An Artist’s Impression of Dystopian India

There’s a smokescreen in place – one that hides all the voices that need to be heard.

The idea of India is slowly giving way to an authoritarian dystopia. Democratic institutions are reeling while a majoritarian nationalist imagination takes over mainstream political discourse. There’s a smokescreen in place – one that hides all the voices that need to be heard.

This series of paintings in centred around a dystopia that, unfortunately, isn’t too far from what India is seeing in reality.

Kashmir seethes under a siege, while the rest of the country watches a blackout of human rights.

In search of a “pure” land, the BJP is using the NRC to render close to two million people stateless in Assam.

The mainstream media is creating a smokescreen of false consciousness – and an image of the Great Leader as our saviour.

As the capital becomes a gas chamber, clean air is being made into a commodity.

The crippling agrarian crisis continues to take farmers’ lives, almost every single hour.

From fee hikes to police brutality, the public education system is in crisis.

Majoritarian paranoia – stoked by those in power – is snatching the lives of minorities with impunity.

What do you do, in times of despair? You protest. You resist. And you don’t give up.