Ronny Sen: Portrait of a Protest

Overview

The images here, from 2006 to 2020, of women and men walking in the streets protesting against the government are also faces in a crowd, but of an entirely different kind. These images aren’t about suffering and oppression, but about resistance and anger, of celebration, hope, and solidarity. The photographs depict various movements in India over the past 15 years: notably the Nandigram movement, Singur, Lalgarh, the people’s resistance against the operations Green Hunt, HokKolorob, and the Jawaharlal Nehru University sedition row, strikes in FTII, protests after Rohith Vemula’s death, strike in FTII, protests after the Dadri lynching, and after the murder of rationalists like Kalburgi, Dabholkar, Pansare and activist Gauri Lankesh from 2013 to 2017, and all the way to the most recent anti-NRC/CAA/NPR protests that have shaken the nation. The photographs were taken mostly on mobile phones and were shared instantly on social media from where they were in turn circulated and re-appropriated, creating a fluid digital archive which is expanding and evolving with each passing day.