Cows safer than women: Sujatro Ghosh is tackling issues of women's safety

A Delhi-based activist is tackling the problem of women's safety through a unique photo campaign

Mumbai’s bustling streets are witnessing an unusual sight these days. In classrooms, parks, outside butcher shops, at Worli Sea Link and Dadar station, women are posing for photographs with cow masks. It doesn’t matter if they’re young or old, students, slum dwellers, professionals or domestic workers — they’re all coming together to raise a collective voice in a series of startling photographs that have gone viral on social media. The brainchild of 23-year-old Sujatro Ghosh, an independent photographer and activist, this photo campaign highlights the politically explosive question: are cows more important than women in today’s India? 

Ghosh was inspired to start his campaign in the first week of July when he read about the growing number of lynchings over suspected cow killings in the country. “At the same time, perpetrators of sexual harassment, even rape, were going unpunished or were out on bail,” he says. It is estimated that convictions are secured in barely one-third of sexual offence cases that are investigated. Most go unreported and unpunished. “I had the crazy sense of living in a democracy that gave us no choice,” he says. And thus, the idea for this unique public art project was born. 

“Initially, I started the project by photographing my friends and acquaintances wearing a mask that I had bought from New York,” says the Delhi-based photographer. Although a trained professional photographer, Ghosh chose to shoot with his phone instead of a professional camera. “A phone is much more immediate,” he says. “It is also more democratic.” Moreover, he did not want his craft to overshadow the subject of the photograph. To his surprise, the photographs created an instant sensation on social media. “As more and more people got to know about this project, I had strangers asking me to photograph them with my masks,” he says. Soon, he had to order three more masks from China. “Around the time I started my project,” says he, “the ‘Not In My Name’ campaign also took off. I feel that these campaigns captured the public gaze because they echoed the anguish that many of us feel due to the situation our country faces.”

The results have been surreal, a satirical alternate reality in which women safely go about their everyday lives as cows. “I like to photograph my subjects in milieus they belong to,” he says. 

Today, people write to Ghosh requesting him to photograph them for his project. “I  sometimes also chat with women on the street, tell them about the project and convince them to pose for me,” he says. Not all say yes. “I met a lady in Delhi who first refused to pose for me,” narrates Ghosh. “After a while, she came back to me and said that she’d thought about the issue a little more and wanted to be part of my project.” These conversations have become the most rewarding — and the most significant — aspect of Ghosh’s initiative. 

Some reactions, however, have been more vitriolic. Given the intensely political nature of the campaign, many women have refused to be photographed by him. Ghosh has also been the victim of internet trolls who have heaped scorn at his choice of subject. “Someone even threatened to cannibalise me along with my subjects,” he says. Interestingly, the project, in spite of having received so much attention from the media, hasn’t been even acknowledged by any government or Indian NGO. “On the other hand, I’ve received several interesting comments and proposals from foreign organisations,” he says. 

At present, Ghosh is on a crowd-funded mission to photograph women across the country. After Mumbai, his next stops are Goa, Bengaluru and the Northeast. So far, Ghosh has only focused on urban India, something that he plans to rectify very soon. “I’d like to travel through the south and the northeast of India, where I plan to venture into villages,” he says. “After all, sexual violence is a universal phenomenon, possibly worse in rural India where it tends to go unreported.” 

He has, so far, taken over 90 photographs of women wearing cow masks in different milieus. All of them are available on his Instagram and Facebook accounts. Since Ghosh’s photo project has grown organically till now, he plans to let it chart its own course. “I’d not imagined it would take this shape when I started it,” he says. “Although I don’t have an end date in mind, I’ll travel around the country with my cow masks as long as the crowd-funding lasts, starting conversations with women (and men) around issues related to women’s safety.” The immediate task on hand is a simpler one: Ghosh needs more masks. Four are simply not enough.