‘Nothing Left to Call Home’ investigates how religious violence in my home state of West Bengal, India, is also patriarchal violence targeting women. This ongoing project seeks to memorialize under-reported traumas while honoring women’s resilience before a generation of memories is lost. 

(Ongoing)

NOTHING LEFT TO CALL HOME SUPPORTED BY:

• Inge Morath Award 2021, Magnum Foundation. 
• Generator Grant, Experimenter, 2021.
• Social Documentary Grant 2021 by SACAC & Murthy Nayak Foundation. 
• Student grant recipient for The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund 2022.

Unearthing women’s narratives on the multi-faceted and complex communal events since India’s partition and independence in 1947, “Nothing Left to Call Home” is a visual research project centered around the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh that broadly investigates how these events have historically manifested as patriarchal violence against women and widely exploring the intertwined links between religious intolerance since partition, institutionalized terror for clear electoral purpose in recent years, and pre-established local networks of civic engagement by critically analyzing the centuries-old coexistence between Hindus and Muslims. Since 2020, The project has focused on collecting accounts of Bengali women who have been disproportionately affected by communal polarisation, riots, and migration since the 1947 partition.

The “Great Calcutta Killing” in 1946 destroyed Bengal’s psyche, which continues till today. Additionally, the growth of Hindu nationalism since that time indicates the future of the modern Indian state. Under the current Indian government, lynching, fake news, xenophobia, propaganda, and hate speech are used against Muslims and Christians to promote Hindu nationalism. Across the border, Islamist extremism is playing a similar role against Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. Interestingly, the sources are similar in most cases.