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Ms. Becky Moyce, May 2009
I was originally drawn to volunteering with the Sambhali Trust because of it’s emphasis on women’s rights and female empowerment but when I was approached with the idea of extending my photography workshops to the Dalit boys as well as the girls it made perfect sense to me and I was really excited about being involved in such an initiative. Social change can not come about unless a broad section of the society is educated regardless of gender, caste, colour or creed. In order to improve life for the women of the Dalit community their men must also be made aware of the issues facing them and how best to deal with these.
I fully believe that it is essential to reach as many young Dalits as possible to spread the message of hope and empowerment and to illustrate to the community as a whole what steps can be taken to improve their situation. Many of the boys we registered for the boys workshops are the brothers and sons of the girls and women who presently participate in the women’s empowerment project who we approached to be involved in this exercise.
For the Harijan boys learning photography has been a great boost to their self esteem and confidence and during these workshops I have taken the opportunity to teach the boys some basic English and also to discuss with them some very important issues in their community such as Dalit rights, basic health and hygiene, AIDS and STD awareness and how talked to them not only about how such subjects affect them but also how the women in their society are affected by these things.
There are approximately 15 boys in taking part in the workshops and I began by introducing them to photography in the same way as I had done with the girls, discussing the different uses of photography in the media, in portrait and wedding pictures, id cards and even satellite and ariel photography used for maps. To get to know them a bit better I asked them to tell me what kinds of things they would like to photograph and their responses were very varied from photographing scenery, buildings and architecture to models, Children and animals. One of the boys said models ‘I want to photograph my memories’ and another said ‘I want to photograph sad things.’ This exercise told me that we had a group of very intelligent and passionate young men and I was really looking forward to teaching them.
To introduce the boys to looking at and interpreting images I showed them a collection of different images and asked them to decide for each one if they thought it was a good or a bad picture and what it was they liked or disliked about it. They really seemed to like the contemporary and more abstract images or pictures with movement in and they were very keen to know how different affects were achieved asking quite technical questions about the images and showing a genuine curiosity about the subject. Over the next few lessons we moved on to discuss the various different techniques that can be used to produce great photography. We looked at things like perspective, shooting from different angles, focus, background, colour and composition using magazines, newspapers and even the pictures and posters dotted around the walls of the classroom to illustrate the different methods as we discussed them.
The boys really enjoyed looking through magazines and were really animated when talking about the pictures they liked. They were quickly able to identify the various techniques that had been used to produce a certain affect and began to understand the processes of good picture taking. They had lots of good questions and asked ‘how will I know what colours will work well together?’ to which we responded and ‘can I take pictures of anybody?’ This question was particularly interesting because there is often a lot of controversy about photographers versus subject’s rights and it is true that some people take great offence to being snapped and this is something that all photographers must take into consideration when out and about.
Once I was confident that they understood the theory I handed out some basic film cameras and showed them how these operated and how to load and rewind film. The first brief they had was to shoot pictures that represented their lives and so off they went photographing friends, family, homes, pets, places they work and their favourite things.
With Govinds help I used the next two lessons to teach a class on health and hygiene and sexual health. These issues are prominent amongst Dalit people and having the right information on such matters helps these boys to increase their chances of them and their families staying healthy. The boys were a little nervous at first talking about sex and STD’s especially with a female teacher present but once they relaxed they showed remarkable maturity. There were of inevitably a few jokes and giggles as we showed them the diagrams of the male and female organs and discussed what sex is but they all paid very careful attention and it seemed as though most of them had not realised what was involved in the reproductive process up until now. They were learning for the first time about some very important facts of life that they would not otherwise have access to and I was actually very surprised when we asked the boys ‘Do you know what AIDS is?’ and none of them could answer. A positive point is that all the boys were aware that they should use condoms for protection and where they would be able to get hold of these however they were unable to define why they needed to use protection or exactly what they were being protected from.
These lessons in particular were extremely valuable. Not only did they provide an arena to discuss topics that the boys would be unlikely to discuss elsewhere, let alone get accurate information on but in fact the boys actually became more assertive and involved whilst talking about such a sensitive subjected. In fact they commented that they had never imagined they would ever learn such things especially not with a western woman teaching them and they said they felt much more confident about something that had previously been a mystery to them One very important strength of these classes was that it also gave us an opportunity to cover the issues of sexual abuse and harassment which are grievances regularly suffered and accepted by many Dalit women. Explaining to them what qualifies as rape and as harassment and that a woman must be treated with respect and be happy to receive a mans affections is something very important that these men need to understand, having been brought up to believe in the male command of women.
As the photography workshops progressed we began to look at the pictures the students were producing and critique them, discussing which ones stood out as being particularly good and things they could try and incorporate to improve on some of the poorer images. These lessons were great fun and the standard of photography was extremely varied. However there is always a great deal of excitement when you see a photograph you have taken in print and the point at which you can actually hold your end result in your hand is a great buzz. The students really enjoyed seeing the fruits of their labour and enjoyed comparing what they had come up with to what their classmates had produced. These lessons really helped the boys to bond with each other, increasing their confidence and developing their self esteem. Their next assignment was to go out and create some cityscapes, capturing the sights and the people of Jodhpur city.
The results they came back with were still very varied but on the whole quite promising. It was clear that they had taken on some of the constructive criticism from the first batch of images and that they were thinking more about what they were photographing before firing the shutter. We continued to review and critique their images and the boys continued to practice on a theme they seemed to enjoy, their home city.
This week I had also put aside some lesson time, this time to talk to the boys about Dalit Rights and make them aware of the laws that have been put in place to protect them from discrimination and abuse simply because of their caste. For me these lessons were the most difficult but also the most beneficial to the boys. I found it extremely hard listening to some of the abuses and torments these boys have suffered personally because I know their characters and they are all good hearted, creative and for the most part intelligent people. It makes my stomach churn to listen to them talk about the way that they have been treated like animals at times because of the caste system and tradition. When we asked the boys what are Dalits, MahiPal responded ‘Dalits are a backward caste. We were put into one class and given bad tasks to do and that is what became Dalits’. Like the girls, these boys do not seem bitter about their burdens and have grown to expect a certain amount of mistreatment because that is the way it is. After some of the things they told me I would expect them all to have huge chips on their shoulders but they are far from resentful and instead are simply melancholy and accepting of their suffering. Some of their experiences included being forbidden to eat with other staff and from using plates to eat from in their places of work, being bullied at school by students and teachers alike – one of our boys had attended a boarding school where out of over 400 students only 5 belonged to the Dalit . He suffered daily harassment whereby his clothes and personal belongings were repeatedly thrown out of the window. When he complained to the school they ignored him. To my horror each and every single boy in that class had been physically or mentally abused in some way, often both just because they are Harijan people. They were really passionate during these classes and I am delighted that we could talk to them about their human rights and help them to understand how the Dalit rights laws must be used to fight for justice against prejudice and encourage them to stand up for their right to equality in this difficult social climate.
Going back to the photography lessons the boys continued to impress with some of their shots. They produced a really good photographic description of Jodhpur and although some of them were still getting to grips with the theory, the majority were simply fine tuning and what’s even better is that the stronger students were now coaching and encouraging the weaker ones. We spent the next few lessons using digital cameras to hone their techniques. Each lesson I would ask them to shoot portraits or group shots and for one of the digital lessons they went out on location to the clock tower to work on the cityscapes again. These lessons gave them some valuable practice both in shooting pictures and also in assessing the quality of an image. Unfortunately due to the lack of digital cameras and the need to share there was one nasty incident whereby the boys had gotten hold of the girls pictures and deleted them on more than one occasion. The girls were extremely upset by this and retaliated by deleting some of the boys pictures. I advised the boys that as they had persisted in ignoring my request not to delete other peoples pictures they would be restricted to using the basic film cameras. Whilst this was obviously not ideal and caused a great deal of commotion it did teach the students a valuable lesson in sharing equipment and respecting the work of others.
Now as we look towards the end of the workshops there is great anticipation regarding the exhibition next week. Tamana and I have been working very hard to try and secure an impressive venue for the exhibition. This has proved to be far more difficult than anticipated and has opened my eyes to a level of official corruption that I had not imagined could exist. I spent some time last week looking for a place to hold the exhibition and had secured a venue at an agreed price of 500 rupees for the day. When Tamana and I then returned with a deposit we were told that we could not have the venue as it was otherwise hired by the local District magistrate. We went to see the collector and waited for 4 hours to obtain an N.O.C from his office which would permit us to use the hall but when we presented our N.O.C to the auditorium we were advised that if we still wanted to hire the hall the price had increased to 3500 rupees for the day… a massive 600% rise and the poor explanation that the price had gone up since we originally booked and there was nothing that could be done about it. I found this behaviour utterly disgraceful and especially because the use of the venue is for an NGO, it is not for a corporate company that can afford last minute bribes.
Now we have the challenging task of finding an alternative venue, printing up all the pictures and securing a local official to judge our photo competition in just two days. I am confident we will do it because we have to do it for the children who have worked so hard and come so far over the last few weeks. I am really looking forward to seeing their work on display and I am very proud of them.
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