LENS EYE
Images of hope and enterprise
MALA KUMAR
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Clare Arni's "Earth Bound" poignantly documents people effecting complex changes in rural India.
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VISUAL RECORDS: Photos from the exhibition.
IN the Naxalite-active regions of the Eastern Ghats, Vishakha District, Andhra Pradesh, 20-year-old Lak Ramachandra is working with a youth group to construct a check dam on the Machiagetta. To him, bringing water to his backward village of Derala is not just a dream, but a reality. As a member of the Manavtha Kendra, a unit of an organisation called Chaitanya Shravanti, Ramachandra looks forward to the time when the irrigation channels leading away from the dam will irrigate 200 acres of land around the village of Pinnalochali. "To get to the village on top of the hill, we had to walk across the river with my camera over my head," reveals noted photographer Clare Arni. The shot of people working on the check dam, taken with her Nikon D-70 is one of the images of positive India that stays in one's head long after one has returned from an exhibition of her photographs.
Visual record
"Earth Bound — Land, Water, People" is a visual documentation of the work of German Agro Action (GAA) and its partners in India, under the Geographically Based Programme, India. Curated by Jackfruit Research and Design, the exhibition documents GAA's activities in poverty alleviation, agrarian development, women and children welfare and education through Clare Arni's viewfinder. Working with several non-governmental organisations in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal, GAA and its funding partner, the European Commission, wanted to showcase the promise and potential of development activities. The exhibition is therefore a joyous and diverse collection of case studies that comprises snapshots of the large scale and complex changes people are effecting.
The images of hope and result are clear in the way Drakshayini harvests a field of mallige hoova or jasmine flowers. Another image of her sister Vimalakakshamma weaving a blanket tells the story of training, enterprise and success. "It is difficult to believe that this field was once a dry land in Bellary district," muses Arni. "The efforts of MYRADA in watershed management and microfinance have brought a sea-change in the lives of the people in rural Karnataka."
Twenty-three-year-old Sumitra Devi and her mother-in-law Samni Devi were once branded witches by their community in Paisra, Giridhih District, Jharkhand. Today, after the intervention of the Centre for World Solidarity (CWC) and Swadhina, their lives and those of other marginalised farmers in the mining area of Jharkhand has improved tremendously. The organisations have initiated watershed management programmes that also promote self-help groups, animal husbandry and social forestry. While Sumitra underwent training in animal care and health, Samni played a key role in the Jungla Bachao Samiti. Clare Arni captures the strength of purpose behind Samni's gaze to telling effect. In the forests of Orissa's notorious Mayurbhanj district, children start the day by collecting leaves and twigs. These are used as teaching-learning tools in their classroom, a thatched shed constructed by the villagers in a field. They attend the Alternative Education Centre (AEC), one of the 29 conceptualised by Sikshasandhan. The organisation has developed a special pedagogy taking into consideration tribal customs, practices, languages and rituals. When GAA partnered with Sikshasandhan, it justified the importance of education in the improved management of natural resources. The black-and-white image of a little girl looking back into Clare's camera warms the cockles of one's heart.
In the mangrove forests of Sunderbans, West Bengal, Ramakrishna Mission Lokasiksha Parishad (RKMLSP) and Sri Ramakrishna Ashram Nimpith (SRAN) are two organisations that help local communities understand and overcome problems arising from their unique surroundings. Land shaping is a process that the organisations have popularised. Farmers dig a pond in their field to collect rainwater. The excavated earth is distributed over a larger area in three layers of increasing height. Raising the land helps overcome salinity and water logging and makes multiple cropping possible. "Maniklal Acharya, who made enough money through land shaping to buy himself a cycle rickshaw, gave me a memorable ride," says Clare, whose photographs of the place are as beautiful as landscape paintings.
In black and white
In the arid deserts of Khaari Chaabri and Soniyasar villages, Churu District, Rajasthan, 40-year-old Bhanwri Devi is part of the women's group that built shallow water kunds with the help of SCRIA (Social Centre for Rural Initiative and Advancement. SCRIA trained the women to grow trees on the bunds around their fields to prevent soil erosion from wind and shifting dunes. SCRIA has also motivated people to rebuild water-harvesting structures like talais (open ponds), tankaas and kunds (covered water storage tanks). "It's incredible how the women live on nothing!" exclaims Clare Arni, who captured the strong, unveiled faces of the women. "Earth Bound was to be a collection of black and white photographs. Here I was in a place known for its glorious riot of colours. As a photographer I had to keep thinking of shots that would tell the story of the women even without the colour."
At the opening of "Earth Bound" in Goethe-Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore, NGO members were thrilled to see the positive images of rural India. The show went to Hyderabad (December 17-24), and will travel to New Delhi (January 1-7, 2007, India Habitat Centre) and finally to Kolkata (February 1-7, Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre).
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