There is a fish tank in Jaisingh Nageswaran’s house. Whenever he happens to see the fish, he knows he is looking at himself. How does he know that he is a fish in a fishbowl? The fish can see that there is a world beyond the bowl. But every time he tries to touch that world, which lies beyond the one deemed appropriate for him to exist within, a wall appears. For him to leave the bowl alive, miracles have to happen. The caste system creates many such fishbowls. And the lower your caste, the smaller your bowl.
Jaisingh’s grandmother was born in 1928 in Usilampatti, a small village in Tamil Nadu, to a family of Dalit descent. Dalits occupy the lowest stratum of the Indian caste system, which dates back thousands of years. Known as ‘untouchables,’ people of Dalit descent face discrimination, exclusion, and violence. In Usilampatti, they wouldn’t let Jaisingh’s grandmother break her bowl. So she moved to Vadipatti, where she founded an elementary school that Dalits, who had no school, could attend. She was the Nageswaran family’s first miracle. Later, Jaisingh attended this school.
When Jaisingh decided to become a photographer, he thought the only way to leave his caste behind, to forget his Dalit-ness, would be to leave for the city. His father warned him that discrimination would follow him.
For a long time, Jaisingh thought he was the second miracle. He moved from one cosmopolitan city to another, photographed celebrities, and pursued a career in film.
But the more photographs he took, the more he realized that Dalits are practically non-existent in the visual consciousness of India. One day he suddenly fell ill, which wiped out his savings, and then COVID-19 forced him to return to his hometown.
Now, Jaisingh sees the beauty of the place where he grew up, and feels an intimacy that had eluded him his entire photographic career. He now knows that the two things he will lose last in this world are family and home. He says:
“My work is to call out the ongoing atrocities in the Dalit community. Every day I wake up to news of people from the Dalit community being hacked to death and witness various caste-related violence. I realize that a deeper story lies beneath the awareness that I have come to through my art. Until the caste system is eradicated, I will continue to feel like a fish in a fishbowl.”
Jaisingh Nageswaran, a self-taught photographer from Vadipatti Village, Tamil Nadu, India, received his education from his grandmother, defying the constraints of his working-class upbringing. Focused on portraying the lives of marginalised communities, his work explores gender identity, caste discrimination, and rural issues. Amid the pandemic, he returned to his roots, redirecting his lens to spotlight Dalit resistance and resilience by documenting childhood memories and family histories spanning four generations. His photography has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions globally, earning recognition such as the Serendipity Arts Foundation Grant, Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles Grant, and Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellowship. In 2023, his project I Feel Like a Fish was featured at the 13th African Biennale of Photography, and he achieved honours, including the Grand Prix of KG＋ SELECT 2023 at KYOTOGRPAHIE and the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac Photography Award in France.
