Karishma Sehgal is a graduate of the Pearl Academy, Delhi.
She created a self-illustrated zine as a part of her final postgraduate project at fashion school (Pearl Academy, New Delhi).
The zine named ‘Other India’ is inspired by Northeast India. The name, ‘Other India’, is a wordplay on Mother India – a term we Indians use endearingly to address our country. Here, the word “other” refers to India’s northeasterners who are treated with unwelcome, racist and ignorant attitudes by many mainland Indians.
‘Other India’ aims to throw light on the subjects of identity crisis, racism, bigotry, stereotyping and harassment – all that Northeast Indians battle with, in a country which is, in theory, their own, but in actuality, one where they’re often treated as outsiders.
Fashion, as we all know, is something Northeast Indians closely identify with, and, to a great extent, have been both, appreciated, and criticised for, on “moral grounds”.
The zine offers a satirical take on some of the aforementioned themes.
“For as long as I have known, the Northeast region and its culture has fascinated me. Being the daughter of an ex-Army officer in the Indian Army, I was fortunate enough to get to travel to the region at a very young age and have been inspired by it; especially the fashion-forwardness of the region’s natives, since.
That the region’s natives are victims of racism/prejudice which they receive from Mainland Indians is no secret. Furthermore, they suffer from a major identity crisis because mainlanders don’t make them feel welcome in their own country and the migrant population in their region is, somewhere, making them lose sight of their roots. I wanted to delve into these subjects deeper and wanted to see if there was a relationship between fashion choices of the Northeasterners and their identity assertion – seen across the world in the forms of various counter-culture movements like the Hippie culture of the 60s’, the Punk culture of the 70s’, etc.
Through my primary and secondary research, I came across some interesting findings that I tried to encapsulate in the zine that I created.
For my primary research, I surveyed close to 60 respondents within the age group 16-40 from the Northeast region. I read several books, research papers, journals on the subject to get both, a historical and modern-day context of the same.
The biggest challenge for me to develop this zine was the execution part. My skills as an illustrator are very amateur. To be able to create a high-quality output that communicates this important subject well was my greatest concern. I hope I have somewhere been able to do justice to it.”
