Capturing Conflict In Chhattisgarh

In the first image, a wide-eyed young Maoist soldier, holding her rifle tightly, stares back at the camera. In the second, an older girl is seen keeping watch from behind a tree, a rifle tightly locked in her armpit. In the next few images, the beautiful, lush-green and yellow landscape transcends to dusk and twilight and young Maoists slip into the shadows. One of them is seen holding a lantern in a pitch-dark frame.

These images were captured in a politically contested region of Chhattisgarh by Ishan Tankha, a Delhi-based photojournalist. His project, ‘A Peal of Spring Thunder’, features at the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale.