With these photos, I wanted to document two different and conflicting ideas of India that came to a head in the winter of 2019-20. The Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019, which when used in conjunction with the National Register of Citizens would render countless Muslims without citizenship rights. The Shaheen Bagh protest, a peaceful women-led sit-in, began in response to these discriminatory legislations.
The hopes and dreams of these protests that emphasized community building, solidarity, and constitutionality were swiftly extinguished by a violent and brutal pogrom against the Muslims of northeast Delhi, whose political assertion was perceived as a direct threat to these majoritarian political goals. Dissent coming from minority community protests was violently silenced by Hindu extremists who set fire to Muslim homes, decimating the idea of a diverse but equal India.
