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.

In the eight paintings on view in this exhibition, there is a startling oscillation that makes the images palpable and proximate. Aban stages both death in its violent throes and scenes of protest with their seething vitality. The links are there for the viewer to make, drawing as much from the subcontinent’s long history of protest movements as from current images on social media or as news items buried in the inner pages of newspapers. Over the past 150 years, the subcontinent has thrown up many terms for rupture in the public sphere: strike, bandh, hartal, dharna, gherao, are used to describe street gatherings, marches and lockdowns. The consequence of ensuing chaos on the street, of bheedbhadakka, afra tafri, halla bol, chakka jam, stampede, lathi charge, and increasingly, police 'encounters' in which suspects are eliminated, have a sickening rerun throughout the history of public protest. Implicated in these gatherings, then, is conflict with state machinery and acts of reprisal; the crescendo-like climax of a protest and its gradual fading away from public memory. What are these terms of unsettlement and Aban's invocation of a public sphere?

A chance meeting with Aruna Roy and a visit to her spare rural home in Tilonia led Aban to engage with the politics of MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan), an organization with deeply rooted political support across parts of Rajasthan, for the rights of unorganized labour and instituting of the RTI (Right To Information). The paintings that followed and exhibited in two editions thereafter form a roster of social concerns in real time. Women gathered in protest at Shaheen Bagh, a farmer's family at rest or driving to demonstrate at Singhu and Tikri borders, women labouring under the hot sun to build the redesigned Central Vista during Covid with minimal living arrangements, became some of Aban's subjects. Three important portraits by Aban speak of the diverse inspirations she brings to her work: an intimate portrait of her mother, art historian Nuzhat Kazmi, of Aruna Roy in Tilonia, and of Romila Thapar, seated in her famous red chair at her home in Delhi. Each of these women, solid and enduring in the space they occupy, speak of her deeply sympathetic view of the intellectual labour of women and their ability to speak alone with conviction.

At the time of writing, Getty Photos has documented 209,465 scenes of protest in India; this is a figure that changes every day. It is perhaps in the painting scenes of resistance and protest, with their commitment to greater equity in resources and recognition that Aban is most articulate. The bright palette and seemingly cheerful chaos do not disguise the latent intent behind the paintings: of depicting social upheaval or inviting an attitude of protest. Workers on strike find a corelative in an earlier work on women labouring under the hot sun on Rajpath—both are symptoms of a dystopian state machinery and its stolid indifference to the needs of labour. It is also that part of her practice to which she has brought the most comprehensive painterly resources. In modern Indian painting, the scene of protest or uprising is scant. Some celebrated examples are Chittoprosad's work on the Royal Indian Navy's mutiny of 1946, the endlessly photographed processions and marches during the Quit India movement, or the heraldic sculptures of artists like D.P. Roy Choudhury, which present another India in another time.

The present paintings draw from a matrix of social concerns—the shrinking state cover for disempowered groups as they slip through the safety net, the unrealized prices for crops for farming communities, pending labour law reforms, and the upsurge of public response to citizens' rights under laws like the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act). Yet these works stand in a space of their own, recognisable through the photo-documentation of events. Comparable perhaps to Vikrant Bhise’s painting of the Dalit exegesis of our time, Aban’s paintings stand at a distance from the broad spectrum of art being produced at present.

Protest movements in the subcontinent have long struggled for definition. In his recent volume, For a Just Republic[3], Partha Chatterjee explores the concept of “people-nation”, the weight of this configuration resting perhaps on the hyphen, which suggests both distinct identity and contiguity between people and the nation. Chatterjee recommends that what constitutes the desires of the people allows the “historical memory and cultural preferences” of communities and regions to retain agency in a just “federation of the peoples”. He also identifies like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat as high-growth areas, areas of extractive policies like Jharkhand, and areas that supply labour like West Bengal as the differently enabled areas in the Republic, and the inherent tensions in such cases.

And it is here that the invisible fourth wall of the shamiana suggests itself, as we realise that the figures are seated facing a stage. At their May Day sit-in, the women are watching a performance by Shankar, a founder member of MKSS, who appears with his puppet in a dialogue on social rights. Amidst the chatter and the laughter in the crowd, the humour and the exhortations, the real and the fictional play out, with defeat and victory embedded in a rising sense of hope.

Gayatri Sinha
October 2025

[1] Deshpande, A., & Haksar, N. (2023). Japanese management and Indian resistance: The struggles of the Maruti Suzuki workers. New Delhi: Speaking Tiger.
[2] See also Neelam Gaur, “July 18 Manesar Violence: 11 Years of Struggle by Maruti Workers Takes Toll on Their Lives,” Newsclick, July 19, 2023, https://www.newsclick.in/july-18-manesar-violence-11-years-struggle-maruti-workers-takes-toll-their-lives. 
[3] Partha Chatterjee  For a Just Republic: The People of India and the State. (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2024).