Anushree Fadnavis, Saumya Khandelwal and Smita Sharma are the only three Indian women at the Indian Photography Festival in Hyderabad this year. But it’s their work that’s on display that makes them stand out.
Each of their series — Anushree’s Ladies compartment only?, Smita’s Chronicles of Courage: Stories of Rape and Sexual Violence in India and Saumya’s Shattered Adolescence — Stories of Child Brides — are gender themed. But the stories are tailored for all audiences.
Shillong-born Smita began researching for her series in New York after the Park Street gang rape incident of 2012 in Kolkata, by talking to people who had been raped and also their families and documented their struggles. Her actual ground work started when she moved back to India in 2014.
“This issue was extremely close to my heart. Through this series I wanted to give voice to the victims and survivors of sexual assault. What happens is that as soon as the crime is over, victims are forgotten. And most of these cases aren’t reported — only one of the stories in my series was reported,” says Smita, who has worked for Human Rights Watch and other international publications.
Saumya’s series, meanwhile, tells the story of child brides of UP — something she says is grossly under-documented. The business administration student-turned-photojournalist says, “There was just one case study I found on the internet about this girl who was the world’s youngest divorcee at eight years old. I was visiting home in Lucknow last year, so I took the chance to visit this place Shravasti too. When I went there I saw that all the things I’d been reading about, were actually happening in front of me.”
Taking a modern approach to the format, Mumbai-based Anushree’s series on women’s compartments in her city’s local train network began as her own little note-taking exercise. “Our mobile phone is an everyday tool. It helped me get closer to people. With cameras, people get conscious, and for such intimate moments, I want to have them in their own space thinking and dreaming.”
She adds, “If it was 20-30 years ago, I’d be doing the same thing with maybe a Polaroid camera or taking notes in a book. Instagram gave me that platform of that old-school square format and it just felt more personal to me.”
The reasoning behind each series may be different, but Saumya sums up their one commonality: “There are very few stories that have been able to bring about a huge difference. But that doesn’t mean we should stop doing this. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring about a lot of change, but I’ll be glad to have started a conversation about it.”
