Destabilising beauty: In a book of Tarun Bhartiya’s images, a quest for freedom

Em. A simple yet defining act. Like Rosa Parks, whose simple act of refusing to ride in the segregated section of the bus in the US South became a powerful catalyst for change in the struggle against racism, Spillity Lyngdoh Langrin’s “em” (meaning no) became the rallying cry against uranium mining in the Khasi hills of Meghalaya.

In 1993, the 90-year-old matriarch refused the inducements of the Uranium Corporation of India of Rs 45 crores for a 30-year-lease to mine on her land. She became the emblem, not just for the anti-mining protests that began in 2007 but the inspiration for protests in 2021 against the dam to be built across the Umngot river.

For prolific documentary maker, photographer, Hindi poet and activist Tarun Bhartiya, Spillity became the fulcrum for his explorations on juste resistante – the ways of resistance. He made several journeys into Domiasiat to document these struggles.

His reflections on refusals were encapsulated in powerful images, bits of poetry and laconic prose. Some of the material was exhibited in Ahmedabad by the Navjivan Trust in December 2024, just a few weeks before he suddenly passed away.

At the end of 2025, his partner and comrade Angela Rangad along with his close friends Sanjay Kak, Tanvi...

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