Currently on a visit to the US, I woke up the other morning to find social media flooded with posts about how the Indian state had clamped down on the so-called cockroach protests, not just in Delhi but also in Ahmedabad, long regarded as the BJP's impenetrable fortress.
Among the thousands rounded up were not just young cockroach leaders led by Abhijit Dipke but also the likes of 86-year-old litterateur Prakash N Shah, an Ahmedabad-based Gandhian socialist who was a top supporter of Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s.
Delhi had been turned into a garrison, I read. Metro stations were closed. Hundreds of trains headed towards Delhi were cancelled. It was an unprecedented clampdown. Having spent most of my early years in Delhi, I don't remember such an attack on dissent except during the Emergency.
A few hours later, I was taken to Durham, a small town in North Carolina that houses one of the most prestigious American universities, Duke. Dropped at a public place, we began our sojourn at its iconic chapel, which I had visited a few years ago. We took some photographs, including some just outside the chapel, near a memorial to the war veterans who had fought in Vietnam, one of the bloodiest American aggressions carried out in the name of defending democracy.
I was instantly reminded of my participation in student demonstrations in Delhi against the war in Vietnam. One of the slogans carried the name of the main Vietnamese leader who led the struggle against the American war, amid a clear betrayal by China: "Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, We Shall Fight, We Shall Win."
After visiting the chapel, we walked through a lovely park, the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, which I had visited a few years ago in spring to see the lilies all around. The lilies weren't there, as it is autumn now. Yet we enjoyed the garden, walked up and down, sat for a while, took scenic photographs, and then reached an art gallery, the Nasher Museum of Art.
On display were paintings and black-and-white photographs, mainly from the 1960s onwards. As I casually passed one display after another, I came across an exhibit against the American war in Vietnam, titled "Kill for Peace". It was part of the anti-war portfolio "Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam" by a New York-based group.
The print featured a black-and-white photographic reproduction of a Vietnamese mother and child crossed out with a bold red "X". Punctured holes run through the piece to mimic actual bullet holes, critiquing the hypocrisy of US combat and aerial bombing policies (such as napalm and Agent Orange) carried out under the banner of "peace."
This 1967 anti-war piece pushed me to look closely at everything displayed in the gallery. I had been so busy enjoying the photographs and paintings in the hall that I had missed a huge write-up on "Dissent" hanging on one of the walls. I returned to the spot and read it.
"To dissent is to differ in opinion, even to refuse to conform," the write-up read. "Dissent has been a powerful tool used by ... everyday people to voice their disagreement with how community issues are handled by public officials." As for artists, they "dissent against the status quo by creating works that counter popular narratives," often drawing "attention to gaps between what is said and shown, a strategy used by authoritarian regimes to misinform their constituents."
Then I turned to the write-up on another wall. It explained what "Turn the Volume Up!" meant. The exhibits, it said, examine "how artists, activists, and everyday people have used their voices to challenge injustice, build communities, and shape public life, inviting visitors to consider how we might do the same."
It further explained: "Through photographs, paintings, prints, sculpture, installation, and archival materials, artists examine how we can influence public discourse and inspire civic action," underlining that "Turn the Volume Up! highlights how seemingly ordinary acts, such as voting, petitioning, protesting, taking photographs, or making speeches, can become part of larger movements that strengthen communities and influence history."
The context of the theme was a recent change in New York's polity: "The exhibition's title references New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's quotation of Bronx rapper KRS-One's 2020 anthem, 'Turn the Volume Up,' after his election victory -- a moment that underscored the power of everyday people participating in local democracy."
A third write-up on display was under "Petitions". It stated, "Works by the artists in this grouping ask viewers to pay attention to the continuing impact of the history of enslavement on the African diaspora, how the prison system may actively cause malnutrition amongst incarcerated individuals, and even how artificial intelligence may exhibit bias in its generative images."
Yet another was titled "Explosion! Bay Area Punk". It said that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, artists in Northern California were inspired by the punk movement, "an international phenomenon that offered an irreverent, anti-institutional, anti-capitalist, anarchical message."
I looked at each art piece with great curiosity. There was an iconic piece of feminist activist art titled "Guerrilla Girls' Pop Quiz," created by an anonymous collective of feminist artist-activists known as the Guerrilla Girls. It uses a bold black-and-white typographic style designed to mimic corporate or official public notices, while delivering a sharp critique of the art world's status quo towards women.
The message was quite strong: only one woman had had a solo exhibition at major New York City museums. The breakdown was: Guggenheim Museum: 0; Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met): 0; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA): 1; and Whitney Museum of American Art: 0.
One artwork manipulated a page of San Francisco's Examiner newspaper with white paint. The original headline had celebrated Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in the 1980 US presidential election as "Reagan's amazing sweep". By painting over the "s" in "sweep," the artist transforms the phrase into "Reagan's amazing weep", a manipulation that shifts the entire tone from political triumph to an expression of mourning, despair or grief.
The second one next to it also used typewriter correction fluid to white out large areas of text from a newspaper. It is a protest against the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, made in 1981. In this way, the artist, Randy Hussong, subverted the Examiner's original intent and turned a public announcement into a deeply personal, dissenting political statement.
What surprised me was that the hall displaying paintings and artefacts under the title "The Declaration of Independence" not only stated what the 1776 document was about, namely separation from British colonial rule and the start of the American Revolution. It also underscored: "After two hundred and fifty years, the Declaration's radical vision continues to resonate, even if its claims of liberty and equality remain unfulfilled." It said the exhibits should be seen in a "broader context": they "reveal the United States as an aspirational yet unfinished democratic experiment..."
As I moved out of the display galleries, I saw a 2004 cubicle-like artwork by Sam Durant, measuring 90 × 82 × 82 inches. The text on it ("Obedience to the Law Is Freedom") was placed directly above a heavy, confining chain-link cage.
An interpretation, which I read later after coming out of the museum, said: "By placing an authoritarian slogan about 'freedom' over a physical instrument of confinement and surveillance, Durant exposes the inherent contradiction in the idea that absolute compliance equals liberty." It "highlights how institutional language can be used to mask control, subjugation, and the suppression of civil liberties."
Scanning through reviews of the exhibits, I was attracted by what The Guardian had to say about a particular exhibit that I had snapped on my mobile. It showed a young African American protester holding a handwritten sign that read "Jim Crow Must Go," photographed during the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
Even as I keep a tab on how dissent is under attack in my own country, India, the exhibits made me wonder what would happen if similar displays, offering strong commentary on social discrimination, were put up in a prominent art gallery here. Would they be allowed?
Surely not in my city, Ahmedabad. Here, even MF Husain's paintings were destroyed by members of the saffron brigade. Movie halls even now refuse to run feature films on the 2002 communal flare-up.
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