The House with the Mint-Green Walls

[Editor's Note: After a few nomadic months, Priyanka has settled in New Delhi. Here she shares her feelings on the way art has inspired her own sense of being home. She will resume her regular column with Her Blueprint in mid-January.]

The first thing that I saw when we walked into the apartment was its mint green walls. 

We had just arrived in New Delhi two days ago. Since June, we had moved from Pittsburgh, traveled across the United States, and divided time between Bombay, Bangalore, and Rajasthan before finally making up our mind to come to India’s capital city. I was both utterly exhausted of being a nomad for the past many months and apprehensive about calling Delhi home. Actually, more precisely, calling India home. 

Apart from annual holidays to the homeland while growing up in Oman, I had never previously lived in India before. I was becoming increasingly disconnected to the idea of calling it home over the years. In fact, the label itself was becoming a complex abstraction for me. Was the home in homeland actually home? What was home anyway? I could worry about the semantics of home later though. Right now, I wanted a house: a nice, comfortable house, where I could anchor myself and start fleshing it into my space again.

 I fell sick hours after landing in Delhi. On our first night, we went to a mall where there was an indie rock concert going on in a huge open-air court. I remember sitting on the edge of a white marble planter, simultaneously listening to the crowd sing along to the music and feeling a dreaded itchiness invade my throat. Every time I had previously visited Delhi, its notorious dust and pollution had not been my friend. The following morning, I woke up to find that the itch had snowballed into a cold: my eyes watered continuously, my nose was on fire, and I had little desire to do anything but remain under the covers for the next day. 

 I couldn’t, of course. I had a house to find.

 Our apartment was the second one that the real-estate agent showed us in what would be a long succession of potential homes. Seeing the green walls after a day of battling a burgeoning cold, consuming cold, dessicated sandwiches, and dodging dusty, traffic-clogged roads was like stumbling head-first into an oasis. I wanted to camp out on the sofa itself, refusing to budge further. Afterwards, once we were done with visiting the other apartments (good, terrible, and ugly), the only one that remained with me was the green wall apartment. In the morning light, it would be mint-green, I thought, by dusk, it would assume the shade of pistachio ice-cream. I like the green wall apartment, I told my husband at dinner that night, as we listened to three college-age musicians sing Bob Dylan, let’s take that one. 

 ** 

We arrived in the apartment. My cold became a fever — and I spent the first week in our new house, ensconced in the bedroom, either staring at the ceiling or the windows bracketing me. On one side, the shadow of a massive peepal tree and its spreading, embrace-like branches and numerous leaves dutifully dappled the balcony while the other tree — whose name I still do not know — was framed within the window, like a minimal black and white photograph. During the day, their leaf shadows stenciled and overlapped one another upon the green walls, the walls fluid canvases. The leaf-shadow dance lulled me into sleep; the green soothed and calmed me. 

The house swiftly became a welcome sanctuary after all those migratory, mobile months. 

** 

We are still in the process of turning our house into a home. In fact, we are still befriending the city, understanding its costume, its dialect, when it sleeps, when it wakes up, the art of razoring through its traffic jams. We potter about in the house, migrating from one room to another, wondering where the guest room should be, what color flowers will look good against the mint. 

A river of traffic flows behind our house. We hear people’s conversations, dogs fighting, and ambulance and police sirens. I was accustomed to a soundtrack of silence in all the places that I had previously lived. This is the first time my ears are constantly negotiating the overwhelming barrage of sound, the sheer plurality of it; my mind is learning how to filter, distinguish one sound from another. However, I don’t miss the silence quite as much as I miss peering above into the nocturnal sky, glimpsing the dense population of stars studding its surface. Here, in the city, like any other city, they are just as invisible as they are during the day. 

**

 Our landlord’s art work meanwhile still dots the apartment walls. In the living room, you can see camouflage-hued tapestries of Paris, a bright bird water-color, an Ancient Egyptian god and goddess in dialogue, and a mountainscape sparely executed in oils. I have decided that these works will continue to hang there on the walls until we discover and introduce our own to them. In any case, they are strangers no more; our daily engagement with the works has made them familiar to us. There are three paintings though that that we have decided to never remove as long as we stay in the apartment. 

These paintings are portraits of three distinguished women hanging upon one wall in the living room. I call them distinguished simply because that’s exactly the sort of air they exude. I have no idea who these women are. I don’t even know the names of the artists who painted them. What I do know is that these portraits define the house as much as the walls themselves. And like the tree window-photograph in my bedroom window, I am content to see their framed selves on the walls. 

What is remarkable is that each of them wear an identical expression of contemplation in their portraits. They look as if they were mulling over a problem or a puzzle or a query — and were about to unpack their thoughts to the artist. The thoughts would quickly spill out, raw, unadulterated, like paint gushing upon a palette from a newly pierced open tube. Yet, the women would just as swiftly incorporate them into the bigger picture, the larger idea, connoisseurs of both the macro and micro. These women are constantly editing themselves, their thoughts, striving to be better, fuller, richer persons. But they wouldn’t bite back their words, that’s for sure. If they have something to say, they will say it. 

 When we say goodbye to the house with the mint colored walls, I already know that we will miss these three ladies. In the next few months, we will be constantly overlaying the house with our presence— paintings, photographs, furniture, objects, books, our conversations — and by the time we leave, the house will have become an alternate version of itself, a new draft, so to speak. Perhaps, by that time, I will have even figured out how to solve the mathematical-like conundrum of learning to call my homeland home. But what these walls and admirable ladies will remind us of will be those initial paint-strokes, those first words on the computer-screen, a freshly new time, when blankness was exciting, when anything could become everything.

This post originally appeared at the story-sharing platform, Medium over here.

How United Religions Initiative Celebrated International Women’s Day

Elana Rozenman (near far left) from Israel visits a URI leaders in India.

As the official blog overseer of the United Religions Initiative (URI), I search for stories and try to raise the voices of our interfaith activists as best I can. So, as a woman who deeply cares about peace building and women’s rights, my job can be hugely rewarding.

As most Her Blueprint readers are well aware, International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated around the world on March 8^th. 

For me, it was a pure joy to learn about how this momentous occasion was interpreted and celebrated throughout the global URI network.

Our Cooperation Circles—that is, groups of seven or more that represent at least three different faiths or cultures—can be very progressive. Imagine people from every faith coming together to talk about the delicate state of the planet and how to become better stewards of the Earth —it happens everyday, somewhere within the URI network.  

Now imagine women coming together for peace: Christians and Muslims in Pakistan, Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem—this also happens, but on an even larger, or at least more visible, scale on International Women’s Day. 

The women of URI never need a reason to celebrate and unify for peace; however, IWD is a great way to mobilize a series of events on one day and under one unifying theme.

This year, the United Nation‘s official theme was “Equality for women is progress for all.” URI’s women leaders embraced this sentiment wholeheartedly. Here are a few snapshots of their events:

- Just south of Mumbai in Satara, India, hundreds of Hindu and Muslims women created Rangolis, or floor decorations, on the theme “Women they want to be.” A panel discussion was held on women’s roles in nation building through peace and communal harmony work.

-In Pakistan, Muslim, Christian, and Hindu women came together to receive dance and other performances by children with the theme of women’s empowerment. The female attendees spoke about the local Cooperation Circle WAKE (Women and Kids’ Education), and how its vocational training programs were empowering them to find better jobs.   

-In the Great Lakes region of Africa, more specifically, Kampala, a panel discussion with roughly 50 women from very diverse faith backgrounds was held. The theme was “Inspired by my faith for positive social change.” Women were given a safe space to discuss workplace discrimination, domestic abuse, and the lack of rights to their children and in owning property.  

-In Jerusalem, Israeli and Palestinian women came together to view Women of Cyprus, a documentary about Turkish and Greek women reconciling after the Cyprus conflict. Along with the Greek female parliamentarian who directed the film, a panel of Israeli and Palestinian women discussed the documentary’s relevance to their current situation.

At United Religions Initiative, our women leaders are finding common ground and common goals, elevating both the cause for peace and the cause of women’s equality every day.

As UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon recently said, "The evidence is clear: equality for women means progress for all." 

My Cup of Tea: Narrating Collective and Individual Stories through Illustration

When you hear the word "illustration," what does it conjure for you? For four Indian women illustrators -- Kalyani Ganapathy, Bakula Nayak, Shreyas R Krishnan, and Trusha Sawant -- illustration produces a host of associations for each artist. The meshing of these individual visions has resulted in them forming a collective, which exhibited its first edition, My Cup of Tea last October at Kynkyny Art Gallery, Bangalore, India.

What was the story behind the formation of the collective? When Kalyani Ganapathy decided to become a full-time illustrator, she had the idea for an illustrator's collective; what she awaited was the right people and time for it to assume shape. Meanwhile, unknown to her, Kalyani's illustrations had motivated brand strategist and packaging designer Bakula Nayak to return to illustration after many years. Their first meeting over a cup of tea set the ball rolling for the collective. Kalyani then wrote to her  long-time friend Shreyas R Krishnan, also an illustrator, to ask her to the join the collective; Shreyas meanwhile had been collaborating on a sketch-book swap project with her colleague, Trusha Sawant. When the four finally met in person, they realized that between them they had varying styles and interests. However, what brought them together was their love for narrating through the drawn image. Over their discussions, the concept underlying the Illustrator's Collective grew into a space (literal and otherwise) for like-minded illustrators to come together and share common interests: it would also bring the practice of contemporary illustrations to a wider audience. 
 
Here is a glimpse into each of these illustrators' works and individual mindscapes. 

Kalyani Ganapathy

Sun kissed

"For me, illustration is a powerful medium of expression, both for self and others," says Kalyani, whose dreamy illustrations displayed in the exhibition consisted of the intriguingly titled, Memory Box, which she describes as a visual journey, a sensory experience from her recent travels. "I walk through life, observing everything in slow motion. I soak in everything around me and create a ‘curated’ memory box in my mind. I sit in my studio, open the box and allow the contents to spill out onto paper," she says. "Every time I put my brush on paper, it brought on so much nostalgia and emotion, reminding me of little moments in life."

Shreyas R Krishnan

Hidden in Plain Sight

Shreyas quotes the American graphic designer, Milton Glaser to aptly describe what drawing means to her: "The great benefit of drawing for instance, is when you look at something you see it for the first time…and you can spend your life without seeing anything…" She sees illustration as means to observe, document, experience and also, express. "My work usually revolves around culture and travel – both in live documentation drawing as well as finished illustrations. I connect with colors and tactility in visuals, objects and print ephemera; I look for textures and signs of a hand behind the art," she says. Her illustrations for the exhibition focused on a theme close to her heart: women's issues; in particular, she explored the notion of visibility and being hidden through the medium of veils in her works such as Hidden in Plain Sight. "Veils have a curious presence in a public space. Do they actually hide a woman or do they make her more conspicuous?" she questions.

Chandrika Marla: Textile Dance of Relationships

The Urge to Merge, acrylic and fabric on canvas, 2011 

Migrating to a new land and finding herself at a crucial crossroads in her life led to Chicago-based artist of Indian origin, Chandrika Marla to transition into the art world six years ago. A graduate of the distinguished Indian fashion school, National Institute of Fashion and Technology (NIFT), she was a former fashion designer for a Delhi export company. “I moved to States in 1998 when I got married and subsequently, began designing clothes for Disney,” Chandrika says. While she enjoyed the experience, she mentions that having to leave Disney actually proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Having sporadically painted before, she utilized the time to hone her own painting technique under the tutelage of a local French artist. Eventually, she decided to embrace art, leaving fashion behind. “Fashion and art was getting muddled up in my head...in fashion, one is always designing for the consumer and validation is based upon if a collection sold well,” she says, remarking that becoming an artist allowed her to experience a great surge of liberation and creativity.

Excluded, acrylic and oil pastel, 2009

Having been immersed in fashion for so long, Chandrika's hand would instinctively move to the familiar rhythms of sketching the female body. “I don't have a pronounced sense of realism, I am more interested in delineating humanistic figures,” she says, mentioning that the figures populating her paintings nowadays are increasingly becoming more and more anthropomorphic over time, vague and blurred in contrast to her earlier works depicting sharply defined figures.

Chandrika's art produces several questions about being an immigrant/artist, especially in context to personal preoccupations of creating and writing about one's homeland while living away from it. For an immigrant artist, how much does their motherland  influence their work (in Chandrika's case, India)? Is she intent on presenting herself as an essentially Indian artist through the basis of her work or do her roots play only a subliminal role in shaping it? Overall, is it imperative that one's immigrant identity always define one's artistic work?

Summer Fragment, acrylic, oil-pastel, and pigment on canvas, 2013

Both as a relic of her previous fashion designer avatar as well as a signature trademark, Chandrika incorporates fabric as an additional layer in her pieces to create a palimpsest of preexisting acrylics, oils, and pastels. In Sudha, for example, she cuts up a table-cloth and places it on the painting as how one would sew the pieces together, explaining, “It was like jigsawing a puzzle together.”

As India possesses incredible textile wealth, Chandrika has vast choices to feature in her work. (One example is Rajasthani block-print.) She explores fabric as means to interrogate the role of clothes in the facades that one presents to the world. In Urge to Merge (pictured first), three fabric bodices dance in a dialogue of sorts against a backdrop of warm, meditative red. Chandrika's works essentially concern themselves with the politics of relationships between women and the fabric, with paint converging to convey the layers nested inside these relationships.

CLIO TALKS BACK: The Heart Divided: Writing the Human Drama of Partition in India/Pakistan

Today’s blog is a guest blog, written by Clio’s colleague, Pippa Virdee, a specialist in South Asian history and the history of women, who teaches in the United Kingdom. Clio met her at the recent interim congress of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History, held in Sheffield, in England.

Pippa Virdee is passionate about her subject. She is particularly drawn to non-‘official’ sources. “As a historian,” she writes, “I find fiction, memoirs and autobiographical writing have greatly enhanced our understanding, often filling in the gaps left by ‘official’ history. For me, the personal narratives and the human stories provide an alternative lens through which we can understand the socio-economic changes taking place during this tumultuous time of the partition of India. I am particularly interested in Muslim women and how they responded to the call for Pakistan’s independence - a call that eventually resulted in partition and the creation of Pakistan.” It was through her that Clio learned about Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’s important, though all but forgotten novel, The Heart Divided (1948), which was finally republished in 2004 in India.

The blog text that follows is by Pippa Virdee:

The Partition of India in August 1947 was a pivotal time in the formation of India and Pakistan. In the newly-divided province of Punjab it was responsible for one of the most violent upheavals the twentieth century has ever experienced. Even as independence celebrations were taking place, Punjab (and also Bengal) witnessed scenes of mass genocidal violence, rape and abduction of women and the dislocation of millions, in one of the biggest migrations of the twentieth century. An estimated 15 million people crossed the borders between India and Pakistan. Ordinary people, forced to abandon their ancestral homelands, suffered the most. The death toll associated with the partition violence remains disputed; the figures vary from 200,000 to 2 million.

During the 1940s in British India elite Muslim women had been making genuine progress. At the forefront of this movement were elite women such as Fatima Jinnah (the sister of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League); Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan (the wife of Pakistan's first prime minister); Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz ; Shaista Ikramullah (who struggled for the opportunity to get an education and went on to do a PhD at the University of London); and Abida Sultan, a member of Bhopal's royal family who ardently supported the Muslim League. These figures served as early role models for other women to "come out" of purdah, as the system of veiling and seclusion was called, and to participate in the political process. For example, in 1942, Lady Maratab Ali said wrote:

The days have gone when Punjab’s Muslim women were considered fit only for cooking food and minding children. It is now essential for them to take an equal share of responsibility with their menfolk in the field of politics. 

Writers of fiction were the first to capture the human drama of partition. Writers such as Intizar Husain, Bhisham Sahni, Saadat Hasan Manto, and Amrita Pritam wrote from their own experiences of being dislocated during partition. They were able to capture the nuances and the sensitive subject matter under the guise of fiction.

The Heart Divided by Mumtaz Shah Nawaz (the daughter of Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz , mentioned above) offers a moving fictionalized account that documents the plight of Muslim women before and during the partition. Written in English and set in Lahore in the late 1930s, this writer tells the story of two sisters, Zohra and Sughra, and their family and friendships. It poignantly documents the challenges of modernity and the impact this has on the Muslim community and on politics. The story narrates the division of India and Pakistan, which the author believes had already begun in the 1930s in people’s hearts. It is based on Nawaz’s own life.

In later years Zohra often wondered when the change in her life began. The change that had led her, a young Muslim girl, born and bred behind the purdah, to a life of independence and adventure. It was not easy to define when it began, for the lives of all the girls of her generation had changed so much and they were woven together in such a manner, like many-coloured threads of an intricate pattern, that it is difficult to decide when the change in her particular life began. 

Mumtaz Shah Nawaz became a socialist, a poet, and a women’s advocate and, until the 1940s when she began to question her allegiance, an idealistic Congress supporter.

The novel charts the story of Zohra and how her split between the Congress and the Muslim League was mirrored in the wider society and in personal life. After the Congress started its ’quit India movement’, Nawaz broke completely with the Congress. She decided that her future lay in organising Muslim women to demand their rights as women and as Muslims. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who led the Muslim League, encouraged her to organise Muslim women in Delhi, where she was then based. From 1942 until the end of World War Two, she became a prominent member of the separatist movement. She then shifted her attention to Lahore where she helped set up the Women’s Branch of the Muslim League in the Punjab. She also assisted in organising relief work for victims of communal riots after partition and worked to rehabilitate the Muslim refugees coming in from India.

The Heart Divided is ground-breaking in the way that it represents Muslim women. Nawaz weaves together four separate stories connected to Zohra, Each strand represents the dreams and aspirations of a young girls growing up in Lahore. Zohra’s brother, a Muslim, falls in love with her Hindu friend; Zohra’s sister is agonizingly unhappy in her arranged marriage; Zohra’s friend is forcibly married off to a widower, and then Zohra herself falls in love with a man from a lower social strata then her own. Each story narrates the predicament of young Muslim girls with aspirations and minds of their own, who are restricted within the confines of family tradition, with its responsibilities and pressures to conform. Some of the characters manage to change the rules but others succumb to the pressures.

Tragically, the author of The Heart Divided, Mumtaz Shah Nawaz, died in an air crash in 1948 at the age of 35. She was on her way to the US to represent Pakistan at a session of the United Nations concerning Kashmir. Her novel was published posthumously.

Had Nawaz survived to see how Pakistan developed, she would undoubtedly have been disappointed with the lack of progress for women’s rights. During her lifetime, the movement for women to come out of purdah paralleled the Muslim separatist movement. Emancipating women seemed necessary to progressive Muslims, to demonstrate modernity and responsibility and to show that self-rule could be granted.

Yet, after partition this campaign fell by the wayside. In the second half of the twentieth century there was a gradual, almost reactionary shift toward the re-introduction of ‘modest’ dress, to symbolically demonstrate the shift from colonial to self-rule by developing a national Islamic identity. The Heart Divided evokes the split between the various futures envisaged by the character Zohra. This theme resonates in today’s Pakistan just as much as it did when the novel was originally published in 1948.

 Sources: Shah Nawaz Khan, The Heart Divided (India: Penguin, reprinted 2004); Khawar Muntaz and Farida Shaheed (eds.), Women of Pakistan (London: Zed Books, 1987); Alok Bhalla, Partition Dialogues: Memories of a Lost Home, India (Oxford University Press, 2006).

Tulika Ladsariya: Chronicling the Art of Labor

Bricks, 2012, Enamel and Ink on brick

A former banker who found herself inexorably migrating into the world of art, Chicago-based Indian artist, Tulika Ladsariya focuses her artistic lens on exploring the dynamics of labor, language, and literacy through her paintings and sculptures. She describes her paintings as a social commentary on the division of society through the iconography of labor, whereas Tulika's installations are derived from familiar construction materials procured from her surroundings; this enables her to empathize with the workforce that she depicts and thus, think of art as labor.

Vibrant, textured, and punctuated with layers and meanings, Tulika's work takes the viewer into the landscapes and mindscapes that the laborers inhabit. Here she talks to Her Blueprint about the scope of her creative voyage so far.

What initially attracted you towards art? What compels you to keep on creating?
 I started my career working in portfolio management for a multi-national bank. However, I am a very visual person: I see and think in images and color. I enjoy working with my hands, philosophizing and questioning. To that end, a short sabbatical to study art in London turned into a lifelong career.

Many things compel me to create: the love of what I do, the need to make a difference through my art, the fear of obscurity,and the security of what I have renounced to be an artist. It is the desire to give shape to ideas- translating something intangible, like feeling and emotion, into something tangible such as a painting.

Could you take us through a journey of your paintings? How have they evolved in terms of technique and theme? What has remained unchanged? 
My work was initially very influenced by what was around me; specifically, Mumbai, which was in a constant state of disrepair. It then began to engage with the people who build and inhabit it. Some elements of my work are more abstract and others very graphic. The theme has been widening with time, encompassing more of what I feel, rather than merely just what I see. My use of color is one aspect of work which has significantly evolved; even though my palette is still bright and evocative, it has become more balanced over time.

 

Journey by Day, 2010, Mixed Media on Gessobord 'Burden of Dreams' and 'Improbable Elevation' depict realistic figures while 'Palliative Endeavors' is rooted in a much more abstract space. What motivated this transition? What is the essence of 'Palliative Endeavors'? 'Palliative Endeavors' [example from series above] was inspired by the vibrant cityscape. It used geometric shapes and collage to bring together form, texture, and color; it regards the city as a space devoid of humans and the impact of congested living upon the environment. The title of the works refer to my own palliative endeavor to fix the damage inflicted on it through the use of plaster tape [as such used in healing fractures] upon the two-dimensional surface. Moving from the physical space to the people who build and inhabit that space seemed like a natural transition. This gave birth to the series, 'Improbable Elevation' and 'Burden of Dreams' [examples below]. Even my more figurative paintings have elements of texture and abstraction that I weave in and out from.

Graceful Burden (diptych), Acrylic on board, Mixed media on faux brick panel

Mona Kamal: Tracing Journeys

Mona Kamal, Reflections on Memory (2011)

A visual artist, whose origins are rooted in the Indian subcontinent, raised in Canada and currently residing in New York, Mona Kamal engages with photography, video, and installation to create contemporary multi-media narratives about migration, journeys, and identities. As she mentions, she creates fictitious exotic spaces that spark a feeling of nostalgia that tell a story of a lost culture due to immigration. These spaces function as both means to conduct dialogue as well as functioning as dialogues about leaving and recreating home.

What inspires you to create: a thought, image, concept or -ism?

The most basic way of answering this question is that my life inspires me to create. I get my ideas for my artworks from what surrounds me. A lot of it is from reading (literature, non-fiction and newspapers) and the Western perspective of my culture and religion. I feel that I often get ideas for my work based on responses/judgments that I receive in America about identifying myself as a Muslim Pakistani woman. My parents’ history additionally also has been a great inspiration as they, like most Muslims, were greatly affected by the partition of India in 1947 as not only was their country divided...but their family was also split between two countries.

My inspiration most recently comes from the rise of Islamism in South Asia and particularly Pakistan. I feel my art is a voice of resistance against religious fundamentalism and western stereotypes of Islam and South Asian culture and therefore, a manner in which I can preserve a specific history and culture.

You have worked in a variety of media such as installation art and video projects. What compels and attracts you towards each? Do the subject and content of your work influence your decision as to which particular medium you will use?

I remember when I was doing my BFA at NSCAD in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a graduate student told me that once you are confident in your practice and the concepts behind your work, you will feel comfortable about working in different media. I always felt that was a very strong statement: I do feel that an artist should work in different mediums depending on the meaning they are attempting to convey.

Both my video projects and installations are process based so that definitely has compelled me towards both mediums. I find video a unique medium because it captures movement whereas within my installations I am creating a space for the viewer to move about in.

Furthermore, my videos have a performative aspect and many times I am in the videos whereas my installations allow me to play with materials and construct structures. I am telling a story within both, creating spaces that are both physical as well as allowing for a dialogue about identity and migration.

Hot Mess Series, 2012 from mona kamal on Vimeo.
The 'Hot Mess' video series interrogates the expectations placed upon women of a certain color and not choosing to conform to societal expectations. Does gender play a crucial role in determining the trajectories of your artistic and personal lives?

Gender and race are both very significant components of my personal and artistic life (I don’t think my artistic and personal lives are separate).

I have mostly recently gained an interest in feminist writing written by women of colour; these readings have demonstrated the challenges that the 70s feminist movement faced due to their difficulties in perceiving the perspectives of women from the developing world and even visible women minorities in the West.

This Valentine's Day, One Billion People Rising to Stop Violence Against Women

[Editor's Note: This post was written by IMOW Her Blueprint's Senior Editor Kate Stence along with Maura Farrell, a co-editor of the Debating Human Rights blog. The original post appeared on Debating Human Rights.]

In recent weeks, global mainstream media has covered persistent and widespread violence against women in a range of countries.

In India, the gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on December 16, 2012 resulted in public condemnation and outcry from both India’s strengthening middle class and international organizations such as UN Women. Raped and mutilated with an iron bar at the hands of a group of six men while aboard a moving bus, the anonymous victim finally succumbed to massive internal injuries on December 29, after battling for her life for thirteen days in a Singapore hospital. Rape and rape-related deaths are a national problem in India.

In 2011, India was ranked 134th by UNDP’s gender equality index, highlighting the plight of Indian women and girls, who are under-fed and under-educated relative to males. Dowry violence, marital and in-law abuse, and reproductive sex selection are examples of the pervasive hardships for Indian women created from extreme gender inequalities. Sexual violence in Indian villages is so common that it keeps women indoors after dark, and the migration of rural Indian men to overcrowded slums means that the growing predation goes unchecked. Low persecution and even lower conviction rates for rape and other crimes against women exacerbate the violence.

While urbanization and societal tension may partly explain India’s violence against women, The Economist recently argued that it is India’s growing middle class, united in outrage against the horrible events of December 16, that could provide impetus for the changes needed to bring about an end to violence against women in India. This particular woman’s rape and death provoked such extreme public outcry throughout India because she was part of India’s emerging middle class. Too close to home for many members of India’s middle class to tolerate, this crime resulted in unprecedented galvanization which could be a major turning point with emancipatory potential for India’s women.

In Guatemala, 707 women were murdered in 2012. On January 16, 2013, one month after the gang-rape incident in Delhi, the bodies of two girls, aged six and twelve, were found brutally slain on a street in Guatemala City. That same day, the bodies of two more women were discovered in separate locations.

Amnesty International describes the situation in Guatemala as a “war on women.” “Authorities in Guatemala are putting the lives of women at risk by systematically failing to protect them and ensure those responsible for the hundreds of killings that take place each year face justice.” Although the Guatemalan congress passed a law establishing special tribunals and sentencing guidelines directed specifically at reducing violence against women, this has failed to change the staggering number of killings of women and children reported each month in Guatemala. Tireless fighting for justice on the parts of family members of women and girls whose murders remain unsolved and insufficiently investigated, and never prosecuted has made the issue one of national scandal for Guatemala.

In Somalia, Nura Hirsi, a young widow living in an internationally displaced persons (IDP) encampment in Mogadishu, claims she was raped by seven government soldiers who forced into her home on December 29, 2012.

Al Jazerra, reporting on the continued vulnerability of women in Mogadishu, maintained that in the wake of two decades of protracted conflict in Somalia, “there’s now a sense of relative calm and security in Somalia,” but that not everyone enjoys these new feelings of freedom. Violence and insecurity are still persistent problems affecting women in IDP encampments. Explaining why the police did nothing and seemed not to care about what happened to Nura Hirsi, she explained: “People get killed in Mogadishu; I didn't die. To them rape isn't so serious. Nobody is ever arrested.”

Posting in New York Times Nicholas Kristof’s blog On the Ground, Lisa Shannon recently urged Secretary Clinton to stand up for rape victims during her first official meeting with the new Somali president, Hassan Sheik Mohamud. Shannon argues that since the Somali government has reportedly harassed advocates thought to be aiding Hirsi, this could undo tireless efforts to shift the stigma toward rape and urge rape victims to come forward. According to Fartun Abdisalan Adan, who co-founded the sexual violence crisis center Sister Somalia with Shannon, “This sets us so far back.”

Shannon writes, “In this fragile moment, the US and other donor nations have a choice: Communicate a zero tolerance policy for this behavior. Or, like Congo, shrug off this crisis as inevitable, leaving sexual violence to fester into a pandemic. Will we again write big checks, while we sacrifice women on the altar of international diplomacy?” In her remarks on January 16, Secretary Clinton indeed expressed concern about violence against women in Somalia to President Hassan Sheik. “We have particular concerns” she said, “about the dangers facing displaced people, especially women, who continue to be vulnerable to violence, rape, and exploitation.”

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, renewed high-level conflict has resulted in a death toll that is the highest loss of life since World War II, with 5.4 million lives lost in over a decade of war. The prevalence of rape as a weapon of war and intimate partner sexual violence is astronomical. As such, the DRC is often referred to as the “the rape capital of the world.”

In 2011, the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) released a study confirming widespread rapes throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Approximately 1.69 to 1.80 million women reported having been raped in their lifetime and approximately 3.07 to 3.37 million women reported experiencing intimate partner sexual violence.” Even higher levels of rape were reported within the area of North Kivu, where two months ago the offices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said the situation was worsening for vulnerable populations due to recent fighting.

These already harrowing statistics may in fact be conservative estimates. A Guardian article quotes Michelle Hindin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a specialist on gender-based violence, as saying, “because the figures were collected during face-to-face interviews – where women could be less forthcoming – the figures could be much higher.”

In 2012, a more comprehensive study released by two organizations, Sonke Gender Justice Network and Promundo, confirmed that rape in Congo has essentially become “a cultural norm throughout the entire country” and is part of daily life. Lauren Wolfe, an award winning journalist and the Director of Women Under Siege, an independent initiative investigating how rape and other forms of sexualized violence are used as tools in genocide and modern-day conflict, is known for documenting vulnerable women’s voices who are often silenced by war and rarely exist within mainstream media. The organization argues that the nexus of war and sexual violence for women in Congo is one of the worst that has ever existed. Last year, the DRC ranked last—absolutely last—on UNDP’s Human Development Index, which is essentially a state of reverse development.

In Pakistan, 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, a well-known activist for girl’s education, was on a bus returning home from a day at school on October 9, 2012, when armed members of the Taliban stopped the vehicle and shot her in the head and chest. The teenager was treated for extensive injuries as the bullets entered above her left eye, ran along her jaw line, and grazed her brain. Her survival is an act of heroism in and of itself, but Malala has lived heroically for years. In 2009, the Taliban routinely destroyed girl’s schools and attacked women with acid to dissuade them from attending school and attaining an education. Malala posted her diary on the BBC’s Web site, exposing the Taliban’s myriad acts of violence against women. In 2011, she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize and in 2012 was the runner-up for Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

Last week, Malala completed her last round of surgery and will continue rehabilitation at home. Unlike so many other women and girls who face gender-based violence, Malala won. Her story both brings hope and highlights injustices.  Malala’s survival means she will continue to live in a world where a 23-year-old woman risks her life in India by riding a bus.

Success in eradicating violence against women would mean not only a world that no longer accepts rape, gender-based violence, or rampant inequalities as a fact of life, but laws that prosecute those who participate in these crimes. This requires sanctioned and implemented laws, community-based programs, and increased activism. In 1999, a study released on violence against women found that, around the world at least one woman in every three, or up to one billion women, has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. In the almost fifteen years since that study, after reading these stories, can we honestly say that eliminating violence against women is not one of our world’s greatest priorities?

Today is V-day, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls spanning over 167 countries. One Billion Rising is their most ambitious campaign to date. Their web site says, “One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. One billion women violated is an atrocity. One billion women dancing is a revolution.”

This Valentine's Day rise up against pervasive violence against females. The time to eradicate gender-based violence is now. 

 Photo credits: Al Jazeera and The Telegraph

The Singh Twins: Re-Interpreting Miniature Art

An example of a miniature painting from Rajasthan

I have been a long-time admirer of miniature paintings, especially those originating from Rajasthan, the north-western Indian state which I belong to. However, while in awe of their beauty and technical finesse, I often find myself pondering the paintings' subject matter. Apart from the miniature artists' superlative ability to so effectively create and convey a microcosm through the minute, painstaking nature of their art, I also think much about the two-dimensional figures that populate these paintings. The ubiquitous presence of Hindu deities, kings and queens, courtiers, and their attendants: yet, who are they? What are they thinking? Why is it that they happen to be where they are in the paintings? At times, it seems that the lovingly detailed leaves conjure up a greater air of vitality than the figures themselves. The figures in turn are shrouded in mystery, performing within the painting and yet, their faces are impassive, refusing to reveal what lies beneath their perfectly manicured features. Indeed, these characters seem as anonymous as their creators. 

Many contemporary artists are nowadays engaging and reinterpreting the miniature art traditions, and when I encountered The Singh Twins' miniature art, I was fascinated and wished to explore more of it. 

Internationally acclaimed artists and twins who were born, raised, and work in the United Kingdom, Amrit Singh Kaur and Rabindra Kaur Singh, create their art together, hence, their moniker: The Singh Twins. Deriving inspiration from Mughal miniature paintings which they encountered during a trip to India, they were drawn toward the richness of technique and presentation -- and were keen to practice and revive the art traditions, which were otherwise in decline and neglected. Their artistic journey has witnessed them introducing the miniature art techniques and legacies to a wider audience while simultaneously interweaving contemporary narratives, themes, and issues into their work, creating a  vital, dynamic form of miniature art.

Examining two of their paintings reveal how they incorporate the miniature art traditions into their work while infusing them with their unique identities and perspectives.

Nrymla's Wedding II

At first glance, Nrymla's Wedding II (1985/6), depicting the mehendi (henna-painting) ceremony taking place for their sister, is layered with meticulous, beautifully ornamental detail, as per miniature art traditions; however, as one looks more closely, it is evident that the painting exists beyond mere aesthetics. With the post-modern aspect of artists themselves entering the frame, being both the creators and subjects, the painting also explores the interface of domestic and public spaces. A joyful, traditional atmosphere permeates the interiors, as evidenced by these signifiers: the dancing little girl, the bright-yellow dressed boy playing upon the drum, a videographer documenting the event, and a woman arriving laden with fruit. However, as the artists' commentary denotes, outside, for instance, we see the McDonalds' logo, a universal visual byword for globalisation and despoiling of the environment, triggering a debate about globalization and its impact upon cultural heterogeneity. The paintings are therefore no longer static, frozen moments; aesthetics and debate co-exist, encouraging the viewer to both admire the artistic traditions defining the work as well as being used a medium to create a space of interrogating contemporary issues.

Love Lost

Love Lost (2001) channels elements from the Persian miniature traditions while simultaneously being utterly modern; reinterpreting the tale of the traditional star-crossed Persian lovers, Laila-Majnun, the artists refer to it as being a commentary on the contemporary nature of love. This work demonstrates that while the artists showcase knowledge of various miniature traditions, they also playfully reinterpret styles and structure associated with each and imbue it with their personal artistic language. For example, rather than strictly adhering to boundaries (as typically seen in Persian miniature paintings with their thick borders), they literally step out of the box as seen through the presence of the car and ladder. The artists also draw upon various literary and cinematic romantic traditions in this visual commentary: the cell-phone clutching and television watching figures are Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's famous lovers whereas reference to a popular romantic Hindi films emerges through images of the films, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Mughal-e-Azam. The combination of satirical commentary, mixed media, and traditional Persian art features make it an intriguing interpretation of both the traditional tale and technique. 

The Singh Twins' work is not as much a deviation from the miniature art fashion as broadening its scope for engagement with a global, contemporary audience; their work revitalises and reiterates the traditions while placing it in context to personal and contemporary global narratives. 

Please see and read more about The Singh Twins' work.

Photo credit: The Singh Twins' paintings' images courtesy The Singh Twins

One World, One Rape Culture

Protests in Steubenville, OH. Image courtesy of the CBC.

As the brutal gang rape of a 23-year old woman on a bus in New Delhi continues to outrage the women of India, sending shockwaves to the rest of the world, America is having its own gang rape controversy to contend with.

In Steubenville, Ohio, an old steel town hit hard by the financial crisis, a group of teenaged football players are being tried for the rape and kidnapping of a 16 year-old girl after pictures of her naked body surfaced on several social networking sites. Yet even though the images of the young girl’s unconscious body, which one of her assailants described in a video as “Deader than Trayvon Martin,” had spread throughout Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, convicting the teenaged boys has proven difficult in a town that protects its young football stars with blind adulation, with one local crime blogger being sued by one of the accused students and his parents for defamation. This sense of community denial is reminiscent of the Penn State community’s outrage by the charges against Jerry Sandusky, the college football coach who was eventually found guilty in 2011 of 52 counts of sexual assault of young boys over the span of 15 years.

From the Sandusky affair to the Steubenville assaults to the gang rape on a public bus in India, one thing is clear: the world shares a common culture; a common community that fails to protect its most vulnerable and lays the blame and responsibility solely on the victim. This is what second wave feminists in America call “rape culture,” and its boundaries are limitless.

According to Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, the conviction rate for rape prosecutions in India has fallen from 46% in 1971 to 26% today. Social critic Naomi Wolf notes, however, that this rate is higher than the conviction rates in the UK, Sweden and the US, respectively.

Little wonder, when the legal system in America is so disturbingly flawed, seeped in archaic notions of women as property. For instance, just last week, a man in Los Angeles who infiltrated a woman’s bedroom and had sex with her while she was sleeping was found not guilty to rape charges because the woman was unmarried. The court cited an 1872 law that states:

"[a]ny person who fraudulently obtains the consent of another to sexual relations escapes criminal liability (at least as a sex offender under tit. IX of the Pen. Code), unless he (or she)...masquerades as the victim‟s spouse ..."

Therefore, the law will protect a female rape victim…just so long as she is another man’s property. Such is the state of the “justice” system in America.

In a rape culture, as previously stated, victims of sexual assault are held responsible for the actions of perpetrators. Signs of victim blaming are everywhere in India (see: spiritual leader Asaram Bapu, who said of the bus gang rape: "Mistake is never from one side alone").

In Steubenville, assistant coach Nate Hubbard provides a classic victim-blaming stance. He told the New York Times:

"The rape was just an excuse, I think...What else are you going to tell your parents when you come home drunk like that and after a night like that?"

In fact, the 16-year old victim had no knowledge that she had been violated, because she was drunk to the point of being unconscious, until the pictures started to surface. But this is beside the point.
Other examples of victim blaming are more subtle. Across the United States, universities hold rape aggression defense (“RAD”) courses for students, rather than providing outreach and awareness programs for would-be perpetrators. Although a program that assumes rape is a very real danger and prepares young people for it is commendable, pouring college resources into possible victim education without possible perpetrator education could send a societal message to young people.

Education on all fronts should be a major step in eradicating rape culture. Another should be community involvement in protecting its citizens, since law enforcement officers and the justice system more broadly can never guarantee safety for a society’s most vulnerable.

Many in the US may have wondered, as I did when I heard about the New Delhi rape, why the bus driver didn’t act to protect the young woman as she was being beaten with a metal rod, brutally raped, and left for dead.
As Steubenville Police Chief William McCafferty said of the local gang rape that happened on his watch:  

“The thing I found most disturbing about this is that there were other people around when this was going on…Nobody had the morals to say, ‘Hey, stop it, that isn’t right.’”

The protests in India and Steubenville may help bring awareness of rape culture to their respective communities who have been torn apart by these unspeakable acts of violence. But the culture that binds us all should not be overlooked.

Sexual Harassment, Rape, and Indignity in Indian Society

The week before Christmas, many of us were picking our outfit for the upcoming parties. In Delhi, however, lay a 23-year student fighting for her life after a brutal gang rape. She died yesterday. Her crime: taking the bus home after watching a movie. Her rape has set India on fire, and protests are rampant. It seems that the public is no longer willing to sit back and accept the government's complacent policies towards women.

Delhi, the capital of India, has one of the highest rape rates in the country. India has been deemed by some surveys to be one of the most dangerous countries to be a woman. Sexual harassment on buses and the streets is widespread. Lack of protection for women traveling and walking the streets is further impacted by corrupt police and government policies that fail to protect women. In this case alone, when a Magistrate went to the hospital to take a statement from the hospitalized victim about her horrific ordeal, the Magistrate reported repeated inference from the head of police. Indian Government also actively ignores the safety of women. A report in the Guardian newspaper told of Indian men who had been accused of sexual harassment (and in some cases rape) who had been allowed to stand in Indian elections. Bribery is rampant, the Police turn a blind eye, and politicians blame women and Western culture for provoking men. In a city of 20 million, 80% of women complain of sexual harassment.

It is no wonder that both men and women took to the streets to protest India’s complacent attitudes to women, particularly rape. The victim was traveling on a private bus after seeing a movie with a male friend. She was brutally attacked by six men on the bus and subjected to horrific abuse. Her companion was beaten with iron rods. Both were dumped on the side of a street after the ordeal. Her injuries were so severe that she had to have part of her colon removed. She was on a ventilator in critical condition for days and was flown to Singapore for specialist treatment. This woman died--all for traveling on a bus.

The protests following her story are not a reaction to her specific case. Rather, they are an accumulation of anger and frustration at numerous attacks on women which have been ignored by the authorities.  Earlier this year, there was public outrage after 12 men outside a bar assaulted a teenage girl. The attack was filmed by an off-duty TV journalist for 45 minutes. The girl later asked, “Why did no one help me?”  The public protesting are rightly asking why it is not safe for women to walk the streets.  Their anger highlights corrupt police and a government that for too long has swept this epidemic under the carpet.

The people of India have spoken. It is time for the government to act.

Follow Ruby on Twitter: @rubysinghrao

Traversing India to Support Public Health Programs

 CORE Group's leadership, including Pinky Patel (fourth from left), in India.

CORE Group, a public health organization based in Washington, DC, has an admirable vision: a world of healthy communities, where no mother or child dies of preventable causes. An extremely dedicated and effective nonprofit, I recently interviewed Pinky Patel, CORE Group's Communication Manager, about their recent trip through India to visit, learn from, and support successful public health programs.


You recently traveled through India with CORE Group. Tell me a bit about why you all made the journey, some goals, and also some surprises.

This year, to meet the professional development and learning needs of the CORE Group community, we launched the annual Practioner Academy Community Health Workshop. This workshop is designed to bring together public health professionals from all over the world to spend a week visiting and learning from a successful community health project. For our first site, we selected the Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP), founded in 1970 by Drs. Raj and Mabelle Arole. With the community always in mind, CRHP pioneered the principles of comprehensive, community-based primary care. Communities are encouraged to take health into their own hands through the support of the Village Health Workers (VHWs), community groups such as women’s groups, farmers groups, and adolescent groups, and the mobile health outreach team and CRHP hospital and training center.

Pinky along with women village health workers.

My role was to film the workshop and interview the participants, Village Health Workers, communities, and Comprehensive Rural Health Project staff to capture lessons learned and understand what makes this model so successful. 

I knew I would bear witness to some amazing stories and learn a lot, but I had no idea just how touching and inspiring so many of the women and girls would be. Each and every VHW has such a tremendous story of overcoming incredible challenges. They shared their stores with us about starting out as illiterate, low-caste girls, not able to allow even their shadows to touch another person. They endured early child marriages, early and sometimes dangerous pregnancies, abusive husbands and in-laws, and extraordinary poverty. Most reached breaking points that they barely overcame.

But, then they became a part of Comprehensive Rural Health Project's training program, which empowered and trained them to become VHWs, learning about life-saving community-based health approaches. They were trained to treat diarrhea, check for leprosy, provide pre and ante-natal care, and even perform safe deliveries in people's homes. They also addressed broad community concerns such as the low-status of women, the caste system, poverty, traditional beliefs, agricultural production, watershed development, and appropriate technology. Tackling the social determinants of health and empowering the whole community is the key to their success and central to the CRHP model.

Children, particularly girls, face great obstacles to receive education. 

Having close ties to India, do you feel that the portrayal of women and girl's is accurate in worldwide media? If not, what could be done to change or better illustrate a more accurate point of view and thus perception?

I was born in the States but have traveled to and throughout India many times. I believe that the media and even public health practitioners could do a better job of portraying and promoting the strength and potential of Indian girls and women.

Thankfully, there are many campaigns trying to protect girls against the incredibly high rates of infanticide throughout India. Many of these campaigns are trying to educate parents, families, and communities on the potential of the girl child. As one young girl told me, "Girls are perceived as a burden from the time of birth until death. Yet, it is us that give birth, raise our children, care for our families, and work so hard to make life better for those we love. We are NOT burdens! We deserve the chance to live our lives."

Within the public health, what are the main concerns facing young girls, both rural and urban?

Girls in India face extreme discrimination yet show incredible resiliency.

Unfortunately, for many girls, it is a challenge to simply be born! With the high rates of female infanticide, many are never even given the chance to have a life. If born, many face horrible discrimination, extreme poverty, and incredibly tragic circumstances. Many are denied an education, forced into early child marriages and sexual encounters, give birth before their young bodies are even fully developed, and struggle to ensure the health and safety of their children amongst incredibly challenging circumstances especially if they are living in rural areas without access to services.

The low-status of women throughout India, and the world, MUST be addressed if we ever really hope to change the world. Empowering a girl not only changes her life, but every generation after!

Share one (or some) of the most meaningful stories you heard from females during various trips throughout India.

While everyone I have ever interviewed left a lasting impact on me, there is one story that genuinely broke my heart but also reminded me of how powerful a woman can be. For the sake of confidentiality, I will call her Ambika.

Ambika was forced into an early child marriage at the age of 12 to a man 21 years her senior. She was forced to have sex and became pregnant with twins by age 16. She struggled with the pregnancy and eventually lost one child- the boy- and was left with a girl, which was a death sentence for her and her daughter. Despite having NO control over the sex of her child, she was beaten and BURNED and almost died as a result of having a girl-child. Thankfully, she survived and escaped with her daughter. Amika is now slowly rebuilding her life. Despite enduring such horrible tragedies, she believes in a brighter future, especially for her daughter. She is determined to make that happen by teaching her daughter of her potential, providing her with an education and a healthy adolescence free from marriage or pregnancy.

1000 WORDS: Salt of the Earth

Female salt miners in India take a break from the day's grueling work. From Selvaprakash Lakshmanan's submission to Picturing Power & Potential, "Working for Just Salt."