India shining India crying - photographs by Johann Rousselot December 7, 2008

IPN08, a platform for photography in India, presents India shining India crying - a tale of contemporary India by Johann Rousselot.

Ambitious, gigantic and under international scrutiny, India has a plan: to become an economic giant among nations. After centuries of submission under the British Empire and sixty years of independence, the Asian elephant has awakened. Today the economic reforms begun in 1991 are clearly visible.

The instrument of progress is impatient and greedy. Like a steamroller, this unbridled development ignores the destructive consequences it delivers upon the poor.

For some time I have been interested by the progress in the mining industry which affects the native population, the Adivasis . Meanwhile farmers, whose situation declines with each passing year, are no longer a priority for the authorities who concentrate all their attention on the industrial and service sectors. For cotton farmers the 'steamroller' is the liberalization of the agricultural markets.

China has its Mingongs. India has its Adivasis (Natives), its Untouchables (Dalits), its OBCs (Other Backward Classes) and its farmers. Despite the rights and constitutional protections given since Independence to these people, contempt, lies and exploitation are rife. These populations harvest the abundant rotten fruit of economic development, surviving far from the golden bubble of the rapidly metamorphosing cities.

Two Indias. Rural and urban. Between which a gulf widens inexorably.