Let us keep Homai Vyarawalla's unique past context as well as the contemporary experiences I mentioned earlier in perspective while dealing with the question with which this three part series started: Why there are not many Vyarawallas in Indian news media?
Here is my take on the question. May be subjective and out of place. But I also strongly feel that there could be other and more stronger pointers than these for the absence of Vyarawallas in contemporary contexts.
1) Across the world, then and now, Vyarawallas are rare to find. The simple reason could be the essentially masculine character of the equipment and the person who exists as a photographer/photojournalist. Probably, cultures across the world have inadvertently inscribed in the collective psyche of the members of the two genders what is appropriate for them in terms of professional careers. The Vyarawallas and Margurite-Bourke-Whites probably were born in the contesting planes which came to question the culturally inscribed gender bias. But such a view also raises another question: are there not contemporary planes which challenge culturally inscribed gender bias?
2) Women have always been constructed as the subjects of gaze by painters and later photographers and much later by cinematographers. What becomes of the subject of gaze when women themselves work with the essentially masculine apparatus of camera? The problematic of the relationship between the subject of gaze and the subject that is gazing through the camera lens as well as the predominantly male audience of the visual materials then and now may be at work in structuring the rarity of women photojournalists/photographers in Eastern and Western worlds. As a result, we see more women on the ramps in Milan and New Delhi than camera wielding women on the sides of the ramps.
3) The widely held notion that photojournalism is a field work intensive profession probably acts as deterrent for even those women graduates in communication, who master the craft early on and show adequate passion for the medium of photography, to drop the idea of making a career in photography/photojournalism. The bosses who are in charge of news rooms also subscribe to this notion and contribute to the circulation of the myth that the medium is essentially masculine in terms of its technology, applications and practitioners.
4) A simple reexamination of the past and present photographs showing tourists carrying camera bags in important tourist places tells us that the male members of the groups or families are more likely to be in charge of holding and using the camera than their female counterparts. Even though, the number of women carrying cameras have grown exponentially after the advent of tiny digital cameras, the scenario explained above remains as dominant. Probably, the male dominated cultures require men to sport enough gadgetry to render them more masculine and more dominant than their feminine counterparts. Remember the prevailing cultural notion in many cultures in the East and West that men are techno savvy and women are not.
There could be more reasons than this, but we shall make efforts to have more Homai Vyarawallas and Margurite-Bourke-Whites to help us to relate to our political and social realities.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Why There Are Not Many Homai Vyarawallas in Indian News Media? - I
Yesterday morning, I was on a brief shopping visit to Mylapore East Mada Street. What got my attention was a group of camera wielding young women taking their shots in the small lane where the Jain temple is located. They are probably students working on their photography assignments as a part of their communication programmes in a city college. All of them sported DSLRs on their necks. There are as many graduate programmes in communication in the city of Madras as there are colleges. And a majority of the students who graduate in these programmes are girls. Probably, a good percentage of them land jobs in news media as journalists. We find these days a growing balance between male and female bylines in mainstream English newspapers of the city. But I am yet to find female photojournalists hogging credit lines in news photos or among the yelling group of male photojournalists in the wells of the public auditoriums in the city. I am told that even in USA, only 15% photojournalists are women.
In 1997-1998, while working at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Thirunelveli, myself, colleagues, Kanchanai RR Srinivasan, and nine female students ran an experiment to train women photographers for nearly a year. Eventhough, the explicit objective of the experiment was to train women photojournalists, there were other objectives which aimed to provide a plane of empowerment for both the camera wielding young women students and their subjects as well as their onlookers in a conservative rural setting. The experiment culminated in an exhibition entitled "Nizhalgalin Nigam." (The Reality of Shadows). The exhibition showcased the photographs of the women students who felt immensely transformed in their skill sets, world views and self-esteem levels. One student, Ms Krishna Priya, reached great heights when her photograph was adjudged the best in the 1998 International Journalism Competition organised by EFA UNESCO.
Today I chanced upon a news item about the ongoing exhibition of the works of India's first women photojournalist, Homai Vyarawala, now 97, at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi. Unlike the female student photographers I saw in Mylapore East Mada Street, who had sleek DSLRs, Homai was lugging cameras that weighed more than six pounds when she was covering epoch making as well as ordinary events for Indian and foreign newspapers such as Bombay Chronicle, The Illustrated Weekly of India and Life.
She was the first women photojournalist in India and probably in the non-Western world and her photographs stand testimony to the key events leading to partition and India's Independence. Her major focus was on Jawaharlal Nehru and his family. That got her several unique snapshots of Nehru's personality. One photograph on the first flight of BOAC from London to Delhi shows Nehru with a cigarette in his lips and trying to light one for the wife of Deputy British High Commissioner for India. Why There Are Not Many Homai Vyarawallas in Indian News Media? - II
Homai Vyarawalla's active career as a photojournalist spanned the period from late 1930s to late 1960s. She is the subject of a book commissioned by UNESCO's project, Parzor (The Unesco Parsi Zoroastrian Project). India in Focus: Camera Chronicles with Homai Vyarawalla, authored by Sabeena Gadihokei of Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, is a veritable mine of the visual culture of our pre-Independent and post-Independent past. It is a good source to relate to the life and times of a nation that was struggling for independence as well as a women photojournalist who had the vision and willingness to work with the medium of photography when the medium had no takers from her gender. 
Her work also provides an interesting contrast to the works of Western photojournalists who were covering India, particularly celebrated women photographers like Margurite-Bourke-White. Here is an interesting snippet from her memory about her early career. "I remember my first shot as a photographer, in 1938. A group of women from the women's club in Bombay had gone for a picnic party and I photographed them. My first published pictures were in the Bombay Chronicle - a whole range of pictures, for which I was paid one rupee in cash for each." 
Homai was attracted to the passion of photography by what her boyfriend, later husband, Manekshaw, practiced as a photojournalist. She withdrew from her active life in 1968 when her husband passed away. She was in news last year for selling her 55 year old imported Fiat and buying the Nano as its celebrated first customer.
Homai was recently honoured with a life time achievement award along with three other eminent photographers (S.Paul, Chief Photographer, Indian Express, 1962-1988; Benu Sen, a veteran of many hues in Indian photography circles, winner of the best pictorialist award from Camera World International; and K G Maheshwari, the well known portrait photographer of Mumbai) by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of Govt. of India.
Homai's works are on display since August 27 until October 31, 2010 at the National Galllery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi. "The collection of about 200 images is interesting because it showcases the entire ethos of the country. It has social, anthropological and historical value. We are celebrating the life of an artist as well as acquainting modern viewers with the visual culture of the past," said Rajeev Lochan, Director, NGMA, in an interview. Her entire corpus of available photos and negatives total 90000 and are presently looked after by the Alkazai Foundation, New Delhi.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Surveillance of Public Spaces: The Great CCTV Rush and the Jadavpur Lessons
This week saw one of the first organised protests against the great CCTV rush that has been silently gaining momentum for the past few years in the wake of post-9/11 security concerns and the post-Mumbai blasts.
We all know that privacy and civil liberties issues never had their vocal proponents in India for the simple reason that Indian cultural mores have never accorded these issues the same sanctity and significance Western cultural environment affords. Privacy laws are non-existent and civil liberties are precariously tied to the unhealthy relationship between powerful state apparatuses and nascent civil society formations, even though Indian constitution has a very laudable section on fundamental rights.
One glaring example of the violation of privacy rights of ordinary Indians is in the nature of coverage accorded to victims of different kinds by Indian media. Just as we as Indians do not respect the privacy of our fellow citizens in public spaces, those of our ilk who are working as reporters and sub-editors in news media also do not have any concern for the privacy of the living or dead subjects in their stories. To them anything goes in the making of the story, even if the photographs show the gory details of the dead accident victims or the blood splattered bodies of victims of domestic, communal or other kinds of violence in close up and extreme close up shots.
Think of the fact that the media in USA did not show the bodies of the victims in the twin tower blasts. Think of the fact that scores of dead children's privacy were willingly violated by Indian media during their coverage of 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Think of the fact that thousands of crime victims' photos are freely circulated with the cooperation of the law enforcement agencies by Indian media in concocting stories that have serious implications not only for the immediate privacy related concerns of the individuals in question, but also their long term social lives.
In this context, the growing tendency on the part of the authorities of the state to employ surveillance tools such as CCTV cameras in public spaces calls for closer scrutiny of the nexus between the forces of globalisation and the post-9/11 formations of social surveillance by state agencies.
There is no denying that there is a stronger need to put in place effective surveillance of spaces in which publics move in large number such as airports, railway stations, busy thoroughfares and key government/public offices etc., But what becomes glaring and seen as questionable, as the Jadavpur University students are arguing is the relevance of $42200 worth plan to install CCTV cameras in a campus filled with students and teachers. “This is a clear infringement of our freedoms. We are not terrorists,” said one student leader. More than the concerns of privacy violations, what adds fuel to the fire such protests are stoking is the lack of priorities authorities have in our country. We are fond of marshaling technologies to provide us a false sense of superiority as a nation or a misplaced sense of social control when the ground realities call into serious questions our lack of priorities. According to student protesters at Jadavpur University, when the campus lacks the essentials such as good food, potable water and other facilities students need, where is the need for surveillance cameras. "Why installation of cameras has gained priority when the hostel facilities, toilets and bathrooms need attention first in this centre of excellence university,'' asked a student.
There are shades of other undercurrents in the Jadavpur controversy as well. The campus has generally been perceived pro-left and the recent appearance of a pro-Maoist leader and an ex-JU student, Ms Debolina Ghosh in a meeting inside the campus is seen as the agent provocateur.
Traditional and transitional societies such as ours have a greater predilection for running amok in the face of the growing and complex webs of implications flowing from globalisation and international and intranational security concerns without a clear understanding of the various histories of the surveillance and disciplinary societies and what failed them.
There is a need for a civil-liberties and privacy rights sensitive surveillance policy of state institutions in India and not a technologically driven, insensitive and callous approach that calls into question the democractic and civil liberties moorings of world's largest democracy. The current approach which relies on trying to ban the thing that is perceived as a threat such as a mobile phone (remember the infamous Anna University ban on mobile phones in 2005?) or a blackberry or going in for heightened monitoring of the subjects who are seen as deviant (such as the students of Jadavpur students for being pro-left and pro-Maoist) misses the trees for woods as any other approach that governed the functioning of earlier control and disciplinary societies as narrated by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze in their works.
We all know that privacy and civil liberties issues never had their vocal proponents in India for the simple reason that Indian cultural mores have never accorded these issues the same sanctity and significance Western cultural environment affords. Privacy laws are non-existent and civil liberties are precariously tied to the unhealthy relationship between powerful state apparatuses and nascent civil society formations, even though Indian constitution has a very laudable section on fundamental rights.
One glaring example of the violation of privacy rights of ordinary Indians is in the nature of coverage accorded to victims of different kinds by Indian media. Just as we as Indians do not respect the privacy of our fellow citizens in public spaces, those of our ilk who are working as reporters and sub-editors in news media also do not have any concern for the privacy of the living or dead subjects in their stories. To them anything goes in the making of the story, even if the photographs show the gory details of the dead accident victims or the blood splattered bodies of victims of domestic, communal or other kinds of violence in close up and extreme close up shots.
Think of the fact that the media in USA did not show the bodies of the victims in the twin tower blasts. Think of the fact that scores of dead children's privacy were willingly violated by Indian media during their coverage of 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Think of the fact that thousands of crime victims' photos are freely circulated with the cooperation of the law enforcement agencies by Indian media in concocting stories that have serious implications not only for the immediate privacy related concerns of the individuals in question, but also their long term social lives.
In this context, the growing tendency on the part of the authorities of the state to employ surveillance tools such as CCTV cameras in public spaces calls for closer scrutiny of the nexus between the forces of globalisation and the post-9/11 formations of social surveillance by state agencies.
There is no denying that there is a stronger need to put in place effective surveillance of spaces in which publics move in large number such as airports, railway stations, busy thoroughfares and key government/public offices etc., But what becomes glaring and seen as questionable, as the Jadavpur University students are arguing is the relevance of $42200 worth plan to install CCTV cameras in a campus filled with students and teachers. “This is a clear infringement of our freedoms. We are not terrorists,” said one student leader. More than the concerns of privacy violations, what adds fuel to the fire such protests are stoking is the lack of priorities authorities have in our country. We are fond of marshaling technologies to provide us a false sense of superiority as a nation or a misplaced sense of social control when the ground realities call into serious questions our lack of priorities. According to student protesters at Jadavpur University, when the campus lacks the essentials such as good food, potable water and other facilities students need, where is the need for surveillance cameras. "Why installation of cameras has gained priority when the hostel facilities, toilets and bathrooms need attention first in this centre of excellence university,'' asked a student.
There are shades of other undercurrents in the Jadavpur controversy as well. The campus has generally been perceived pro-left and the recent appearance of a pro-Maoist leader and an ex-JU student, Ms Debolina Ghosh in a meeting inside the campus is seen as the agent provocateur.
Traditional and transitional societies such as ours have a greater predilection for running amok in the face of the growing and complex webs of implications flowing from globalisation and international and intranational security concerns without a clear understanding of the various histories of the surveillance and disciplinary societies and what failed them.
There is a need for a civil-liberties and privacy rights sensitive surveillance policy of state institutions in India and not a technologically driven, insensitive and callous approach that calls into question the democractic and civil liberties moorings of world's largest democracy. The current approach which relies on trying to ban the thing that is perceived as a threat such as a mobile phone (remember the infamous Anna University ban on mobile phones in 2005?) or a blackberry or going in for heightened monitoring of the subjects who are seen as deviant (such as the students of Jadavpur students for being pro-left and pro-Maoist) misses the trees for woods as any other approach that governed the functioning of earlier control and disciplinary societies as narrated by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze in their works.
Looking UP with Trees in Japan
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
National 35 Sprinty BC:"The Made In India" Camera
I longed for owning a one, but could not lay my hands on one as it was seen expensive by me as I was a college student and not earning. I came to acquire many SLRs later years, but was still longing to lay my hands on National 35 Sprinty BC, hereafter NSP SBC. But it was not to be spotted in camera shops or even shops selling old items in Moore Market area in Chennai. I had a double bonanza last weekend after my short tour around the lanes of Moore Market area. During the first round, I missed the NSP SBC. On closer scrutiny of the items in one shop, the NSP SBC was spotted lying in a heap of rusted metal curios, obviously longing for a good hand to pick it up to a loving home.
I settled for a deal at Rs.300, even though the seller was demanding Rs.500. I checked the NSP SBC's innards,levers and lens. For what I paid and the years I waited, it seemed a steal and more superior in my impressions than ISRO's IRSes and Kalam's SLVs. On the way home, another classic, Yashica Electro 35 G caught my attention and I settled for a deal at Rs.500 when the seller was expecting Rs.1000. Yashica lovers know the value of G series that sold like hot cakes during 1960s and 1970s for what it pioneered in a popular consumer camera series: electronics inside a camera at an affordable price. The model I bought weighed like a Vijayantha tank and was in pristine condition.
The two cameras I held in my hands also proved our technological backwardness during the not so distant past of 1970s. The Yashica Electro 35 G I bought nearly thirty years after its manufacture still looks and handles like a Merc. The Regula Sprinty BC-turned-National Sprinty BC looks and handles like an Amby, notwithstanding the nostalgic memories both Amby and NSP SBC kindle in us.The NSP SBC like many of our "Made in India" was actually made in Germany as Regula Sprinty BC by a not so well known German camera manufacturer, King KG. When King KG found the going tough during the 1970s in its camera business, it was slowly losing interest in camera manufacturing. In 1977, the designs, tool kits and all the necessary infrastructure to produce NSP SBC was bought by National Instruments, Calcutta. There are no figures about how many units National Instruments manufactured and sold. But interesting insights into India's only attempt at camera manufacturing emerge in a project by two independent photographers, Manas Bhattacharya and Madhuban Mitra. Their project documents a surreal glimpse of the decaying assembly lines of National Instruments. It is a project as surreal as it is ironic as the subject of the photographic project is the innards of camera manufacturing factory.
Next time when ISRO, Indian media or some political biggie makes a loud noise about the emerging super power's technological achievements, laugh loudly and sulk deeply while holding a "Made in India" item that was designed, tooled and sold by a foreign company, but found its way to India as India's own just as the NSP SBC.
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