James Chanel

"The Average Indian" James Chanel

A farmer is about to unscrew the lid of a bottle of weed-killer, unable to afford copyrighted seed for next year's harvest. Is this the "Independence" India dreamed of. Or has Colonialism simply been swapped, for a more subtle "Multi-national Imperialism"? Rule by a globalised Consumerist Raj of shopping malls and designer shops. Of great expectations, inaccessible to 95% of "Average Indians". Set within a "Chit Mahal", one of the miniature enclaves of Indian territory surrounded by Bangladesh after Partition. Chit Mahals are pocket-handkerchiefs of India marooned within Bangladesh, and islands of Bangladeshi territory, stranded in India after 1947. (Legend has it, originally created, exchanged as stakes in an 18th Century chess game, lasting 11 years, between a Hindu and Muslim ruler). Villages, marooned by History, like their stateless inhabitants. The story flickers, between the India of the British Raj and its 21st century successor, the "corporate Raj". A metaphor for the silent, "Average Indian", used by politicians to justify the grand illusion of "Progress". Or for Modi-isation. The living "chit mahal" of 460,000 Anglo-Indians, made stateless at Nehru's "midnight hour" by fate, greed and the past.