Q) How do you see the future of Indian women?
My entire last book, ‘Daughters of India’, is about Indian women’s identity as expressed, as much as possible, in their own words. It is difficult to sum up their future in a few words and it is truly impossible to gauge. Change is constant in India and India’s women have changed greatly in the past century, in the past two decades. For many of India’s middle classes and those above, the determined expressions of feminist points of view have rapidly improved the ability of women to be seen and heard, for their rights to be honoured. But there has also been a conservative backlash among those that are perceived to be India’s lower classes. For many less educated or less economically advantaged women, male oppression can be worse now in the 21st century than it was in previous decades. The men in their lives are more suppressive than those of earlier generations. So it is impossible now to know how the scales will move: whether women’s freedoms will continue to improve across the board, or whether the suppression of the less advantaged masses will overpower the enlightenment of the elite.
Q) Has their contribution been acknowledged in India's standing in the modern world?
The primary purpose of ‘Daughters of India’ is to enlighten Western readers about contemporary Indian women. Knowledge of India’s women is skewed in the West. Our media focuses more upon India’s inequities than on its strengths and unfortunately the majority of news reported about Indian women is about the injustices they suffer. Those injustices are real, but the effort of my work is to show the broader picture of the identity of the women behind these reported statistics. In my almost forty years of interviewing and documenting Indian people, I have found women everywhere to be strong, determined, resourceful and creative in the ways that they meet adversity. Few view themselves as blind victims. Most are proud of the many ways that they find to attempt to improve their lives (or at least those of their children.) I hope that by this work and by the work of others who are attempting to herald the strengths and achievements of Indian women, the broader world will begin to understand more fully their true identity and their many contributions.
Q) You have captured Hinduism through different rituals and ceremonies –How much in your opinion is religious piety central to the average Indian?
Yes, in India religion is an important part of life. "The family provides a forum for the ritual basis" for practicing religion in India. There is always an element of individual choice in the expression of religious belief in India. I am not very sure how many other religions around the world will give you such access. Recently there has been a rise of radical Hinduttva with its politicized agenda, however this is not indigenous to the country and I presume such phenomenon is only temporary. The vital, growing and inclusive nature of Hinduism is only corroborated by the “space” that Hinduism allows to individuals. "In my 28 years in India, I have never once been told that I should believe other than what I believe."
Q) What drew you to India, especially India’s villages?
I was raised in a small rural farming village in a remote mountain valley in California by parents who were fascinated with humanity and with the remarkable diversity of human societies and cultures. They had no racial, cultural or social prejudice. They instilled in me a yearning to travel and to know more about the world’s people. I have always been at ease in rural communities and with rural people. It was therefore natural for me to be drawn to village cultures in India and it made sense for me to study them firstly because they accounted for 82% of the Indian population when I first went there (now it is still more than 70%); secondly rural cultures were largely ignored in most academic literature.
When I was just 18, I met Rukmini Devi Arundale who invited me as her guest to India. Through a close mutual friend, I also was introduced to Kamaladevi Chhattopadyaya, who offered to sponsor my first trip to India. I was so lucky! I began to prepare for my trip with two years of university courses on Indian history, art, religion, political science, sociology and anthropology. This study only further enflamed my interest in learning more.
Once in India, as Kamaladevi’s and Rukmini Devi’s guest, I was given homes to live in anywhere I chose to travel. That was an invaluable and remarkably rare introduction! I traveled for nine months that year living in homes in states throughout the country and beginning to understand many of India’s underlying values and customs.
Q) Your new book “Daughters of India” is full of arresting colour photographs of 20 women across the social pile whose lives you have documented. Do they have a special purpose?
"The photographs are a ploy to beguile the readers - only when the reader is drawn into the world of the characters will s/he get to confront the reality of their situations. They (the women) may not be able to escape the harshness of their situations, where individual freedom is wholly threatened" but the defiance they voice through their work, their art, often traditional folk art, is the point I want to make. I am not saying that traditional art has to flourish against contemporary change. We make the biggest mistake in judging today by the aesthetics of the past. With increasing population the demand on resources is on an all time high, but the struggle for individual space and identity against the social odds is what I wanted to bring out.
Q) What is more important in a photograph? Composition or emotion, or both?
As an anthropologist, I am trained to document whatever I experience and to try, as much as possible, to refrain from judgment. But every human being is judgmental. Our views are always subjective – and so are my photographs. So I have had to learn to compromise between attempting to document exactly what I see and my wish to compose a good image in order to convey that information evocatively. It is a difficult balance.
Certainly I am personally involved with my subjects. I would never take a photograph without first establishing a connection and receiving my subject’s permission. This personal involvement engenders emotions: mine and the individuals with whom I work. I am told that my images are unusual by the amount of emotion they express and I realize that this is an important factor. So I would say that these three qualities are of equal value to my images: documentation, composition and emotion. I try to infuse each image with all three.
Q) Who is closer to your heart – Stephen Huyler, the photographer or Stephen Huyler, the anthropologist?
I am first and foremost interested in people and the innumerable and creative ways in which individuals and cultures maintain and adapt to the conditions that surround them. As much as possible I try to document the pulse of the Indian people, to understand and convey the diversity of culture through the words of the people themselves. In truth I am a lateral thinker, and cultural anthropology is just the best way to describe that approach. But I am equally interested in religious and social studies, Indian history and Indian art history. My doctorate was from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies in the Department of South Asian Art and Archaeology (with a focus on the cultural anthropology of India.) Without question photography is purely a means for me to illustrate my observations of people. I am very visual and have spent years refining my craft as a photographer, but these images are still secondary to the individual characters and characteristics I am trying to document. Their stories and beliefs and ways of envisioning their world is far more important than my own vision.
Q) In a world of urban art, what according to you are the hurdles faced by folk art in retaining its purity?
There is no such thing as ‘pure’ art. Art is a reflection of innumerable impulses and factors and many of those are the influences of whatever the contemporary culture happens to be at a given time. Folk art today expresses a blend of traditional values and perceptions and those of contemporary cultures. It should not be kept in a cage or a museum. If it is, it loses its creative expression and its true value.
Indian art, like that of the entire world, must be allowed to change and grow in whatever way the artists and artisans choose. Without question, art is always affected by marketability and the needs of its creators to provide livelihood and support for themselves and their families. These are essential factors that must not be disregarded. It is all very fine for the aesthetic elite to make judgments that art should remain pure according to its own values, but that is an unreal and truly corruptive perception. The ‘hurdles’ that folk artists and artisans face today are the ways and means to make their products saleable in a highly commercial world. The brutal reality is that they must adapt their vision or be forgotten.
Q) How would you like to define India ness?
I would never use the word and am not sure what it conveys…
I would never attempt to define India. It is too complex and diverse and anything I might say would by nature deny whole sections of the population. Broad generalisations are impossible.
Q) How difficult is it for a Westerner to appreciate Indianness?
India is remarkably hospitable to outsiders and welcomes almost all visitors with open arms and hearts. For this reason, it is easy for visitors from any country to begin to appreciate and like India. Everywhere there are individuals who genuinely want to talk to and be understood by foreigners. At the same time, there exist cultural differences that are difficult for outsiders to comprehend and may take years to begin to understand and feel at ease with – one primary aspect is the entire concept of pluralism and a pluralistic society. Most Westerners are raised in families and societies that are based upon monotheistic premises. It can take a long time to begin to truly comprehend the underlying implications of deep belief in the possibility that there is no one single truth. For many foreigners that comprehension is impossible. For many Indians it is the basis upon which entire realms of thought, action and customs are founded.
Q) How much has your own perception of India changed when you first came here?
My four decades of traveling and living in India have affected me profoundly and it is impossible for me to convey those changes in a few words. I have already written six books to begin to explore those influences. My life is immeasurably enriched by my deep friendships with many Indians and by the insights these close relationships have given me towards understanding life. My work is about trying to build bridges of communication between India and the rest of the world. I could not even begin that work without the open, thoughtful, intelligent and perceptive help of innumerable Indians. I am one of those that enjoys having my preconceptions challenged and my opinions and points of view changed. Life is fluid and my years in India have only enhanced my enjoyment and appreciation of that fluidity.
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Stephen P. Huyler is an art historian, cultural anthropologist, photographer and author conducting a lifelong survey of India's art and crafts and their meanings within rural societies. He has spent an average of four months each year during the last thirty-seven years traveling in Indian villages documenting craftsmanship and contemporary traditions. After focusing on ritual Hinduism for the past decade, he has recently returned to his original passion: women's art and identity in India. Huyler received his B.A. in Indian Studies at the University of Denver and then his doctorate at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. |
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Interviewed by Swagata Pal Designed by Subhadip Mukherjee
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