Arko Datto
Rocketgarh – India and the Moon
(Garh (गढ़ in hindi) /garha/noun: a bastion, fort city or a stronghold)
India’s successful forays into space have filled the denizens with immense pride, seeing that the Moon is now within easy reach. Decades ago, photographs of India’s space research program members carrying shuttle parts on bicycles to the launch sites captured the nation’s imagination. The country has indeed come a long way since those humble beginnings.
In Rocketgarh, the rocket is God and astronauts are the reigning superstars. Both rockets and astronauts come in all shapes and sizes: from miniature ones to those of gigantic proportions. Rocketgarh comes to life at night, when the citizens bask in pride and nationalistic frenzy: celebrating, boasting and toasting this new found glory.
‘Yet just as nineteenth-century Western imperial expansion began to unravel, ink drying on the last white areas of the disintegrating maps, a new and final frontier came into being above the emerging political boundaries of first, second and third worlds. Frequently described in the language of colonial context (the inexorable “progress of mankind” now carried beyond the confines of a single planet), this frontier reflects both a logical extension of modernist ambition and its limits.’
‘In an atmosphere of jovial solemnity, each was presented with an enormous wooden replica of the Ariane rocket. Similar to models carved from local woods by Maroon artists for the tourist trade, these measured some five feet in length, and as each male recipient held his upright before him, their shape left little to the imagination. After dances, drinks, and light conversation, the evening came to an end in a burst of fireworks.’
‘Space, he suggested, constitutes a new religion. Through its exploration, people can come together and find a common future.’
– Space in the Tropics, From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana by Peter Redfield
As the post-colony ventures out to colonise space in its stead, India and its citizens find themselves simultaneously in the throes of right-wing rhetoric, majoritarian paranoia and identity politics. India’s space program and its recent successes fit right within this framework of muscular nationalism, seamlessly fusing with and indeed itself also shaping notions of a resurgent India.
While India aims for the stars, in Rocketgarh we see this intersecting with religious festivities amidst childlike wonder and amazement at the marvels of science, technology and space travel.
Since the success of the Chandrayaan-3 space mission in August 2023, the country has witnessed nationalistic frenzy and pride. Pandals (i.e.temporary installations housing Hindu gods) have been overwhelmingly space themed: featuring rockets, the Moon, astronauts, Indian flags, satellites and landers. A spate of new lunar exploration projects are slated for the coming days, including the historic Gaganyaan, India’s human spaceflight program.
Pandals serve multiple functions: cultural repositories showcasing artistic prowess and traditional craftsmanship, oftentimes they are thematic installations displaying socially conscious imagery. Inspirational themes are aimed at educating the general populace, specifically children. Recently, they have been used as platforms for furthering political and divisive agendas.
The Indian space program has been co-opted by the dominant BJP-RSS ecosystem. Yet the Indian space program and its myriad representations form an exception in the pantheon of contemporary right-wing hate-driven BJP/Hindutva projects that essentially work via othering and exclusion.Anti-technology anti-science beliefs and practices ensconced in the Hindutva worldview such as pushpak vimaan (flying chariot) are at odds with the cutting edge progressive research being done in the space program. An exceptionally high number of rocket pandals are found in refugee colonies which house
Hindu families displaced from Bangladesh by Partition. In these exclusionary times where the very notion of citizenship is moot in India, rocket pandals present an effective way to showcase nationalism and bring people and neighbourhoods together. Through the phenomenon of the rocket pandals, mutually contradictory subjects ranging from nationalism to science to religion fuse together.
In contemporary Indian cities where myriad forms of ghettoisation and social stratification are the norm, ’space’ as created and conjured by the rocket pandals cuts across these existing divisions.
Arko Datto (India) is based in Kolkata.
My aim as an artist is to probe questions surrounding the image in the digital age while simultaneously playing the role of observer and commentator on critical issues.
I pursue narratives on seemingly disparate topics- forced migration, techno- fascism, surveillance in the digital panopticon, disappearing islands, nocturnal realms and psychosomatic stress of captive animals to name a few. Although every narrative I explore is separate and different from the next, together they form threads of inquiry into the existential dilemmas of our times.
By incorporating and developing diverse visual languages, narratives and styles, I want to push the boundaries of both still and moving images. I was on my way to a doctorate in theoretical sciences before I decided to change course.
