Trigger

I think now, almost anyone can tell their own story, regardless of their nationality or creed. The world is bombarded with billions of images. The preponderance of social media means the people who make photographs and who disseminate them are very different from who used to. No power structure has the exclusive monopoly over the distribution of imagery. Their point of view can be questioned. But this has also brought with it all this talk about fake news; there is scepticism surrounding how images are made and seen. The perception and expectation of the public that you talk about has shifted. Photography can no longer be looked at as the harbinger of truth, can it?

Of course, photography can be misleading. Any powerful tool can be used in any way, and it’s who handles the tool [who] determines what it will be used for. It was 1909 when Lewis Hine said, ‘While photographs may not lie, liars may take photographs.’ I think today liars become presidents, liars become religious leaders, liars own advertising agencies. Even activists can use and abuse photography. I think what we need to do is place the weight of credibility upon the source and not the medium. Yes, photographs may or may not lie, but it is the credibility of the source that determines whether the photograph is to be believed or not. Credibility is not something that comes from above. It has to be earned and legitimised. But I think it’s positive because I don’t accept that people should believe in the content solely based on the medium it comes from. They should question on all levels. They should question the credibility and the intention of the source.

When one looks at your body of work, what stands out is your willingness to be flexible. Your strategies of using photography as a tool for resistance constantly change and expand with the needs of the time. I’m curious to know how and why your works have evolved, but let’s start in the late 1980s: the final days of the authoritarian rule of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad. The turmoil surrounding the fight for democracy in Bangladesh was at its peak, and it was closer to the beginning of your career. What shape did your methodology take during that era?

Of course, flexibility is vital. You must adapt yourself to the condition that you are in. During Ershad’s time, the way to get photographs out there was through conventional media outlets and newspapers. Therefore, the vocabulary that you used needed to be suitable for those outlets and the audience of that time. To give you a practical example, the work I had done during the last years of Ershad’s reign—I had juxtaposed images from a wedding of a minister’s daughter with the images of the floods that happened then. It was an attempt to show the divide between the rich and the poor and question the role of the government in dealing with the victims of the flood. It was a very literal sort of expression. It worked at that time. When I submitted my work for the Mother Jones photography award, I had included my open letter to the prime minister as part of the photo essay. So I was not only relying on the photographs but also political intervention. In the letter, I had mentioned the gagging of the media, discussing censorship among other things.

I remember you telling me that when you exhibited the work in 1989, the show was reviewed by the magazine that was owned by the wife of the minister you were critiquing. And I found that fascinating. Here is the minister that you question through your work, and this magazine that his wife runs was talking about it. And if I remember correctly, the review was a positive one, too. Did that surprise you or have an effect on your latter works?

What I found interesting was that the review talked about the artistry of my work, my composition, the light and the aesthetical elements. [It] never mentioned the politics. That got me thinking about how we can be put in little boxes. As if to say, ‘You can have your art but leave the politics to others.’ So I decided that my politics will be embedded within my art. Later on, for my work about the disappearance of Kalpana Chakma (the still missing human rights activist who was abducted from her home in 1996 allegedly by the Bangladesh Army), I responded to the needs of the time. Data was no longer the currency of news, and I needed to find a way to engage with people that simply went beyond providing facts. At an aesthetic level and at an intervention level. We asked questions to the silent witnesses, the people who should have been asked, whose voices should have been heard. The investigations either didn’t ask the right questions or were not giving importance to the people who knew. In the conversations between Kalpana and her abductor, the last argument was about the military setting fire to their villages. I used fire to create the imagery. The fact that she lived a very simple life was evidenced by the straw mats she slept on, so I used them as material to print the pictures on. The process of production and the material it was made on were all part of the politics of the story. So if you needed to engage with the art, you had to engage with the politics. You couldn’t separate the two.

Nowadays, there is a tremendous competition for the viewer’s attention that photographers need to face. It is a challenge to make the audience look at one’s work, let alone having a lasting effect on them. Yet you continue to make an impact on society. What tactics should photographers realise in order to remain cogent in today’s society?

I think today you have a more sophisticated audience who are used to seeing imagery in different forms through various platforms. It is a much more complex situation where international trade and international recognition are crucial aspects, and mobilising global support is of the utmost importance. Technology plays a massive part, both in terms of what the government does and how you resist. You have to create work that can play in many levels: social media, street and public exhibits, fine art galleries and international publications. You might need to tweak your work to fit the platform.

Technology is being used to repress as well. In Bangladesh, it is a risk for someone like you to carry your mobile around because the government might be listening to what you are saying through your mobile, or it has the capacity to track your movements. Western governments have been largely indifferent to this new form of repression in countries like Bangladesh and even provide the surveillance technology to these countries in some instances. Why do you think that is?

Bangladesh being allowed to get away with repression also has to do with what Bangladesh delivers to other countries. While Bangladesh can contain the Rohingya refugees and on the face of it can help out in the War on Terror, they will ignore human rights transgressions, they will ignore stolen elections, they will ignore the many, many other things that are wrong. Because it is convenient for them to have someone who delivers on their needs. What happens to Bangladeshis? They will provide lip service for that, but I don’t believe they will actually do anything.


You have always encouraged your students to be smart and not to perish in the act of resisting so that they can fight another day. But given the state of freedom of speech in today’s world, especially in the global south, or the ‘Majority World’, as you call it, do you think young photographers now can express themselves freely without being persecuted?

I have better words to define it now: ‘martyrs don’t make good reporters.’ Firstly, you have to build a network. Most young photographers nowadays understand the value of having a good network in terms of their professional career, but you also have to understand the importance of having a strong support system around you. One of the reasons I could get away with the things I said through my work—I mean the case still hangs against me, but I am out and I continue to say what I have said before—was because there was such a passionate movement internationally and in Bangladesh. We were able to do that because of the work that I have done over thirty-five years and the friends that I have made during that time. Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight, but I think each one of us needs to create that support structure. You need to build a community you can rely upon and strategic alliances that go beyond your immediate perimeter. But you also have to act smart. At the end of the day, banging away at the problem is not the answer. You have to find ways to get under their skin. You have to find cracks that you seep through, and it’s guerrilla warfare. Big power structures have more money, have more muscle, than we do, but they are also slower, less nimble and not able to get into the spaces we can get into. And I think we need to recognise our own strengths and turn it around.