foreign media often covers such issues, “ we live our stories, we can revisit them anytime. They are close to us, we can explain them better, keeping our own contexts and lived experiences in mind, and we have a lot of time to tell our story.” Karezi had little contact with other Afghan musicians during his time in Pakistan, as he tried to focus on making a living for himself. He's proud of what he does, and is teaching his son to play the tabla as well. Wahidi’s skillset is also her talent but it’s been unable to substantively help Karezi in the struggle of being an Afghan refugee in Pakistan. As a singer of Dari and Farsi—languages not commonly spoken or understood in Quetta—he was only ever hired for a few functions. He found informal work that provided little economic, health, and food security. Even when he did book wedding ceremonies or events, the money wasn’t enough, especially after being divided amongst the larger band that he performed with. Coming home from a gig one night, as Wahidi’s film shows, Karezi asks his daughter what the doctor said about his wife’s condition since she’s been sick for a while, only to find out that she needs to be put on an oxygen supply and requires more medicine—which he can already barely afford. Like most Afghan refugees, Karezi lives on the sidelines, taking part only in the informal employment sector—but not all experiences are the same. As a development worker, Elaine Alam has worked extensively with Afghan refugee communities and divides them roughly into two categories. “On one hand, [there] are the Afghan refugees you see at Peshawar University or Quaid-e-Azam University. They’re coming from a certain background in order to pursue education, which does not negate their challenges but does give them a certain privilege because they have an understanding of how to acquire things,” she told me. “Then you have people coming from a tribal background. These refugees come from a larger population, and have no leadership, no security, and no safety. Their only point of contact is the Commissionerate for Afghan refugees, which focuses on government plans and allowances through UNHCR.” The second category are the ones most at risk for deportation and detainment, and usually live in katchi abadi (slum areas). They have no access to healthcare or education, leaving them in a cycle of odd jobs with a fear of getting caught by authorities. Elaine puts Karezi somewhere in the middle of the two since he possesses a skillset he can use. However, his informal living situation along with a disruptive climate impedes his progress, placing him much closer to the second category. Karezi may be the spotlight of Wahidi’s film, but his story speaks to a much larger journey experienced by Afghan refugees in Pakistan. After a couple of months with his family cooped up inside a small and bare apartment, Karezi decides to take his children to a park in an effort to distract them from their struggles. With no schools willing to admit them, the five children grapple with settling in, and are distraught at having lost access to education. “His two older daughters were affected the most. One is in grade 10 and the other is in grade 7, and both were denied admission to school because they were considered over age,” Wahidi says, highlighting this as one of the top most struggles Karezi faced after migration. But experiences of young Afghans across the country—even second and third generation immigrants born in Pakistan—show that this is just an excuse hiding a much larger problem. Miles away in Karachi, 19 year-old Shabana Ghulam Sakhi worries about the future of her education after not being admitted into any university in the country. Because she doesn’t have any form of Pakistani identification, Ghulam, and other refugees like her, can only attend the Afghani school—–which has very few qualified teachers. This is where she completed her intermediate exams. “My English is very weak because we study English separately as one subject, and even for that we don’t have good teachers, so we really struggle after that,” she informed me in an interview. “I feel helpless. I did a 6 month digital marketing course that the UNHCR arranged for us at our school but still haven’t received the certificate, so I can’t do anything,” she says. Between limited access to education in Pakistan and the Taliban halting girls' education in Afghanistan , Karezi was stuck. He came to Pakistan hoping to prioritize his children’s education but ended up having to go back. His daughter Sabia, who Wahidi has also centered in the film, often talks about how she misses school. Left with no choice but to journey back to Afghanistan, Karezi returned in 2023. Fully aware of the restrictions on women’s education, Sabia worries about when she’ll get the opportunity to go to school again. Several circumstances forced Karezi to leave, but others have experienced something different—deportation—following newly established policies. The second phase of Pakistan’s new policy started after Eid , when police were instructed to identify locations where undocumented Afghan refugees were living. Officials have confirmed the intention to depor t Proof of Residence or POR card holders despite negotiations with various stakeholders still underway. Shabana Ghulam Sakhi has spent much of the last year trying to get her brother out of jail after he was detained by the police—despite having a valid POR card. “They hid his card, and claimed he was illegal and detained him. It was only when we found a copy at home that they suddenly reproduced it and let him go,” she says. Throughout the conversation, she voiced her worries about the future, unable to identify a way to support herself and her family. Those who remain in Pakistan live in constant fear; they find themselves terminated from jobs, detained by police, all while struggling to get their POR cards reissued. These cards form the basis of their identity, since Afghans are not issued Computerized National Identity Cards or CNICs . Not having a CNIC was also one of the reasons Karezi was unable to find formal employment and get his daughters admitted into a school in Pakistan. The policies around deportation treat Afghans as second class citizens and have shaped Pakistani citizens’ mindsets for a long time. Many Pakistanis continue to believe that the Afghan deportations are a good thing . This is partly why Wahidi found it so difficult to make her film. “For me, the biggest challenge was that in Pakistan, making a documentary on Afghans is difficult, because we don't want them accepted as a society,” she said in an interview. “There’s been no documentary on Afghans in mainstream Pakistani media since the Taliban came to power,” she added. Still, Wahidi made huge efforts to depict the reality of the Afghan refugee crisis, but there is a long way to go in resolving the issue. “It’s important that NGOs and civil society actors continue to do whatever they can in their own capacity and power, so that they can support young Afghan refugees and children. But, until the government doesn’t sort out what the rights of these refugees are, the rights of these people living on this soil for 4-5 decades, it's hard for the other 2 entities [NGOS and civil society] to agree on something concrete,’ says Alam. The film ends with more questions than answers about Karezi, which, perhaps, best reflects his reality. When I last spoke to Wahidi, she said she could no longer get in touch with Javid. The film ends with Karezi jobless in Afghanistan, hoping to find daily wage jobs as a laborer or similar. But he wants more for his children—as does every Afghan parent—regardless of whether they choose to stay. The problem is, for now, that both situations seem equally bleak. Still, Karezi finds comfort in knowing that he and his family are home, where their identity will not inhibit their plans. ∎ More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

· COMMUNITY Interview · Progressive Rock Kashmiri ProgRock and Experimentation as Privilege The Delhi-based Kashmiri musician & Ramooz frontman on how growing up in occupied Kashmir shaped his soundscapes through violence, and how genre experimentation and fluidity serve to address grief and trauma. Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. Living in Kashmir, in an atmosphere so accustomed to murder, rape, disappearances—it's directly affected the way I perceive and interact with sound. A loud thud might be an interesting sound for many. It's traumatizing for me. RECOMMENDED: Imtihan by Zeeshaan Nabi, Qassam Hussain ft. Denis Thomas ( Meerakii Sessions, Season 1, Episode 1, October 2022) SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Interview Progressive Rock Kashmir Music Music Criticism Kashmiri Folk Music Contemporary Music Ramooz Dream Theater John Cage Ahmer Javed Experimental Methods Experimental Music Experimental Electronica Literature & Liberation Literary Solidarity Depictions of Grief Sound Occupation Genre Fluidity Genre Tropes Genre Intentional Audio Community Building New Artists Delhi Indian Fascism 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. 21st Dec 2020 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:

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. · FEATURES Opinion · Madhya Pradesh 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 Bulldozing Democracy 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. 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 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 Jan 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:

Despite the marketing of her debut novel "Gold Diggers," Sanjena Sathian did not set out to interrogate the model minority myth or the dynamics of class in the Indian-American diaspora. Instead, she began with the relationship of a mother and daughter. The world of an "uncritical and unthinking ambition" gradually began to assert itself in the narrative. INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 10 · On Ambition, Immigration, Class in “Gold Diggers” Sanjena Sathian Despite the marketing of her debut novel "Gold Diggers," Sanjena Sathian did not set out to interrogate the model minority myth or the dynamics of class in the Indian-American diaspora. Instead, she began with the relationship of a mother and daughter. The world of an "uncritical and unthinking ambition" gradually began to assert itself in the narrative. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Live Georgia Ambition Class Class Struggle World-building Fiction Debut Authors Debut Novel Upper-caste Rules Rule-breaking Immigration Cultural Narratives of Immigration Indian-American Exceptionalism Indian-American Diaspora Good Immigrant Novels BIPOC Audiences Explanation Immigrant Pressure Unconscious Identity Miranda July Vanity Gold Diggers Ruth Ozeki Latin American Literature Magical Realism Japanese Literature Alchemy Satire Fantasy Science Fiction Genre Genre Tropes Genre Fluidity Jhumpa Lahiri Zadie Smith Philip Roth Irreverence Diaspora Big History Revisionism Myth of the Model Minority Mythology Private Schools Gold Rush Eternalism Temporality SAAG Chats SANJENA SATHIAN is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Gold Diggers , currently being adapted for TV with Mindy Kaling. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker , The New York Times , The Atlantic , The Southern Humanities Review , The Best American Short Stories 2022, and more. She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a former Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. She lives in Atlanta and is currently a Fiction Fellow at Emory University. DISPATCH Live Georgia 21st Jun 2021 Writer and journalist Sanjena Sathian in conversation with Vishakha Darbha about rule-breaking, questions from her publishing team, whether explaining world-building came easily to the writing of her debut novel, Gold Diggers (Random House, 2021), what makes a "good" immigrant novel, and writing about the Indian-American diaspora in its own mythologies, complications, and exceptionalism. 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:

Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. COMMUNITY Nation-State Constraints on Identity & Intimacy Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Literary Solidarity 17th Dec 2020 Interview Literary Solidarity Bengali Internationalist Solidarity Black Solidarities Satyajit Ray Statelessness Colonialism Language South Asian Women's Creative Collective South Asians Against Police Brutality Abner Louima Anthony Baez Literature & Liberation Diaspora Identity Community Building Post-George Floyd Moment Immigration Race & Genre Short Stories Fiction Avant-Garde Form Avant-Garde Traditions Emancipatory Politics Experimental Methods Rabindranath Tagore Mrinal Sen Separatism Tamil Separatists Punjabi Separatists Rajiv Gandhi Separatist Movements in India Indian Diaspora Syria 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. I fight for a world without borders, but they're borders wrenched in reaction to colonialism, and fortified against the spread of English. It's interesting how capitalism homogenizes while making people want to put up walls. RECOMMENDED: A New Race of Men from Heaven: Stories (Sarabande, 2023) by Chaitali Sen More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

For Roma feminist scholar Nicoleta Bitu, Roma identity is intrinsically linked to intersectional feminism. Drawing on the familial lessons of her upbringing and her exposure to political activism as she came of age, Bitu introduces a new intellectual framework of gender equality and women’s liberation—one that not only benefits members of her ethnic community but also enriches broader discourse on feminist theory. For Roma feminist scholar Nicoleta Bitu, Roma identity is intrinsically linked to intersectional feminism. Drawing on the familial lessons of her upbringing and her exposure to political activism as she came of age, Bitu introduces a new intellectual framework of gender equality and women’s liberation—one that not only benefits members of her ethnic community but also enriches broader discourse on feminist theory. Anna Rabko, Roma night (2024). Digital illustration. Artist Bucharest AUTHOR · AUTHOR · AUTHOR 3 Feb 2025 rd · FEATURES REPORTAGE · LOCATION Theorizing the Romnie When asked how she became a Roma activist and built an entire career out of it, Nicoleta Bițu replied, with her childlike smile: “Well, it's a long story…” Bițu grew up in an exceptional Roma family where both parents proudly displayed their Roma identity during the communist era, a regime that spanned four decades and, like the rest of Eastern Europe, ended in 1989. While many “integrated” Roma hid their identity out of shame and fear of social repercussions, Bițu's parents lived their Roma identity publicly, almost like a manifesto. “My father was born and raised in a hut,” Bițu recalled. At 13, he ran away from home, went to Bucharest, and enrolled in an automotive school with a boarding facility. At that time, the left-wing Romanian state was strongly encouraging poor people to pursue an education, which allowed Bițu's father to stay in a boarding school. He was later recruited for the non-commissioned officers' school and continued with evening Law Faculty. Bițu emphasized how Romania’s left-wing government was crucial in giving her father the opportunity to become a general. “I wouldn't be here with you today if that socialist state hadn't given him that chance,” she stated. “Do you understand how important it is for a state to take responsibility for the education of poor children, creating human resources?” Bițu laments the loss of social democracy, which she saw as a benchmark in the 1990s. The communist regime in Romania lasted from 1947 to 1989 . A hopeful project which—according to historian Alexandru Groza—stopped the royalty from leeching off society and attempted to eliminate social inequalities in Romania, it transformed—during its implementation stage (before ‘64) and in its last two decades–into one of the cruelest dictatorships in 20th-century Europe. “My father was dedicated to Romania, loyal if you will,” Bițu said, “and he remained left-wing until he died.” Sometimes he was even “too nationalist” for her taste, which would cause disputes between them. “The entire police force knew him as Biță Țiganu ( Biță The Gypsy ),” she added, “because, no matter what, he never hid his identity.” Bițu comes from both a family of Roma aristocrats—from her mother’s side—and one of traditional coppersmiths dressed in skirts, vests, and headscarves, from a compact Roma community. She believes this background is why her family reacted seriously to every injustice. When racial discrimination was not even a topic of conversation in Romania, she grew up hearing the word “racism.” For Bițu, what she saw in her parents’ house was also a form of activism. In Roma culture, you have an obligation to help the extended family, and she remembers that the four-room apartment, in a neighborhood almost devoid of Roma, was always occupied. “Some came to attend school, some came to go to the doctor, some cousins ran away from home because her husbands beat her,” Bițu recalled. “We were somehow a family with resources—not necessarily material resources—we were never rich—but [in] resources of information, networks, space [instead].” In 1977, Nicolae Gheorghe , who would become the father of Romani civic activism in Romania and Nicoleta Bițu’s husband, entered Bițu Țiganu ’s family. In the Romania of the '90s, society was marked by riots between Romanians, Hungarians, and Roma, leading to the destruction of hundreds of houses, deaths, and the displacement of large groups of Roma population. Hatred against others boiled in the blood of post-communist Romanian society. Nicolae, who had brought the necessary funds for rebuilding houses burned during an interethnic conflict, took Bițu to work with the Roma. She was 21 and it was her first year being an activist. One year later, in 1992, she was admitted to the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work in Bucharest, among the first generation that occupied the special places reserved for Roma students. “I was fascinated by Nicolae Gheorghe's personality,” she reflected, “though I don't think there was anyone who wasn't. But Roma activism was our inspiration. We protested. We went out into the field. Somehow, it gave you a sense of purpose. It was hard not to fall in love with him; I don't think I was the only one. He had extraordinary courage to fight everyone for the Roma.” At the age of 40, in 2010, Bițu began her Ph.D. at the National School of Political Science and Public Administration in Bucharest. Her thesis, Roma Women and Feminism, was the first in Romania to address the subject of Roma feminism. In 1993, she became one of the founders of the Romani CRISS center , an NGO that provides legal assistance in cases of abuse, remaining with them until she left the country for the first time in 1999. Bițu lived with her husband and two daughters in Warsaw, Poland, for seven years. For Biţu, the anchor remained her proximity to her community and her responsiveness to their suffering. “It didn't matter to me what non-Roma people said about us,” she said. ”Perhaps it was due to the dignity with which I was raised, that I didn't require validation from non-Roma individuals to know who I am.” Although she was very proud of her father as a public figure, Nicoleta Bițu strongly disapproved of many of his behaviors within the family. She believes her becoming a feminist was no coincidence—that the violence she witnessed (her father's against her mother) played a decisive role. She raised her voice at every opportunity, claiming she didn't believe a father who beat his wife could truly love his children. “I was very young when I started asserting this in the family,” Bițu recalled. “I had no contact with feminist literature back then, I was just reacting to injustice the way I was taught to.” As a student in 1993, she wrote her first essay about Roma women in conflicts and how they ensure the continuity of everyday life, based on her fieldwork from conflict-affected communities. “Little did I know that it was feminism,” Bițu reflected. There were also moments when Bițu clashed with some of her male Roma colleagues over how they treated her. In the 1990s, the tendency to control women's sexuality was pronounced, especially among Roma women, who were severely punished for engaging in sexual relationships outside marriage. “I was the subject of such discussions where I was called a whore,” confessed Bițu, who then started reading everything she could find on the subject of women’s rights and female sexuality. In 1998, at a meeting of Roma women in Budapest she met the directors of the women’s program at the Soros Foundation in New York, who invited her overseas the following year. Bițu was 28 at the time but had over nine years of activism experience, with just two breaks, worth three months each, to breastfeed her children. It was only in New York that Bițu received her first real feminist books from one of the directors with whom she developed a deep friendship, including bell hooks, Simone de Beauvoir, Angela Davis, and Kimberlé Crenshaw. “My bible was Ain't I a Woman by bell hooks,” shared Bițu, for whom the book provided answers to many of her personal questions in the Roma movement. “I never let go of that book; I felt that woman was speaking to me.” In 1999, Bițu presented the first report to the Council of Europe on the situation of Roma women in Europe and has since continued tirelessly on the path of feminism. Her discourse has evolved over time, she said, from blaming Roma culture to focusing on racism and later on misogyny. “When I first heard the concept of intersectionality, the sky lit up for me,” Bițu reflected. “These were such moments of enlightenment that helped me reinterpret and reach a nuanced discourse, sufficient to do justice to my people, but also to help me understand myself, as a person and a woman, from a historical and intersectional perspective.’ When she began her Roma feminist trajectory, she was called a traitor to her people for “distracting attention from the racism against Roma” to address a portion of it towards Roma feminism. “Intersectionality somehow gives you the opportunity to analyze the problem as a whole,” Bițu shared. “It gives me the example of early marriages, which are not just about misogyny but also about historical racism.” Early and forced marriages are still a problem in Romania. The 2021 census revealed that 521 girls aged 11 to 14 were living in so-called “consensual unions.” Although this type of abuse is not unique to Roma communities, it is believed to be partly an inherited consequence of the so-called “right of the first night ” of Romanian landowners over their Roma slaves, during the centuries-long Roma slavery on Romanian territory. To prevent their masters from exercising this right , Roma families often preferred to marry their daughters at a very young age. For Bițu, feminism has brought to light a historical perspective that did not exist before. From the way she understood feminism and the responsibility she felt over reconstructing the suppressed identity of her people, she turned towards art, culture, and historical documentation. During the last decade and a half, Nicoleta Bițu’s life has been marked by the construction of spaces, identity, and culture, different from the traditional, oral ones, that are lived in communities. She contributed to the Roma digital archive, European Institute of Roma Art and Culture, and the Roma Museum. “Unfortunately, today there are [even] fewer women in the Roma movement than there were in my time,” Bițu claimed. “It's a very tough men's world,” she continues decisively, almost with anger. “It's very hard to stand upright. I'm talking about myself now. I can't speak for others. The thing is, they [men] won't accept you as an equal, and when you reach the same level as them, you become a danger, and they come after you.” Are there any Roma male feminists in Romania? “No,” she answered. “Nobody. In words only, yes. But not in their personal lives and inner beliefs.” In 2019, Bițu migrated to England without a concrete plan. Initially, Bițu worked at a product packaging warehouse, in her own words, “experiencing humility in a dignified manner.” However, her path took a significant turn when she attended a job fair organized by a foundation dedicated to aiding the homeless. There, she applied for a position as a social worker and secured an interview, eventually joining the team in central London devoted to assisting 120 Roma individuals experiencing homelessness. Bițu couldn't help but question the twists of fate that led her back to a similar situation, thousands of kilometers away from home. Her family teased her about the irony of her journey, yet she came to realize that she hadn't left behind her people, but rather expanded her engagement with the Roma movement beyond Romania. With newfound determination, she dedicated the next four years to establishing a comprehensive service focused on supporting Roma living on the streets of London, proudly securing its funding until March 2025. In 2023, a spate of assaults targeting women sleeping on London's streets within three months signaled societal shifts: Brexit, the ascent of the right-wing, and the passing of anti-migration legislation , akin to a tightening noose around Bițu’s neck. Last year, she returned home; after feeling she had been away from her daughters for too long and preferring to spend her remaining years with them. Bițu is presently on hiatus, yet she vows to remain steadfast in the Roma cause until her last breath. Her time in London taught her that regardless of her whereabouts or endeavors, she cannot escape herself or her work as a Roma activist. Numerous Roma feminists are marked by Nicoleta Bițu’s work and personality. One of them is Ionela Pădure. She met Bițu in 2005, at the age of 19, and described her as the first Romani feminist voice she remembers. “For me,” Pădure shared, “Nicoleta Bițu was, and still is, a complex Roma woman because she embodies all these roles: the mother of two beautiful daughters, the wife of Nicolae Gheorghe, an intellectual, and an activist–roles that, in Romania, were often seen as vulnerabilities. Yet, she knew how to juggle them, turn them into strengths, and carve out a space for herself in a male-dominated world, all while coming from a traditional community. To this day, she remains a dedicated mother, an activist working on the ground, and an intellectual who writes academic articles.” Pădure comes from a family of settled Roma, musicians, and blacksmiths. She holds a degree from the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris and has taught French at a college in France. However, she decided to return home to teach the Romani language in a village 40 km from the capital. Recently, she left formal education and, together with her husband, founded CPCD Vizurești, an NGO that organizes activities for village children, including Indian dance, drumming, Romani language lessons, boxing workshops, and more. Pădure described Bițu as a reference point for younger Romani women activists, who are just at the beginning of their careers—a mother they can talk to about anything. “Knowing she’s by my side gives me a sense of security,” Ionela said. She also credits role models like Bițu for helping her imagine herself and set new expectations. “I, too, married young and wanted to be a mother,” Pădure reflected. “Meeting Nicoleta and seeing her embodying all those roles made me realize that I could also make them all.” Oana Dorobanțu, similarly, is a queer feminist author, former journalist, human rights communication expert, and co-editor, together with Carmen Gheorghe, of one of the key books examining anti-roma racism in Romania. She doesn’t want to be called an activist or a feminist. “Shouldn’t we all be activists and feminists?” Dorobanțu asked, refusing to define herself. “I don’t know how words could ever do justice to all the admiration, respect, and love I have for this person,” she said, referring to Bițu. “I met Nico when I was 27, and she was by my side in the period after I decided to publicly acknowledge that I am of Romani ethnicity. The fact that she immediately accepted me as a Romnie (Roma woman in Romani language) was of great support for me.” For Dorobanțu, Bițu “embodies feminism.” She believes that all Romani feminists, not just in Romania, owe Bițu a great deal. "Many may see her as being in the shadow of her husband, Nicolae Gheorghe, who was also a major activist,” Dorobanțu noted, “but they were together because they were equals in every sense." One of the things Dorobanțu learned from Bițu is that there is no room for pride in activism, that you get involved in the movement for liberation, not for a résumé, ego, or reputation. She also learned that it’s important to know when to step back from the fight and when to return stronger, when to stay silent despite insults, and when to fight back. “Nicoleta was never didactic or pedantic,” Dorobanțu recalled, “but she influenced us indirectly through her nature, her charisma, and her way of being.”∎ 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. Profile Bucharest Roma Romnie Feminism Activism Political Activism Liberation Gender Equality Politics of Ethnic Identity Feminist Theory Nicoleta Bitu Communist Era Eastern Europe History Leftism Democracy Romania 20th Century Europe Bita The Gypsy Aristocracy Community Injustice Nicolae Gheorghe Civic Activism Riots Civil Society Conflict Interethnic Conflict Political Science Roma Women and Feminism Romani CRISS Center NGO Violence Domestic violence Feminist Literature bell hooks Simone de Beauvoir Angela Davis Kimnerle Crenshaw Council of Europe Misogyny Racism Intersectional Forced Marriage Right of the first night Suppression Reconstruction Space Place Identity Tradition Oral History Archive European Institute of Roma Art and Culture Roma Museum Roma Movement Migration Homelessness St. Mungo's Anti-migration Legislation Academia Culture The Romanian Problem Hecate CPCD Vizurești Oana Dorobanțu 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:

· THE VERTICAL Photo-Essay · Mizoram LIFE ON LINE Following the collapse of Myanmar’s healthcare infrastructure after the 2021 coup and India’s sudden suspension of free movement protocols in 2024, even the most basic access to medical care has become a perilous and expensive endeavor for many Burmese living in Mizoram-Myanmar border regions. As Indian authorities invoke criminal allegations against those seeking care for border security, tens of thousands have been denied essential services, and the burden on Myanmar’s remaining hospitals is further intensifying. An injured rebel joined an armed group after the military junta’s 2021 coup. Last March, he was injured nine miles from the Myanmar-India border. He was treated in Chin State, but the doctor advised him to get a CT scan, which required travelling to India. Courtesy of the author. Since the violent coup d’état in 2021, Myanmar’s healthcare system has nearly collapsed under the weight of political repression, worker exodus, and escalating conflict. The result is that what was once a robust public service has been transformed into fragmented emergency care provided largely by NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Field reports from MSF starkly document what international bodies like the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteur, and Associated Press have confirmed: hospitals shuttered, key disease programs disrupted, and millions left without reliable care. On the other hand, in forcibly returning vulnerable individuals to Myanmar without healthcare safeguards and under the shadow of rape accusations, Indian authorities violate international non-refoulement obligations while also inflicting profound harm on those already under physical and psychological duress. Amnesty warns that this practice “threatens to intensify the health crisis” for Burmese refugees, who find themselves trapped between persecution at home and denial of asylum with healthcare in India. Burmese refugee attempts to cross Tuai river for emergency medical treatment near Zokhawthar village in Mizoram, India. Courtesy of the author. A quiet yet complex world unfolds in the lush hills and deep valleys where Mizoram, in India, meets Chin State, Myanmar. While the official border stretches for 510KM, the boundary feels more like a line on a map than a real division in practice: villages often straddle both sides, and families share bloodlines across nations. The military-led coup of February 2021 brought with it the migration of thousands of people from Chin State, who sought refuge from violence and persecution in Mizoram. The people on both sides are predominantly from the Zo ethnic group , which includes Mizos in India and Chin in Myanmar. They speak related languages, share customs, and follow similar Christian beliefs. This has created a strong cultural bond, even in the face of political borders. Marriages, festivals, and trade are conducted informally across the border. Despite the Indian federal government’s cautious stance, the Mizoram state government and its people have welcomed the refugees on humanitarian grounds, housing them in makeshift camps and local homes. This has created a quiet tension between the Indian central government and the Mizoram state leadership. The Tuai River, a former key crossing point between Myanmar and India, is pictured near Zokhawthar village. Its significance waned after India suspended the Free Movement Regime (FMR) in 2024, which had allowed border residents to travel visa-free up to 16 kilometers into the neighboring country for 72 hours. Courtesy of the author. In Rikhawdar, a border town in western Myanmar, 52-year-old Thangi experiences first-hand the repercussions of disrupted healthcare and movement. Each month, she embarks on a grueling journey from her home in Rikhawdar to Zokhtwar, a distance of nearly 80 miles, just to get a medical checkup. The trip costs her nearly 70,000 kyats — about $22, a considerable sum in a region ravaged by conflict. Still, for Thangi, the opportunity to get a medical checkup and to hear her husband’s and son’s voices on the other end of a Facebook Messenger call is priceless. This is her small comfort in an otherwise onerous situation. She looks out of a tiny window in a home stay, facing the heavily guarded border with India. Once a key trading post and a vital escape route for those seeking refuge from the war, the border is now completely sealed off. 52-year-old Thangali experiences first-hand repercussions of disrupted healthcare and movement. Courtesy of the author. The closure of the border has also made it impossible for Thangali, a 28-year-old rebel fighter from the People’s Defense Forces, to get a crucial MRI scan at a hospital in Aizawl, India. Thangali, who was injured during a night ambush whilst fighting against the Junta forces, used to travel to India, almost 200 kilometres because there is nowhere within reach in Myanmar that has a functioning hospital offering the advanced services he needs. “We used to cross the border to get the care we needed,” Thangali said the next day, his voice weary but steady. “But now it’s too dangerous. With the border closed, we’re trapped—cut off from help. The treatment that once gave us hope is now out of reach, and we’re left to suffer in silence.” The sudden termination of the Free Movement Regime (FMR), which allowed for cross-border access to essential services between Mizoram in India and the border areas of Myanmar, has plunged his home township of Kale into a healthcare crisis. Kale Township connects central Myanmar to the Indian border through the Chin Hills, making it a key corridor for both humanitarian aid and displacement movements. It was in the lead-up to February’s national elections that the Indian government decided to end FMR, allegedly to address security concerns . Unfortunately, it has instead largely just stranded thousands of people and left them in urgent need of medical attention . "The closure of the border has dealt a heavy blow to our community," said Dr. Lalaramzaua, the only doctor at the RHI Hospital. "We're struggling to handle numerous cases with very limited resources. We rely on our neighbours in Mizoram for supplies and medication. With the border now closed, our ability to provide the care we need is severely compromised. "In several documented cases , including over 38 individuals deported in June 2024 from Moreh, local authorities reportedly used allegations of rape and other charges—without due process—to justify forced returns.” Amnesty International warns that this conflation of unverified crime allegations with border enforcement effectively bars these refugees from seeking vital healthcare in India, particularly for reproductive and mental health. Malsawm Puia lives in Kale township, on the border between India and Myanmar. He suffers from blood cancer. Malsawm was being treated at a hospital in the Indian state of Mizoram, but the Indian government’s decision to terminate a free movement agreement could mean a potential death sentence for the 28-year-old and dozens like him. Courtesy of the author. Among those severely impacted is Malsawm Puia, a 28-year-old from Kale township in Myanmar, battling blood cancer. Before the border closure, Malsawm Puia received treatment in Mizoram. With the end of the free movement agreement, he now faces an uncertain future as he is unable to access the necessary medical care. "The decision by the Indian government could be a death sentence for many of us," said Malsawm Puia's mother, who accompanied him to the hospital. Corpal Chanchu 23, stays in Kale township of Myanmar. Corpral got injured while fighting with the Myanmar forces last month. Courtesy of the author. Lalremtluanga, a 28-year-old rebel fighter, was injured in January during a mission. Initially treated in Aizawl's Greenwood Hospital, he had to leave due to worsening conditions and was then treated at the RHI Hospital. His condition, worsened by a broken leg and concerns about infection, makes it even more urgent to receive cross-border medical support. "The situation is dire," said Lalremtluanga. "We lack proper healthcare and medication here. The border closure has put us in a difficult position." The sudden end of the FMR and the ongoing construction of border fences have left nearly 100,000 residents of Kale township struggling with a failing healthcare system. The only hospital, already stretched thin by the ongoing conflict and injuries from the unrest, now faces an unprecedented challenge in providing care due to a severe shortage of medical supplies and facilities. "We have pregnant women and cancer patients here," Dr. Lalaramzaua said. "The lack of facilities means I can only treat basic conditions. The situation is heartbreaking, and we are doing everything we can with the limited resources available." Enok, a farmer in Kale township, gave birth to her fourth child at home with the help of a midwife. She considers herself lucky for managing a safe delivery amid the raging conflict in the region. Unable to travel to the hospital for a medical check-up, Enok still can’t obtain postnatal supplements and has to subsist on plain rice. Courtesy of the author. In terms of maternal health, women face perilous childbirths in Myanmar. Enok, a 38-year-old farmer in Kale township, gave birth to her fourth child at home with the help of a midwife. She considers herself lucky for managing a safe delivery amid the raging conflict in the region. Unable to travel to the hospital for a medical check-up, Enok still can’t obtain postnatal supplements and has to subsist on plain rice. “I can’t get enough sleep,” Enok, who used a pseudonym for security reasons, related, “People are so tired because they can’t sleep.” ∎ Civilians and fighters seek treatment inside the RHI Hospital. According to Insecurity Insight, a nonprofit collecting data on conflicts worldwide, nearly 1,200 attacks on healthcare workers and facilities have occurred in Myanmar since the junta seized power in February 2021. Courtesy of the author. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Photo-Essay Mizoram India 2024 Indian General Election Myanmar Health Crisis Health Maternal Health Border & Rule Borders Politics of Ethnic Identity Ethnic Division Zo Mizo Chin state Free Movement Regime Médecins Sans Frontières Freedom of Movement Christianity Rikhawdar Burma Chin Hills Healthcare State Repression 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. 27th Jul 2025 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. 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Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. THE VERTICAL Letter to History (I) Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. Hazaran Rahim Dad Editor’s Note: Sammi Deen Baloch was released by Pakistani authorities on April 1, a few days after this letter was first written. Dear Ustad Talpur, Baba Jan, you have watched generations disappear into dust. You know that time is a deceiver, that history is nothing but a long repetition of grief. Baba Jan, you have poured hope into a land that devours it. And still, you stand unshaken. I am writing to you without clarity about the purpose of my words. Perhaps, in times like these—when the sky is thick with grief, when silence is louder than gunfire, when even breathing feels like an act of defiance—writing is the only rebellion left. Or maybe it’s futile, a whisper against a storm, a candle in the abyss. How do I put into words a war, as they like to call it, which is just an unbroken cycle of operations to erase our very existence? I’ve been thinking about how adulthood is merely the accumulation of grief we carry and bury. And childhood, a baptism in violence. So, I write––tracing the outlines of our pain with ink, carving our memory into words. When bullets meet our bodies, do they make the same sound as the shackles that screeched against our land when they dragged Mahrang and Sammi? The leaders who carried the weight of history on their shoulders, who held up the sky when it threatened to collapse, who turned the grief of generations into fire. Mahrang and Sammi, who taught the Baloch they must stop being forever mourners, forever betrayed. On March 21, 13-year-old Naimat was shot . Then a disabled man, Bebarg, was dragged from his home and disappeared. Tell me, Baba Jan, how do we live through this time, where a child’s heart is not enough to satiate the state's insatiable hunger for spilling Baloch blood? What kind of state fears a crippled man’s voice? And what is more tragic than little Kambar? A child who once held a poster of his missing father, Chairman Zahid, and now, eleven years later, in the same cursed month of March, clutches another picture. This time it is his uncle Shah Jan who has been stolen by the same hands—a state that ensures no Baloch child feels fatherly love, that makes Baloch men disposable. Tell me, Baba Jan, does history ever grow weary of itself? Or will this violence continue to carve itself into our bones? Baba Jan, Balochistan stands at a precipice again. In the past two decades, they have buried entire generations, making mourning a permanent state of our existence. And today, the storm rages once more. The crackdown on the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. The arrests. The stifling of resistance. Dr. Mahrang Baloch taken under fabricated charges. The roads are flooding with protesters, repeating the same chant once more: Tum Marogy, Hum Niklengy . Our streets heard the same words when Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was martyred. When the state unleashed its bloodied military crackdown in 2009. When Karima’s voice—one of the fiercest of our time—was silenced under the most sinister of circumstances. We chanted our pain into resistance. And today, we find ourselves trapped in the same cycle, bracing for what the state has yet to unleash. This is why I write to you, Baba Jan—not just as a thinker, but as a witness to history itself. Who else but you can grasp the chaos that takes root in the minds of the Baloch when faced with such devastation? When conscious, educated youth find themselves at a crossroads, they can only turn to history for answers. But in our case, history does not reside in books—it resides with you. You who saw the flames of 2006 and 2009. You who watched as mass graves were unearthed in 2014. You who lived through the fear and silence that followed Karima’s assassination in 2020. And now, new voices have risen—heirs to those who were brutally taken from us—only to face the same violence, the same retribution. Mahrang and Sammi, whose voices once echoed through the streets, are now being held in cells. A process of erasure perfected over decades. The Baloch lose another voice. And the bloodshed continues. Mothers become wombless. Wives become widows. Fathers become ghosts. Sons search for fathers. Fathers search for sons. And now, mothers search for daughters. Tell me, Baba Jan, what is the state preparing to do next? Will it follow the same script, crushing these voices as it did with the Baloch political leadership before? What consequences will this new wave of repression bring, especially at a time when the armed struggle has only grown stronger? Is it possible that the other oppressed nations of this land will stand with us in defiance of a shared oppressor? Can we still hope that the so-called civilized world will intervene before more of our people are swallowed by this unrelenting state brutality? Or will the detention of women be normalized too? I am worried that the state is now seeking to terrify young Baloch girls who stand firm despite the leadership’s arrest. It seems as if the state is entering a new phase of oppression, sending a message to Baloch women who dare to defy: Beware. Stand down. Who will stand with us? I am writing to you for hope. I am writing to you for answers. Tell me, Baba Jan, are we destined to be forever caught in this storm, forever erased, forever replaced? Signed, A young Baloch writer and journalist∎ Editor’s Note: Sammi Deen Baloch was released by Pakistani authorities on April 1, a few days after this letter was first written. Dear Ustad Talpur, Baba Jan, you have watched generations disappear into dust. You know that time is a deceiver, that history is nothing but a long repetition of grief. Baba Jan, you have poured hope into a land that devours it. And still, you stand unshaken. I am writing to you without clarity about the purpose of my words. Perhaps, in times like these—when the sky is thick with grief, when silence is louder than gunfire, when even breathing feels like an act of defiance—writing is the only rebellion left. Or maybe it’s futile, a whisper against a storm, a candle in the abyss. How do I put into words a war, as they like to call it, which is just an unbroken cycle of operations to erase our very existence? I’ve been thinking about how adulthood is merely the accumulation of grief we carry and bury. And childhood, a baptism in violence. So, I write––tracing the outlines of our pain with ink, carving our memory into words. When bullets meet our bodies, do they make the same sound as the shackles that screeched against our land when they dragged Mahrang and Sammi? The leaders who carried the weight of history on their shoulders, who held up the sky when it threatened to collapse, who turned the grief of generations into fire. Mahrang and Sammi, who taught the Baloch they must stop being forever mourners, forever betrayed. On March 21, 13-year-old Naimat was shot . Then a disabled man, Bebarg, was dragged from his home and disappeared. Tell me, Baba Jan, how do we live through this time, where a child’s heart is not enough to satiate the state's insatiable hunger for spilling Baloch blood? What kind of state fears a crippled man’s voice? And what is more tragic than little Kambar? A child who once held a poster of his missing father, Chairman Zahid, and now, eleven years later, in the same cursed month of March, clutches another picture. This time it is his uncle Shah Jan who has been stolen by the same hands—a state that ensures no Baloch child feels fatherly love, that makes Baloch men disposable. Tell me, Baba Jan, does history ever grow weary of itself? Or will this violence continue to carve itself into our bones? Baba Jan, Balochistan stands at a precipice again. In the past two decades, they have buried entire generations, making mourning a permanent state of our existence. And today, the storm rages once more. The crackdown on the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. The arrests. The stifling of resistance. Dr. Mahrang Baloch taken under fabricated charges. The roads are flooding with protesters, repeating the same chant once more: Tum Marogy, Hum Niklengy . Our streets heard the same words when Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was martyred. When the state unleashed its bloodied military crackdown in 2009. When Karima’s voice—one of the fiercest of our time—was silenced under the most sinister of circumstances. We chanted our pain into resistance. And today, we find ourselves trapped in the same cycle, bracing for what the state has yet to unleash. This is why I write to you, Baba Jan—not just as a thinker, but as a witness to history itself. Who else but you can grasp the chaos that takes root in the minds of the Baloch when faced with such devastation? When conscious, educated youth find themselves at a crossroads, they can only turn to history for answers. But in our case, history does not reside in books—it resides with you. You who saw the flames of 2006 and 2009. You who watched as mass graves were unearthed in 2014. You who lived through the fear and silence that followed Karima’s assassination in 2020. And now, new voices have risen—heirs to those who were brutally taken from us—only to face the same violence, the same retribution. Mahrang and Sammi, whose voices once echoed through the streets, are now being held in cells. A process of erasure perfected over decades. The Baloch lose another voice. And the bloodshed continues. Mothers become wombless. Wives become widows. Fathers become ghosts. Sons search for fathers. Fathers search for sons. And now, mothers search for daughters. Tell me, Baba Jan, what is the state preparing to do next? Will it follow the same script, crushing these voices as it did with the Baloch political leadership before? What consequences will this new wave of repression bring, especially at a time when the armed struggle has only grown stronger? Is it possible that the other oppressed nations of this land will stand with us in defiance of a shared oppressor? Can we still hope that the so-called civilized world will intervene before more of our people are swallowed by this unrelenting state brutality? Or will the detention of women be normalized too? I am worried that the state is now seeking to terrify young Baloch girls who stand firm despite the leadership’s arrest. It seems as if the state is entering a new phase of oppression, sending a message to Baloch women who dare to defy: Beware. Stand down. Who will stand with us? I am writing to you for hope. I am writing to you for answers. Tell me, Baba Jan, are we destined to be forever caught in this storm, forever erased, forever replaced? Signed, A young Baloch writer and journalist∎ SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Iman Iftikhar Mahrang (2025) Digital Illustration SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Letter Balochistan Pakistan Activism Enforced Disappearances State Violence Protests Liberation Journalism Revolution Grief Sammi Deen Baloch Resistance History Violence Writing After Loss Dissidence Disappearance Baloch Yakjehti Committee Dr Mahrang Baloch Arrests Tum Marogy Hum Niklengy Militarism Leadership Mass Graves Assassination New Voices Imprisonment Armed Struggle Repression Oppression Defiance Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur HAZARAN RAHIM DAD is an MPhil scholar in English Literature and a feature-story writer. Her work primarily explores the experiences of Baloch people in war, violence, and socio-political struggles in Pakistan. 3 Apr 2025 Letter Balochistan 3rd Apr 2025 IMAN IFTIKHAR is a political theorist, historian, and amateur oil painter and illustrator. She is an editor for Folio Books and a returning fellow at Kitab Ghar Lahore. She is based in Oxford and Lahore. To Posterity Paweł Wargan 30th Apr Letter to History (II) Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur 9th Apr Dissipated Self-Determination Zahra Yarali 26th Mar Who is Next? Noor Bakhsh · Qasum Faraz · Sajid Hussain 5th Mar Lima's Forsaken Jack Dodson 18th Nov On That Note:

COO of Fearless Collective, Tehani Ariyaratne, in conversation with Senior Editor Sabika Abbas Naqvi. COMMUNITY Public Art Projects as Feminist Reclamation COO of Fearless Collective, Tehani Ariyaratne, in conversation with Senior Editor Sabika Abbas Naqvi. Tehani Ariyaratne One of our murals in Rawalpindi, is an image of a [khwaja sira], Bubbli Malik, on a bicycle, and she says "I am a creation of Allah." The mural refers not to violence or trauma, but is a radical affirmation of the [khwaja sira] community. One of our murals in Rawalpindi, is an image of a [khwaja sira], Bubbli Malik, on a bicycle, and she says "I am a creation of Allah." The mural refers not to violence or trauma, but is a radical affirmation of the [khwaja sira] community. SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Feminist Art Practice Feminist Organizing Mural Public Space Art Practice Public Arts Fearless Collective Fearless Arts Residency Art Activism Fundraising Future Dream Spaces Queerness Queer Spaces Trans Politics Trans Community Wheat Pasting Sri Lanka Pakistan India Internationalist Solidarity Khwaja Siras Bubbli Malik Queer Muslim Project Tehani Ariyaratne is a feminist researcher with ten years of working experience in the human rights and development sectors in Sri Lanka and South Asia. Her research focus areas include women's labor and environmental justice. She is the Chief Operations Officer for Fearless Collective , a South Asia-based public art project with the aim of reclamation and self-representation for women and marginalized people around the world. 29 Nov 2020 Interview Feminist Art Practice 29th Nov 2020 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:

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. FEATURES 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. Pramodha Weerasekera 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.∎ 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 ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Mukhtar Kazi, Untitled (2025). Part of The Sea and the Sahel series. Acrylic on raw linen. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn 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 PRAMODHA WEERASEKERA is an art writer and curator based in Sri Lanka. She writes regularly about feminist artistic practices and occasionally about art books from South Asia. Her writing has appeared in e-flux , Art Review, Hyperallergic , BOMB , and several exhibition publications. Her curatorial projects have been presented at the Khoj International Artists Association in New Delhi, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sri Lanka, and the Ceylon Literary and Arts Festival in Colombo. She is the Assistant Curator of Edition 9 of Colomboscope. 2 May 2025 Essay Bangalore 2nd May 2025 MUKHTAR KAZI is a self-taught artist based in Thane, Maharashtra. His work engages light through abstract forms. His work The Sea and the Sahel was exhibited with Stranger’s House Gallery at the 15th edition of the Dakar Biennale, or Dak’Art - Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, in Senegal. 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:

“Formal preoccupations are presumed to be a part of the European avant-garde, even though what form and form can be has been deeply influenced by writings from other parts of the world, and the West's straitjacketed understanding of the Renaissance being exposed to that.” COMMUNITY Origins of Modernism & the Avant-Garde in India “Formal preoccupations are presumed to be a part of the European avant-garde, even though what form and form can be has been deeply influenced by writings from other parts of the world, and the West's straitjacketed understanding of the Renaissance being exposed to that.” VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Avant-Garde Origins 4th Oct 2020 Interview Avant-Garde Origins Modernism Anthology Traditions Vaikom Muhammad Basheer Avant-Garde Form Auto-Fiction Wendy Doniger Multimodal Stream of Consciousness Rabindranath Tagore Tagore as First Impulse of Modernism Literary Activism Impoverished Histories Contradiction Criticism Intellectual History Internationalist Perspective Performance Art Satyajit Ray Avant-Garde Beginnings in India Varavara Rao 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. Author Amit Chaudhuri in conversation with Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan on his previous works, his preoccupations with the banal and the label of "autofiction" that haunts contemporary appraisals of his work. Further, they discuss modernism in India, in particular Tagore's children's books as possibly the first impulse of modernism writ large. In surveying the history of literature and art in colonial India, the consequences of Europe's mistaken claim to originating the avant-garde is a profound ahistorical act, one that patently must be rectified. RECOMMENDED: Sojourn by Amit Chaudhuri (New York Review Books, 2022). More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5