Introduction: The Changing Landscape
‘Fiction gives eyes to the horrified narrator. Eyes to see and weep…. either one counts the cadavers, or one tells the story of the victims.’ by Paul Ricouer.
I was born into the tail of displacement, in a refugee colony on the northern fringes of Calcutta, where the air hummed with the reality of loss of homeland and separation. From my earliest memories, I absorbed the weight of Bengali refugees—families uprooted by the 1947 Partition of India, which cleaved Bengal into two halves, and later the immigrants due to Bangladesh's independence. My parents fled East Pakistan amid waves of religious persecution, abandoning ancestral homes for the uncertainty of this new India. In their homeland, they had known abundance, but in the colony, survival meant scraping by in cramped quarters, daily lives being a survival test. Their migration etched into me a profound awareness: borders redraw maps, but they fracture souls. “The traumatic experience of displacement during the partition, where the familiar, secure, and personal space of "home" turns into a strange, violent, and alien place” (Homi S Bhabha).
In 2014, I travelled to Dhaka for a documentary photography course, and I became the first in my family to return to Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) since my parents' exodus four decades earlier. At the immigration checkpoint, amid the clamour of stamps and scrutiny, I met Mithun Saha, a Hindu customs official whose eyes mirrored my own unspoken questions. Our exchange was fleeting yet piercing; we spoke of Hindu migrations, families splintered, most fleeing to India while a few clung to the soil. "You are a foreigner now," he said softly, "to the very land that birthed your parents and grandparents." Deeper into Bangladesh, I traced my lineage to Jhalokhati in Barisal, a southern idyll where, in dust, I searched my ancestral home, weathered but whispering of what was forsaken. The journey kindled, and I delved into the Bengal Partition archives, unearthing a glaring void—no visual narratives captured its sprawling layers, where divided land birthed dual nationalities, yet shared language, rituals, and yearnings endured. Historians now call it "shared culture," a fragile bridge over enmity's chasm.
The border fence, that barbed testament to severance, loomed large in my lens. It not only cleaved earth but identities, twisting linguistic pride into nationalist silos, even as Bengali essence pulsed unbroken. My research revealed partition's venom seeping deep: atrocities born of division. This birthed The Bloodiest Border, a visual reckoning with the fallout. No fence, no fracture—thus, The Gaze of X-ray, peering through the haze of inherited trauma.
Then came 2015's Land Boundary Agreement, a post-1971 salve that freed thousands from stateless limbo, unshackling them from no-man's-land purgatory. From this, the People of Nowhere emerged—a tale of reclaimed earth and elusive belonging. A fellowship from the Serendipity Arts Foundation propelled my refugee odyssey further. Their faith in my visual inquiry fuelled Sons of the Soil, chronicling Bengali Hindus and Muslims marginalized in Assam state. The state's draconian policies branded them "illegal intruders," stripping roots from recent arrivals. Amid this, I witnessed Bengali women's shared anguish—Hindus and Muslims alike, ensnared by fabricated tales of infiltration. Their resilience inspired Women of Assam, a portrait of quiet defiance amid policy's storm.
My path to the Matuas began serendipitously in 2013, during my stint as a photojournalist in a newspaper. I met Jagdish Halder, a Matua elder, who shared his saga of flight and fortitude. Through him, I uncovered their world: a spiritual rebellion forged 215 years ago in present-day Bangladesh, birthing a socialistic faith to defy Brahminical oppression. Their hymns of equality resonated with the refugee migrations of millions, including my own bloodline. The deeper I plunged, the more their story swelled, culminating in my ongoing opus, The Songs of the Caged Birds – The Story of Matuas. Here, caged spirits sing of liberation, their voices a counterpoint to partition's cage.
Over the years, I photographed the refugees, collected archival documents & recorded oral histories. Through these visual narratives, I map the Bengal Partition's enduring scars—economic ruin, cultural hybridity, spiritual insurgency. It is my modest offering to post-colonial discourse, a lens where history's abstractions gain flesh and feeling. Hundreds of books were written to dissect the politics, yet few evoke the human gaze: the artist's urge to mend what maps torn asunder. In stitching these threads, I honour the displaced, transforming personal inheritance into collective testimony. The border endures, but so does our shared pulse—Bengali, unbroken.
Refugees, statelessness, and migration are current global concerns that have led to the emergence of right-wing nationalists and authoritarian rule, disregarding democracy. I devote myself to producing the work artistically with the approach, to use photographs on the contemporary socio-politics of India, a result of the partition. My research consists of a macro visual narrative with micro-stories connected by a linear thread, which is the legacy of the Bengal Partition.
'Partition is a never-ending story…, a messy, long-drawn-out process that remains 'still unfinished today'' (The Partition Motif)