Innehållsförteckning för October 2019 från The Caravan

On the afternoon of 30 July, I stood atop a watchtower inside the Chandaka–Dampara wildlife sanctuary, gazing at the recently transformed landscape. “We were not able to see them,” Brahmanand Behera, a member of the sanctuary’s anti-poaching squad, told me, pointing to trees in the distance. “Not even the mountains, nor those factories. But then, Fani came and took away all the trees surrounding this tower.” As per the estimates of Odisha’s forest department, 111,724 trees were destroyed inside the sanctuary due to Cyclone Fani, which hit coastal Odisha in May. It was the peak of summer, and warnings of an imminent cyclone had already been issued. The state government took its customary precautions, moving people off the coast to shelter. On 3 May, along with the overcast conditions came…

THE HISTORICAL TUG OF WAR for power between Marathas and Brahmins has influenced Maharashtra’s politics since the time of the Maratha empire. Founded by the Maratha warrior-king Shivaji Bhonsle I, who assumed the title of Chhatrapati, the kingdom reached its peak in the 1750s, when it spanned approximately two and a half million square kilometres—from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu to present-day Peshawar in Pakistan in the west, and Bengal in the east. The rapid expansion of the empire in the mid-eighteenth century happened during what is known as the Peshwa era. A few decades after the death of Shivaji, the Peshwas—Brahmin executives of the Maratha Chhatrapati—became more powerful than the Chhatrapati himself. While the Maratha Chhatrapati was reduced to a titular head, the Brahmin Peshwa held the highest administrative office.…

THE COLONIAL REGIME IN INDIA first attempted a panopticon-like ethnographic survey of its subjects in The People of India, an eight-volume collection of photographs, compiled by the Scottish writer John Forbes Watson and the British historian John Kaye, between 1868 and 1875. It assembled the “native castes and tribes of India” as subjects of study. These subjects sometimes belonged to tribes identified by the Raj as possessing criminal propensities. Watson and Kaye usually photograph their subjects standing painfully stiff against a wall—or a similarly unyielding background. They have little protection from the gaze of the viewer, and even less human dignity. Even when identified as useful members of society, the details of their religion, caste and occupation precede—and usually preclude—any humane understanding of them as individuals. A typical account runs…

Exhibition Delhi..that was 4 OCTOBER TO 12 NOVEMBER OJAS ART GALLERY, DELHI Curating photographs from the archives of the acclaimed photographers Habib Rahman, Madan Manhattan and Raghu Rai, this exhibition includes photographs dating back to the 1940s. It aims to explore Delhi’s past, before it was taken over by concrete constructions and earned its repute as one of the world’s most polluted cities. For more information, write to pr.richagupta@gmail.com Exhibition Like a Leaf in Autumn 12 OCTOBER TO 15 NOVEMBER GALLERY ESPACE, DELHI This exhibition of miniature paintings is the culmination of a decade-long collaboration between the American photographer Waswo X Waswo and the miniaturist Rakesh Vijay. Their work depicts the foreigner’s life in India, sometimes as an evil orientalist and at other points, as an observationist. For more information,…

Reny George hugged Nitish and asked him about his day in school. He ruffled the 11-year-old’s hair, and told him he should spend more time studying than playing cricket. “Yes, daddy,” Nitish sombrely said, before slouching on his bed. It was 4 pm, and over a hundred boisterous children were trooping across the garden on their way home from school. Reny stood at the door, smiling, with open arms. Everyone wanted to tell him of their triumphs and trials at school. Reny sat on the floor surrounded by the children. “Okay, now one by one,” he said. The 136 children who live in Reny’s home, a three-acre facility located in the outskirts of Bengaluru, are the sons and daughters of prisoners incarcerated in Kerala and Karnataka. Reny was once such…

UMA BISTA REMEMBERS that when she got her first period, she was sent away by her parents to a neighbour’s house for 12 days. She was confined to a dark room, and not allowed to go into the sun or speak to any men. This experience led her to reflect deeply on chhaupadi—a Hindu custom that is now illegal but still practised in certain areas of Nepal, which demands that women be temporarily exiled from their homes when they are on their period because they are considered impure during this time. They have to live in seclusion for between five and seven days a month, in a chhaugoth—a windowless hut or shed outside their houses, and face restrictions on what they can eat and touch. “It is believed that the…

ASSAM THE ACCORD, THE DISCORD Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty The journalist Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty attempts to provide a historical understanding of the process to update the National Register of Citizens in Assam, tying it to the making of the Assam Accord, which was signed in 1985. The book examines the development of political fault lines and growing communalism in the state. PENGUIN, 272 PAGES, R 599 FIRST, THEY ERASED OUR NAME A ROHINGYA SPEAKS Habiburahman with Sophie Ansel This memoir by the Rohingya writer Habiburahman, who was three years old when Myanmar’s leader declared the Rohingya community stateless, reflects on the historic persecution of his community. It also tells the story of his own escape from Myanmar, in 2000, and the time he spent in detention centres in Australia, where he…