Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
Photograph © Showkat Nanda
In November 2015, Hajra Begum, a 74-year-old widow from a small frontier hamlet in Kashmir, received a fist-sized bag of soil. It was from the grave of her only son, who had disappeared in the summer of 1997. Now her 18-year long wait was over.
Most women are not as 'lucky' as Hajra.
There are hundreds of women who have been carrying the burden of Kashmir's enforced disappearances. Mothers and wives of missing men spend their entire lives and all their possessions, often reduced to abject poverty, searching for their loved ones in jails, police stations, army camps, and torture centers.
Human rights groups say that 8,000 people have disappeared in the last thirty years of the conflict in Kashmir. In recent years, nearly 2,700 graves have been found across the valley - some with more than one body.
The need to document the lives of these women resulted from my childhood experiences and my own relationship with the conflict. In the early 1990s, my brother left home, but never came back. As a young boy, I identified with these women, as they would remind me of my mother's relentless pain and her endless wait for her son. My closeness – both physical and emotional – to this issue has helped me to document it as honestly as possible. I, through a humanistic approach and a long-term commitment to this issue, have tried to bring a uniquely personal point of view to this story.
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At the time of our 1:1 Interview with Showkat, he was asked this question about The Endless Wait.
PSA: Can you share a bit about your personal photographic work on Kashmir, entitled The Endless Wait? Why do you make this work? What do you hope to achieve with it? Do you have any particular ambitions for it? Does it guide / influence your photographic work at large?
SN: Most of my photographic work is documentary in nature and deals with the conflict and its ramifications. The Endless Wait is a recent photo project that I am still working on. It's a photo essay on women whose sons or husbands have been subjected to enforced disappearances in the last three decades in Kashmir. These women have been waiting for their loved ones for years and spend most of their lives frequenting graveyards, jails, police stations, and torture centers for snippets of information.
In a situation that prevailed in the early 90s in Kashmir, we kids saw ourselves closer to, and often in the company of women. For instance, there was a time when, in the fear of being arrested, men would leave their homes to spend days in forests and other 'safer' places. The only people left behind were elderly men, women, and children. Even at the time of a crackdown by the Indian soldiers to hunt down militants, men and women would be asked to gather at different places. I, like many other young boys of my age, always found myself with my mother and other women. So, in a way, we kids initially were able to see this conflict through the pain and misery reflected on the faces of women - mothers, grandmothers, aunts, friends' mothers, neighbors etc. A woman's face was the most prominent symbol of suffering in Kashmir.
A very important personal story is that of my mother. In March 1990, my brother left home to cross over to the other side of the Line of Control for arms training and never came back. Finally, after a couple of years we were informed that he had died while crossing the treacherous mountain passes just seven days after he had left. For a full two years we didn't know if he was dead or alive. I have seen my own mother suffering with the pain of losing a son. So, for me, it was natural to somehow identify with all those women who had lost their sons or who didn't know what happened to them, because it reminded me of my mother and her relentless pain.
Eventually, when I thought of becoming a photographer, my strongest urge was to tell these stories that had directly or indirectly affected me. Endless Wait is such a story. Personally, this project has acted as mental therapy for me. Working on projects like these allows me to channel my emotions, and gives me a vent to the frustration that I have grown up with.
The purpose of this long-term project is to take away the tag of victimhood from these mothers and wives, and present them as normal individuals. This was an attempt to depict their struggle in a positive way, rather than portraying them as helpless victims as they have been portrayed before. I also wanted to highlight a deeper aspect of the lives of these women. This project is not only about their ordeal and painful survival, but also their struggle for justice. Despite living a life without their loved ones, their struggle for survival, earning a livelihood, and educating their children presents a ray of hope in their dark lives. For decades, these women have been documented as the symbols of pain and suffering. But through this project, I wanted to take from them the tag of victimhood and present them as dignified human beings.
Also, the women who do not know what happened to their loved ones live with an unresolved grief, so in a way, it is sometimes more painful than if a loved one has passed. When someone dies, the relatives come to terms with the reality after some time, but when it comes to these women who do not know what happened to their sons, husbands, or brothers, the pain virtually becomes endless. That's what I have attempted to show in this photo essay.
20 November
