Here we go

A classic of the Black Hole of Calcutta genre. And a classic of photo ‘journalism’ that draws a barrage of emotions out of me. I am audibly sighing as I type.

Let’s get into it.

In 1972, Eastern India, and Kolkata in particular were still reeling from the impact of the Bangladesh Liberation War, which had ended barely months prior, on the 16th of December 1971 with the birth of the new nation of Bangladesh. The state of West Bengal, of which Kolkata was the capital city, became a refuge for close to four million new refugees. They joined an existing population of around four million refugees, who had been steadily flowing into Eastern India since the Partition of India in 1947.

As with most images of this genre, you are meant to ‘get it’ at a glance. Poverty. Hunger. Dispossession. Homeless. Calcutta. Politics. Loss.

See the clothes hanging over the political party symbol.

See the women using water from a municipal corporation pipe to clean their dishes.

It’s all here. A perfectly composed, single-point perspective of the ‘issue’.

A picture speaks a thousand words, didn’t you know?

Or so you tell yourself

But what do you tell this child, who is looking you dead in the eye?

If he calls out to you, and asks - why, why have you taken this picture, my picture, my family’s picture, this picture of my life, of our lives, of my friends, this street, this dog, what do you tell him?

That your face is part of a story of suffering? That you are a symbol of dispossession, of pain, of poverty, of violence? Don’t you get it, little boy?

Or do you catch his eye, feel your body tingle uncomfortably, manage a sheepish smile and get out of there as quickly as possible?

So, a city that is already under enormous pressure. By 1972, the last embers of the Naxal Movement in Kolkata were being violently stamped out. Young revolutionaries were being tied to lampposts and shot by Police in the dead of night. A city bleeding out on the street.

Of course, the city’s story needs to be told. Of course, it needs to be documented. But the question is, documented how? Documented in what way? Documented for whom? Documented to serve what interest?

And here, we cannot help but think of the question of dignity. Of being worthy of respect despite the severity of one’s situation.

Is the labour of cooking and feeding your family, of caring for the few possessions you own, not worthy of privacy? Or must it inevitably be sacrificed to aid the story of ‘the city’ or ‘the refugee’ or of ‘crisis’ ? The trauma of dispossession is relived (so often that it becomes a dull ache) every new day that you spend on the street. A further punishment for trying to survive.

I wonder, do you feel pity, fear, or both, when you see this?

Pity at their plight, these poor people who are sleeping with their arms around each other, as modestly as they can, for they know the eyes and the wrath of the world are searing into them at all hours of the day and night.

Fear, that at the slightest misfortune, this could be you. Unless you toe the line, keep your head down, do as you are told, and just not be poor, or a refugee.

A tragedy really, you tell yourself. For some simply suffer. As you move through these emotions and emerge back into the full picture, do you feel a sense of catharsis? Relief even?

After all, the themes of poverty and suffering are universal, are they not, and this is merely a photograph. You are not implicated in anything by merely viewing it. Or by taking it.