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“Who is a protestor?”, asks photographer Raghav Kakkar.
2020, despite everything, has been read as the year of the labour of love. The state suppression of all kinds of protests and the demonisation and persecution of everyone who has dared to raise their voice against the regime not only characterised this year but also grounded an indelible reminder of the long history of freedom that has been lived and achieved on the streets.
Drawing from the rhetoric that calls peaceful protestors by various names – ‘anti-national’, ‘jihadi’, ‘Khalistaani’, ‘urban Naxals’, ‘Maoists’ – but their own, we wonder if there is a definition of who is a protestor after all!
As India burgeons with the ripples of the farmers’ protests in the capital, Kakkar takes his question to the Singhu Delhi-Haryana border and in a short video, records the voices of unlikely protestors – a local, hookah-dragging mendicant, the parents of a young child, and the 70-year-old Mastana Baba who could trace the injustices of the system and the various administrations to the 1970s.
Says Kakkar about the life and motivation of protestors at the border, “One thing you see when you enter the protest site is how well-organised everything is — from the preparation of langar to getting newspapers in the morning. A short insight into how there are people from all walks of life working together in this farmers agitation. It depicts three interesting tales of people I met with their own causes and inhibitions but the same thrust for change.”
Amidst the failing rounds of negotiation with the Centre, at least 25 farmers have lost their lives, several of them from the bitter cold. As opposed to the current government’s and mainstream media’s claims that these farmers’ protests are motivated and mandated by the (otherwise remarkably weak) opposition, the people at the grassroots speak about the importance of land in their lives. They urge to be not called terrorists.
To this end, Kakkar asks if a protestor is “someone to wants to agitate, or is it someone who cares, or is it someone who wants to challenge the system?”
In times when it’s of primary importance that we know whom we are listening to, watch Raghav’s video below to hear voices from the ground as Kakkar presents a short insight into how there are people from all walks of life agitating together for their rights.
Raghav Kakkar is a 21-year-old creative based out of Delhi who is working in the media space. He shows his passion for storytelling through his short documentaries, photography, and montages about life and people.
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