Portraits from India

In January, a Tanzanian student was assaulted and partially stripped by a mob in the southern Indian city of Bangalore after a Sudanese student’s car ran over and killed a local woman.

Shocked by the incident and other similar attacks on Africans in India, independent photographer Mahesh Shantaram began documenting the lives of Africans living in India.

Beginning with Bangalore, Shantaram travelled to the cities of Jaipur, Delhi and Manipal, choosing to focus on students, as they are a small and vulnerable group.

Shantaram’s series of intimate portraits is part of an upcoming exhibition organised by Tasveer.

“Each portrait plays a part in unravelling the complex web of experiences of Africans in India that, put together, paint a picture of loneliness, placelessness and a sense of hostility,” says art expert Caroline Bertram, in an original text on the exhibition.