India has, historically, been a refuge and sheltered people of all religions, creeds and beliefs were granted protection and security when they sought it. They were accepted into the fold of the mainstream society and remain Indians. Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism etc are religions of the land – all were born in India. The central Asian invaders brought Islam. The colonial powers brought Christianity. India remained a large-hearted host to all, enriched its cultural heritage – and became a truly secular nation. People from all communities rose to become eminent citizens of the land.
Indian Jews, a small ethnic community, gradually diminishing in numbers, maintain their cultural identity in an otherwise deeply divided society such as India. Jews are believed to have come to India as long as two thousand years ago and now find themselves divided into different small groups. Being a microscopic endogamous community with strict religious and social traditions, most of the Jews find it difficult to maintain their unique culture and therefore, either acculturated with the larger Indian communities or migrated to foreign countries, mainly Israel. There are now barely five thousand Jews, in an Indian population of approximately nine hundred million in all. But those Indian Jews who still live in India or migrated to other countries, however small their number, struggle to maintain their distinct cultural identity—the Indian Jewish Identity.
The main concern of the project, which is a series of ten diptychs, was this; The Indian Jewish Identity that I visually portray by juxtaposing the portraits of Jews in Cochin( The extreme south of India) and Ahmedabad (Northern India) from various strata of the society with the photograph of their living space.