Bodies as resistance: the story of Chita Andolan
As Adivasis in Madhya Pradesh stage their own symbolic deaths to resist displacement under the Ken–Betwa river-linking project, the Chita Andolan compels India to confront a difficult question: who gets to speak in a democracy? This essay explores how marginalised communities have long transformed their bodies into sites of resistance, carrying forward a tradition of subaltern environmentalism where performance becomes political speech when institutions fail to listen.
India lives through several realities. Over the past week, the nation has witnessed a few strong protests against the government; the languages of each differ significantly. When student protesters in the capital and elsewhere in the cities are playing with the aesthetics of protest – Insta reels offering a cocktail of Dylan, Orwell, Manga, and Jackson, and many rebel cultural icons – Adivasis in Madhya Pradesh are doing something that might shock a certain section of social media users because ...
