Biography:
Kanishka Sonthalia (b. 1990) is an independent documentary photographer currently based in Mumbai, India. Her work focuses on human rights issues related to women, the social construct, and the identity of sub-communities. Education Documentary...
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"He (PM Narendra Modi) has taken away the soul of this temple by tearing apart all the houses and temples that lead to the river," says Geeta Devi, a pilgrim who had travelled nearly 1000 kilometres to visit the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. The temple is one of the most sacred places of worship for Hindus. The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Project announced in March 2018 is an initiative aimed at giving the temple an undiluted visual prominence and providing pilgrims uncongested roads from the temple to the ghats for which they have demolished houses which were 200 to 300 years old.
A vegetable vendor wears a t-shirt saying "I too am a watchman", a slogan used by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for their campaign in the 2019 Indian general election. "These t-shirts and alot of other merchandise has been distributed throughout the country by anonymous business men from Gujarat," said the BJP supporter.
(left) A priest wearing rudraksha chains. (right) Devotees leave handprints on the wall of Shitala Mata Temple who is a reincarnation of Goddess Durga.
Two men overlook a funeral ritual at Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi. "This ghat is very sacred to our Hindu culture. It is a gateway to heaven for those who are cremated here. I have spent all my life on this ghat and on average I see around 100-150 bodies being cremated each day. In the midst of these elections, for the first time I have seen a political party dishonoring the sanctity of this ghat by erecting a flag of their party," says a cowshed owner.
Akshay Patel speaks to media before his final rally. A Congress turncoat, he had left the party before the Rajya Sabha elections in the state. It will be the first time in the history that a bypoll election will take place in Karjan constituency in Gujarat on October 30, 2020.
(left) A unit erected for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project stands tall in a cotton field in Handod, Gujarat. 192 villages in Gujarat and around 120 villages in Maharashtra will be affected by this project. Farmers in these villages are afraid of losing their livelihoods and not getting fair rates of compensation as the land acquisition laws in Gujarat were changed in 2016. The project is a joint venture between India and Japan and is expected to become operational by October 2028. (right) Site of the bullet train project in Handod, Gujarat.
(left) A group of men gather around to get a glimpse of Prophet Muhammad's strand of beard on the occasion of his birthday on October 30, 2020, at Jumma Masjid in Karjan, Gujarat. "Because of the pandemic, we have decided to not take a procession out on the streets this year. The police have given us permission to carry out a small one but we have opted otherwise," says Imam (a Muslim cleric) Dadubhai Multani hesitantly. (right) A strand of hair from Prophet Muhammad's beard is preserved in a case.
"Since four years we have been living in limbo. Earlier it was bureaucracy and now because of the pandemic and lockdown, the site inspector (a third party hired by the government) and contractor don't receive our calls or update us with any information," says a 68-year-old scrap collector. The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana is a central government scheme to provide affordable housing to poor citizens. The scheme is suffering a serious financial setback as cash-strapped state governments have refused to release their share of funds as they have suffered from the lockdown drying up all sources of revenue. Against a target of 6.15 million houses, only 755,000 have been sanctioned this financial year and just 559 completed. Source: The Economic Times
"The bullet train map has a part of my farm on the route. I own 4 acres of land on which I cultivate cotton. They have acquired an acre for the project and the compensation given is as per the old jantri (land tax) rates, which is less than half of the current land rate. Moreover, after the project is complete, the soil quality of the remaining land is going to deteriorate and won't be cultivable in the future," says Bharat Parmar, a 55-year-old cotton farmer from Handod, Gujarat.
"I am a small farmer, I don’t own much land but I put all my family members at work. We do not give it to laborers. My sons work in factories but such jobs are uncertain, you can lose them anytime. That’s why I’m working hard so that in case they lose their jobs, they have this land to fall back on. At the end of the day farming is our life," says Bharat Parmar, a 55-year-old cotton farmer from Handod, Gujarat.
"We have been Congress supporters for many years but he betrayed us (Akshay Patel). BJP bribed him of INR 35 crores (alleged) and he joined their party and now he calls himself hum hai seethe saadhe Akshay (famous Bollywood song; I’m a simple and honest man). The world has reached a stage of moral decay, and having money is the most superior thing, family and relationships don’t matter anymore. We know the growing mentality of people in Gujarat. Congress will not come back to power, because everyone thinks that Rahul Gandhi is Miya Bhai (Muslim brother) and if he comes into power then Muslims will rule the nation. Whereas if Modi remains in power then we (Hindus) will rule the nation and Muslims won’t be a threat to us," says Hiralben, a Karjan resident.
"I don't have all the papers to prove that I'm an Indian citizen. I was born in Surat, but they misspelled my name on the birth certificate so now everything is messed up. I don’t have any documents of my mother and father because they never had such documents. I’m uneducated, I just know how to sign, I don’t know how to read or write. But now because of the new act (CAA) I have realized that I need to keep such documents in place for my children. Yet I support them (BJP) because if the state government is led by Congress and the centre is led by BJP then how will any work get done? We will see when the time comes" says Sarfaraz Patel, a 35-year-old contractor from Karjan, Gujarat.
Portraits of Keshubhai Patel, former Chief Minister of Gujarat are placed at the head office of BJP in Karjan, Gujarat. A karyakarta (party worker) of RSS and founding member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, passed away on October 29, 2020, just a few days before the by-poll elections in Gujarat. As Chief Minister of Gujarat in 1990, Keshubhai had played a key role in the organization of the Rath Yatra for building the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
(L to R) Satish Patel (former MLA of Karjan), Pradipsinh Jadeja (Minister of State for Home, Gujarat), and Akshay Patel rally for the by-poll election in Gujarat.
"Inflation in onion prices is nothing new, it is a recurrent issue. Because of uncertain rainfall every year the crops get destroyed and traders end up stocking old produce which in turn causes the spike," says Narayan Bodhwani an onion commission agent at the Vadodara APMC Market. Onion is a politically sensitive crop, every year politicians decide the price based on their political interests. One such successful experiments of onion politics were carried out by Indira Gandhi right after she had suffered declared an Emergency from 1975 to 1977. She immediately rose back to power by making onion prices a populist rallying cry and thrashed the ruling government for its failure to control prices. Following that onion, prices have played a major role in 1998 and 2010 as well. Source: Money Control
Workers at an APMC market in Vadodara, Gujarat. "There are several things that are not going in the favor of farmers but who points a finger at your own mother (ruling party)," says Nikhil Patel, an APMC clerk. APMC is a system operating under the state government to ensure farmers are safeguarded from exploitation by large retailers. They provide a space for farmers for collective bargaining on price and non-price issues. As per the new APMC Bypass Bill passed in September 2020, traders will be allowed to trade outside of APMC which will have no regulation or data. In order to avoid paying the mandi fee, private players and commission agents will trade outside of APMC which will eventually lead to its collapse.
Voters get their temperatures checked and sanitize their hands before entering a polling station at Sansrod village in Karjan district, Gujarat on November 3, 2020.
Military deployed at a polling station in Sansrod village in Karjan district, Gujarat for the by-poll election on November 3, 2020. Sansrod, a Muslim-dominated village has been under the radar post the 2013 riots over cow slaughter.
"Nobody comes to ask us about our needs even before the elections, nobody cares about our community," says 80-year-old Chanchalben Vasave a resident of Sansrod village. She belongs to scheduled tribe that constitutes 24% of the total population in Sansrod. Villagers belonging to the tribal community in this region mainly work as farm laborers.
"In the name of development they have installed CCTV cameras everywhere in the village while we still struggle to get proper water supply and burn wood to cook food," says a resident of Karjan, Gujarat.
At 182m tall, the world's largest statue of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, a freedom fighter. The Statue of Unity in Kevadia has been built on the Narmada river in Gujarat. The statue has been condemned for its lack of environmental oversight and most importantly for displacing local Adivasi (tribal communities). 75,000 tribals living across 72 villages have been adversely affected by this project and the count keeps increasing since they are expanding the scope of the project each day. "They have already evacuated people from their homes and haven't compensated for it yet. They have imposed a rule that no private builders can acquire land directly from the residents, they have to go through the government. Private builders are ready to pay 50 to 60 lakhs per acre while the government will pay us no more than ten lakhs. They don’t listen to our demands and there is no politician from our community who will listen to us or find a solution," says Prafulbhai Karsan, a Bhumaliya village resident.
"They have seized our lands and they haven't given me a job either. I have been collecting cast iron scrap to make some money, " says a Kevadia resident. "The Nigam officials had given a part of the land to Larsen & Toubro to design and construct the Statue of Unity. After they completed the statue they tore down the office site but not completely. They left the foundation so that we do not reclaim our land and resume farming," says Veenubhai Tadvi, the deputy sarpanch of Kevadia village.
"Ever since the statue has been made, every year on Sardar Vallabhai Patel's birthday, PM Narendra Modi pays a visit to the statue. The cops have a list of 300 villagers and activists who have protested against the project and every year before his arrival they imprison these 300 people for 3-4 days. They do not want any protestor to come in the sight of Modi or the media. This had happened again 5 days back and I was one among the 300 people," says Shaileshbhai Tadvi, a Kevadia resident. "During the lockdown, they imposed ridiculous rules on us. The road leading to the statue passes right by our village. Despite the fact there were no tourists allowed to visit the statue, they imposed a curfew and threatened to put us behind bars if we stepped out. If they spotted our cattle on the road, they either levied a fine or confiscate it which was eventually sold to butchers," added Shaileshbhai.
"During the lockdown, four vans of police entered our village and fenced our land claiming that the land was already sold off to the Sardar Sarovar Nigam Ltd. in 1977 but in reality, the Nigam was founded in 1988. They said if anyone tried to do farming here, they will be prosecuted," says Shaileshbhai Tadvi, a Kevadia, Gujarat resident. "We have a case currently going on at the Ahmedabad High Court against the Nigam. But during the lockdown, they barged into our houses and were beating up anyone who opposed," added Shaileshbhai.
A man walks past an under-construction metro site in Mumbai suburbs. As the city gradually gets unlocked; the opening of malls and eateries along with domestic helps returning to work, the virus has gradually shifted from slums to high-rise households. The COVID-19 tally has increased to over 275,000 cases as of November 2020. The completion of Mumbai's metro line has also been delayed as a large number of migrant workers employed by the MMRDA have not returned from their villages.
Following health concerns and the increasing pollution, the National Green Tribunal passed an order to put a ban on the sale and use of firecrackers prior to Diwali in different states in the country. The abrupt ban will cause an estimate of INR 800 billion loss to the industry. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad questioned why firecrackers are banned only during Hindu festivals. Source: theprint.in
(left) "Temples have opened but people are still scared to seek blessings amidst this situation," says a priest of Mahalakshmi Temple in Mumbai on November 18, 2020. (right) Empty footwear stands outside the temple. Nearly after 7 months after the lockdown was imposed, the Maharashtra government announced on Diwali that all religious places in the state can re-open from November 16.
A man overlooks the Mumbai Coastal Road Project construction work which had resumed amidst the lockdown. The Coastal Road Project has faced stiff opposition for violating indigenous rights to livelihood and environmental laws from environmentalists, urban planners, transport experts, and fishing communities that could be displaced by the project. The coastal road was first proposed in 2012 and was taken up as an election promise by the Bharatiya Janata Party which came to power in Maharashtra in 2014 with support from the Shiv Sena.
In view of safety and to avoid crowd gathering amid the pandemic, the Maharashtra state government led by Shiv Sena decided to ban Chhath Puja celebrations organized every year at natural water bodies in Mumbai. The government issued guidelines to set up artificial ponds so that devotees can carry out the rituals. Chhath Puja is mostly celebrated by Bihar natives.
Women gather in an artificial pond organized by Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal (a religious militant organization) to carry out rituals for Chhath Puja in Mumbai on November 20, 2020.