Another side of the story

With India having earned admiration for the number of women who have risen to high office - including recently elected President Pratibha Patil - a photography exhibition in Bangalore came as a stark reminder that not everyone is benefiting.

"India Women: The Roles Revised" was on view during last month's international conference on "Women in the Emerging Indian Economy - Silence to Voice: Problems and Possibilities".

The exhibition included photos of women in micro-credit self-help groups, female labourers, victims of state violence and rural Dalit women, who are required to keep their distance from members of "higher" castes.

Most share the fate of mothers, wives and daughters who are the true labourers of their families - victims of traditional beliefs.

In many agriculture-based

rural communities in India,

where farmland and its resources are shrinking and productivity

is falling, women have founded micro-credit groups so they

can launch small-scale

enterprises and nurture

self-employment.

Dev Nayak, who photographed one of these groups, witnessed the positive change taking place in their lives, but Sohrab Hura saw only gloom among the women who toil in traditional industries like brick-making and mining. His pictures tell a different story than do those who cite India's rising star as proof that globalisation works.

"Sexual, physical and mental exploitation is part of their daily lives," Hura commented. "Besides their hazardous work, they are deprived of all forms of medical, social and financial security."

Gauri Gill photographed women in rural communities in western Rajasthan state.

"I wanted to show what it was like growing up in an isolated area," she said. She and her fellow photographers "moved in parallel worlds, and the images we have are stereotypical - usually villagers as victims of some calamity, or perhaps the occasional smiling face in a relief pamphlet".

Among Gill's photos is one of a young woman who'd been burned by her in-laws.

"She refused to say who did it because she was very scared and concerned about her children if she were to be killed," Gill said.

Sudharak Olwe presented a photographic odyssey into the living hell of the Dalit women.

"At the lowest end of every spectrum - be it caste, class or gender - they are open to exploitation at every level," Olwe said. "Rape, mutilation, sexual abuse and mental torture fall in their daily routine."

Urban, "cosmopolitan" women were the subjects for Swanpan Nayak.

"They are a different niche," she said, "a completely liberalised, cosmopolitan bunch shedding all inhibitions and ready to take on life head-on, in the spirit of partying day in and day out. Women are not lagging behind. They have shunned all inhibitions."

In a series called "Worshipping the Goddess", Saibal Das showed photos of cross-dressers at a Chamaya-vilakku ceremony held at Kerala's Kottankulangara Temple.

The photo exhibition was co-organised by Drik India and Christ College's Centre for Social Action, with the support of the Norwegian development agency Fredskopset.

Subhatra Bhumiprabhas

The Nation

Bangalore, India