In India in the 1970s, the Dalit Panthers Movement, which challenged caste discrimination, published pocket-sized magazines to share anti-caste work — a defiant break away from the upper caste dominance in India’s art journalism space. Along with anti-caste literature, these magazines had strong visual elements, such as using bold colors in their title displays and illustrations.
Despite the significance of the work, there are little to no records of it, according to Delhi-based visual artist Siddhesh Gautam. “I have been following art journalism in India for a while and could see that there are so many contemporary artists from marginalized communities, but their work is not being documented,” he said.
Determined to change this, Gautam conceptualized All That Blue, a forthcoming visual print magazine designed to provide space for Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities — the lowered castes in India’s caste hierarchy — to share their art. “Often our stories matter if there is a massacre, protest or bloodshed. All the other stories are forgotten or ignored,” he said.
Cover page by Shrujana Niranjani Shridhar.
For members of marginalized communities, seeing their work in print is often an inaccessible goal. All That Blue aims to change that by opening the space to anyone with a feminist and anti-caste approach.
“We were never let into the privileged spaces so we created one where access wouldn’t be a problem,” said Gautam.
Making print art accessible to all
All That Blue refers to blue being the color of the Dalit resistance. “[The idea is that] all are considered equal under the blue sky,” said Gautam. “The core ideology of the magazine is equality, liberty and fraternity. This includes learning from and having solidarity with each other, and celebrating how we are different.”
Gautam is spearheading the project along with journalist Bhumika Saraswati, photographers Anurag Banerjee and Jaisingh Nageswaran, and artist Shrujana Niranjani Shridhar. Last year, Sharath Ravishankar joined as the book designer. The team’s goal is to celebrate artists that mainstream media often exclude because their work is not deemed sufficiently artistic or is considered too political.
“Whenever there's any bit of mention about caste, people immediately start to appropriate it, extract from it, make it a Dalit story or a Dalit magazine, or a magazine on caste. But it is not that,” said Saraswati.
Come eat with me by Sri Vamsi Matta.
The team plans to make the magazine heavy on visuals. “In the mainstream publication industry, there is so much text that goes with the visuals because they think people can’t understand visuals, which is an underestimation of people’s power of thinking,” said Gautam. “We are visual beings; we tend to remember things visually. We want to encourage people to read and think in visuals.”
Gautam hasn’t modeled All That Blue after mainstream publications; instead, he and his team decided to create their own structure. “The marginalized communities do not exist in the structure of mainstream publications, so we haven’t looked at them to create this. We are starting an art and design movement with our own structure where people from marginalized communities are the decision-makers,” he said.
A glimpse into the first edition
The inaugural issue, which will be over 100 pages long, will commemorate Dalit activist and writer Baby Kamble, also known as Babytai Kamble. She is one of the pioneers of intersectional feminism in India, having chronicled the lives of Dalit women.
“We remember death anniversaries, but rarely do we celebrate birth anniversaries of such important figures. Moreover, there is so much less information about their personal lives. This is why documentation is important and why we want to do that for contemporary artists and writers,” said Gautam.
Unequal Heat by Bhumika Saraswati.
The first edition’s cover will feature artwork in honor of Kamble, and will include a photo essay by Arun Vijai Mathavan about the people, often Dalits, who conduct post-mortems in hospitals. The photo story will document their lives and give a glimpse into the caste-based professions that still exist.
Thirteen-year-old artist Tanya Singh and her work on the discrimination her family faces due to their caste when they retrieve water from a public water tank will also be featured. “People from privileged communities travel to see waterfalls and think of it as beautiful, but for people of lowered castes it can be lethal as they can get killed for drinking water from a public water source,” said Saraswati. “Her artwork touches upon this duality.”
A story by Thoufeeq K, and Jenny Rowena, partner of Hany Babu, a Delhi University professor and noted academic, who has been imprisoned since July 2020 in connection to a case under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, will also be included in the first edition.
Support for the production of All That Blue is being crowdfunded, and the team is aiming to launch the inaugural edition in the first half of this year.
Photo by RhondaK Native Florida Folk Artist on Unsplash.
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