In Aban Raza’s paintings, reflections of the subcontinent’s long history of protest movements

At first, you might mistake the image for a stage. The structural logic of the shamiana – three-sided, made of vividly coloured red, ochre and green canvas, and open on the fourth – creates the illusion of a recessed, room-like space, crowded with many actors, in short, a stage. What you see, however, is a site of dharna or a sit-in where the figures milling around, mostly women, veiled or with head covered, are staging a protest for better wages, the fulfilment of the promise of MGNREGA, and the implementation of speedier and more equitable laws.

The location could be interchangeable – from Singhu border on the edge of Delhi to Shaheen Bagh to Bhim in Rajasthan – but in every case, the workers’ presence speaks of a churn and an insistent message for change.

Aban Raza speaks back to hist