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The Polis Project

@thepolisproject.bsky.social
103 followers 2 following 456 posts

NY-based digital magazine documenting communities in resistance at the intersection of politics, art & culture. 501(c)(3)

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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Read 'Disaster as Policy: Dharali Flash Floods Reveal the Making of a Himalayan Catastrophe' by Prashant Rahi: thepolisproject.com/read/dharali...
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Dharali Floods Reveal Making Of A Himalayan Catastrophe
The 2025 Dharali flash flood exposed how expanding infrastructure and climate change in fragile Himalayan terrain combined to create a massive disaster.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
As such disasters grow more frequent in the Himalayas, these emerge as part of the global environmental collapse — and the world cannot afford to look away.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Districts and states across the Indo-Pak border were unsparingly ravaged by extreme weather events during this period. At its root lie not only intensifying climate patterns, but the relentless state vision of “connectivity” and “development”.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
The 2025 monsoon in the Indian subcontinent has marked one of the most widespread ecological breakdowns in recent memory. It exposed the dangerous contradiction at the heart of India’s Himalayan policy: state-promoted development that corrodes the ecological foundations of the mountains themselves.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Over the past two and a half decades, Dharali, the wider Uttarakhand state, and the Himalayan expanse itself, have endured repeated flash floods, destructive landslides and mudslides. Right across the Western Himalayas, mountain torrents washed away roads, bridges, and entire settlements.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Flash floods rushed down five streams that join the Ganga in different places. The only stream that didn’t bring such destruction ran through dense Deodar forests. “The Deodar roots prevented the soil from collapsing,” explained geologist Navin Juyal. “That was why no disaster occurred there.”
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
The death toll is under dispute as 40-50 feet of debris covers the once-lively marketplace of Dharali. Initially, only one, 26-year-old Aakash Singh, was confirmed dead. The rest—43 Indians, plus roughly half as many Nepalese migrants—remain listed as “missing”, many buried deep in debris.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Dharali is not just a local tragedy. It shows how extreme weather — intensified by climate change and compounded by construction — is turning once-quiet valleys into disaster zones with increasing frequency. It has revealed the raw fury of nature against a relentless, expansionist political economy.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
High in India’s Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, flash floods and mudslides ripped through the village of Dharali in August, sweeping away everything in its way. Several shops, resorts, multi-storey hotels, and homestays were destroyed in a single wave. The map of Dharali was changed.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Read Jaishree Kumar's latest: thepolisproject.com/read/gauri-g...
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Gauri Gill Reimagines India’s Farmer Protests
Photographer Gauri Gill Reimagines India’s Farmer Protests as ‘The Village on the Highway.'
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Gill's photographs serve as both a historical document and a contemporary warning. They capture a moment when India's rural-urban divide became physically manifest on its highways, when the invisibilized infrastructure of food production forced itself into national consciousness.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
In one rare image showing a human silhouette, a farmer lies resting beneath this improvised architecture—a reminder that behind every structure was someone’s body, someone’s endurance.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Each structure tells a story of adaptation, creativity, and collective problem-solving. Concrete barriers intended to keep protesters out became seating and tables. Barricades became aids for hanging clothes. Vehicle rooftops became observation posts and meeting spaces.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Photographer Gauri Gill's exhibition The Village On The Highway captured the "architecture of resistance"—the improvised structures that housed India's historic farmer protests from 2020 to 2021. "I just thought it's incredible how they are managing to inhabit the highway," Gill reflected.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Read 'Patterns of Punishment: What Demolition Data Across Four Indian States Tells Us' by Afreen Fatima: thepolisproject.com/research/pat...
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What Demolition Data Across Four Indian States Tells Us
Across Indian cities and towns, bulldozers have become instruments of unchecked state power, used to target the minority Muslim community.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
In the beginning of the Demolitions Project, we asked: Who can punish? The answer is those in power with law at their command. And who can be punished? Those the state marks threatening to the hegemonic order. Today, that's Muslims, Dalits, and anyone who doesn’t fit the vision of Hindu supremacy.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Demolition drives are a form of collective punishment primarily aimed at Muslims, delivering instant retribution for dissent or suspected crime, along with a political message. The message is that the state can take away your home, your shelter, your memories, at any time, and no one can stop it.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The state’s logic is laid bare by the spectacle they make of it. Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister and BJP leader, Ajay Singh Bisht, openly revels in the moniker “Bulldozer Baba.” After the killing of Umesh Pal, a witness in a political murder, Bisht declared: “We will reduce them to dust".
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The demolitions bypass legal processes. Demolition notices are backdated or served right before. One man in Uttar Pradesh recounted how his neighbors saw officials pasting a notice on his wall and photographing it, only to peel it off and leave without a word; hours later, the bulldozer came.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The data can be organized under five broad categories based on how the state officially rationalizes the demolitions through shifting justifications: 1. Gangster/Mafia 2. Political Opposition 3. Post “Riot” Action 4. Religious Targeting 5. Crime and Punishment
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Across three northern states and national capital Delhi, a total of 1,377 cases of demolitions were documented in 53 instances of extrajudicial and punitive demolitions.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
At first, the incidents may appear to be an ad hoc response to unrest, protest, or alleged crime. But trends across the documented cases and narratives expose the demolitions as a system of disciplining dissent and targeting Muslim communities.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Across North Indian cities and towns, bulldozers have become instruments of unchecked state power. In recent years, authorities have demolished hundreds of Muslim homes, mosques, businesses, and community spaces—often without due process, or with little warning.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Read 'The Systematic Witch-Hunt of Jamia Students: How Authorities Are Crushing Dissent' by Aatif Ammad: thepolisproject.com/read/jamia-s...
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The Systematic Witch-Hunt Of Jamia Students
Since December 15th, 2019, Jamia Millia Islamia has steadily increased surveillance on campus, effectively banning protests in a bid to suppress dissent.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
“The government knows that educational institutions are the strongest sites of dissent,” said Zargar. “They think that by handicapping and policing these spaces, they can crush resistance—but they’re mistaken. The more they try to suppress campuses like Jamia, the louder our voices will become.”
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
“What’s happening at Jamia fits into a larger pattern we’ve seen unfold over the past decade,” said Raja Ram Singh. “Ever since JNU was targeted in 2015 for standing up to the government, attacks on academic spaces that foster dissent have only grown more frequent and more violent.”
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
The state’s crackdown on universities is not unprecedented. Historically, student movements in India have played a critical role in challenging authoritarian power, making them natural targets. The police and institutional violence on American university campuses this year confirms that.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Niranjan, a law student at Jamia Millia Islamia, said the August 2022 circular left the student body in disbelief. “It felt like the administration was trying to erase the soul of the campus,” he remarked. “Jamia has always been known for its legacy of resistance.”
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
While Jamia faces heightened scrutiny, activists say it is not an isolated case. Politically vibrant universities across India, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, and others, are seeing increased surveillance and police, protest bans, and administrative crackdowns.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Students allege that since the December 15th, 2019 incident, Jamia Millia Islamia has steadily increased surveillance on campus, effectively banning protests against the administration. While the first official notice came in August 2022, students claim they were under watch even before that.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
The conditions Vijayan described in 2018 are now globally visible. Genocidal journalism is on the rise. Gaza shows how quickly language becomes a weapon and the media legitimises state violence. What Vijayan warned about is unfolding in real time. thepolisproject.com/read/journal...
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Journalism As Genocide - The Polis Project
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Historian Jean-Pierre Chrétien coined the term “democratic alibi” to describe how media institutions frame violence as a legitimate public response. This process marks groups as enemies of the state (“anti-national”, “minority”, “secular”) and repeats these labels until they become accepted fact.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Vijayan identified comparable patterns in parts of the Indian media. Investigations by PUCL in 2002 showed that Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh published fabricated reports, including false claims that Hindu women’s breasts had been cut off, which were later linked to retaliatory sexual violence.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Rwandan anthropologist Charles Mironko’s study of one hundred perpetrator confessions showed that repeated exposure to hate broadcasts directly shaped decisions to kill. ICTR judges found that newspapers and radio stations “relentlessly targeted the Tutsi population for destruction”.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Such patterns aren't new. In 2018, Suchitra Vijayan wrote that journalism becomes a tool of mass violence. Drawing on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s conviction of Ferdinand Nahimana and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, she explained that the media was central to the killing of Tutsis.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
This is “genocidal journalism”: reporting that normalises extreme violence by adopting state narratives, omitting facts, or offering false equivalence. Israeli officials describe Palestinians as “human animals”, “monsters”, while journalists recycle these as context rather than incitement.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Mainstream Western outlets have repeatedly circulated Israeli state claims later proven false: allegations of beheaded babies, mislabelled documents in Gaza hospitals. They have sidelined Palestinian reporting, despite it being the only comprehensive source. Nearly 300 journalists have been killed.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
In July, The New York Times published Bret Stephens’s op-ed that Israel “is not committing genocide”, even as UN bodies document mass killing, starvation, and systematic destruction in Gaza. Stephens questioned why the death toll — nearly 60,000 — was “not higher” if genocide were occurring.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Read 'Kathputli’s Lost Artisans: Displacement and the Making of a Digital Music Scene' by Anuj Behal: thepolisproject.com/read/kathput...
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Kathputli's Lost Artisans: Puppetry, Displacement, And Dhol
Displacement and digital media have forced Kathputli's renowned puppeteering community to give up their art form in favor of a trendier one: the dhol.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Even as the community adapts to each new wave of forced reinvention, their livelihoods are dictated by external forces: state policies, real-estate ambitions, and the caprices of digital culture. The dhol's future rests on foundations far more fragile than its booming sound suggests.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Social media, while often celebrated for giving artists a wider audience, is far from egalitarian. Scholars describe this as the “Matthew effect” or the principle of cumulative advantage: performers who already gain attention are amplified, while those starting from zero remain largely invisible.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Nearly a decade later, Vicky has not been allotted the promised home. Those moved to Narela continue to struggle on the city’s margins, cut off from their old lives and livelihoods. Relocation led to a severe “erosion of livelihoods,” as dispersed families could no longer collaborate.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
In 2009, the Delhi Development Authority entered into a public-private partnership with Raheja Developers. Around 2,800 families deemed “eligible” were relocated to a transit camp in Anand Parba. Others were shifted to the city’s peripheries—some nearly 50 km away in Narela.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Kathputli Colony began in the 1950s as a patchwork of tents on an open field near Delhi’s Shadipur Depot. Performers lived, trained, rehearsed, and showcased their talents on-site. But more importantly, the dense sociality of the place fostered collaborations.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Vicky belongs to the Rajasthani Bhat community, a denotified tribe traditionally known for kathputli (puppet) performances. The Bhats today remain among the most economically and socially marginalized communities, often relying on street performances and daily-wage labour for survival.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
When Anuj Behal first met 30-year-old Vicky Bhatt in West Delhi’s Anand Parbat, he was in a rush. “It’s my eleventh time going abroad for a show,” he said, casually counting on his fingers. “Germany, Poland, Canada—three times—London…” He trailed off, losing track of the countries he’d been to.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Read Srinath Rao's report: thepolisproject.com/read/pushed-...
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'Pushback': Inside India’s New Deportation Regime
The speed and opaqueness of the exercise, launched a national security response, raise grave concerns about violations of people’s right to due process.
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Human Rights Watch conducted its own investigation: “India’s ruling BJP is fueling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bengali Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens. There is a disregard for due process rights, domestic guarantees, and international human rights standards.”
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The Polis Project @thepolisproject.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Framed as a security response, the new deportation regime gives state governments a free hand to carry out expansive surveillance, detention, and expulsion exercises. This has raised concerns about human rights violations.
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