Earlier plays. Her upcoming work, Clay, is looking for funding

In the last few years I have felt heartened, as an art critic, to see so many artist-led initiatives, both individual and collective, that are invested in crowd-funding in order to realise more complex artistic visions. Given the pitiful lack of governmental support for artists in India, and the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of corporate funding that arose to fill that void, these initiatives are daring in how they seek the solidarity of like-minded people in order to arrive at a seed funding. Unlike well-funded organisations in the art world, most of these initiatives are keen to also compensate the people working with them adequately, because of which they tend to be faced with questions, like why do you need so much money? We have completely normalised paying people inadequately for their time and labour, trying to cut corners by invalidating their contributions. I know of a gallery owner who once told me that people should pay her to let them work at her gallery!

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Two initiatives that I recently contributed to (and there is no cap on how little or how much you can donate) include Panther’s Paw Publication, a publishing house focussed on Dalit literature in English and translation, run by Yogesh Maitreya, and Jyotsna Siddharth’s crowd-funding appeal for a play they are devising with a bunch of collaborators, called Clay. Both rely on direct funding from individuals as against depending on grants, allowing anyone to become a stakeholder in their anti-caste activism and intellectual discourse. Maitreya has a very hands-on approach to publishing, and is a brilliant mind. I enjoy following him on Instagram because I love his poetry. He’s currently offering a bundle of seven books, all centred on anti-caste activism, for Rs 2,195, with free shipping. You can find out more on his Facebook and Instagram page. Meanwhile, Jyotsna Siddharth, an actor, queer activist, and intellectual for whom I similarly have the deepest admiration, has put up her appeal for funds on Milaap.org for Clay, which, they say, is perhaps one of the first few independent plays performed to centre anti-caste-queer narrative over a long drawn performance in Hindi and English. “The seed money will allow us to continue working with more rigour and clarity, bringing in new people with ideas and resources, to be able to put together the play. The effort towards this play, eventually, intends to bring out new perspectives, aesthetics and nuances to understand caste playing out mostly in urban, elite spaces. This play will contribute to the intersectional work with respect to caste and gender within theatre, entertainment and acting landscape in India and hopefully globally.”

If you, like me, are as invested in dismantling Brahmanical patriarchy and helping empower activists who are emotionally engaged in championing anti-caste narratives, do consider supporting these initiatives, and do alert me to others you may know of. While you won’t get tax relief for such donations, you will definitely be participating in the advancement of cultures of subversion and resistance, the most urgent need of the hour.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.