In South Asia, the origin of myths considering menstruation to be “dirty” and “impure” date back to the Vedic times and have been linked to the myth of Indra’s slaying of Vritras, where the guilt of this murder appears every month as women’s menstrual flow.^[2] Furthermore, stereotypes arising from the Hindu faith prohibit women from participating in normal life or daily chores until they are “purified.” The major restriction among urban girls is to not enter the puja room, or the area of worship, while rural girls are unable to enter the kitchen during menstruation. Menstruating women can be considered unhygienic, so allowing them to cook food would therefore contaminate it.^[3] A 2011 study found that many women reported that during menstruation, they believed their bodies emitted some sort of smell that would turn preserved foods bad and therefore were not allowed to touch foods such as pickles.^[4] Dietary restrictions during the period of menstruation are often practiced in Asia and India as well, where girls avoid sour foods, and many girls believe that exercise would aggravate the menstrual blood flow. However, the opposite is true – exercise can help relieve symptoms of dysmenorrhea and relieve bloating.^[5] The odor of menstrual blood especially puts girls at the risk of being stigmatized, in a society where the topic is so extremely taboo to discuss – girls’ understanding of puberty, menstruation, and reproductive health are already extremely low. In totality, none of these myths and misconceptions are backed by any scientific empirical evidence, and there is no truth to any of these cultural stigmas.

The barriers to period equity in South Asia fall along the axioms of poverty, gender, and other intersectional identifiers. Taboos and myths about menstruation permeate throughout India, leading women to believe that they are “impure” during the pinnacle of their cycle. This leads to an unhealthy cycle of menstruation taking a toll on young girls’ mental health, with no one, not even their mothers, to turn to as this cycle propagates stereotypes and a lack of sufficient knowledge. 23% of girls in India drop out of school when they begin menstruating, due to stigma and lack of access to basic hygiene products that allow them the mobility to go to school.^[6] Monthly menstruation has similarly proven to be a barrier for female teachers and gender-biased school culture, infrastructure, and lack of adequate menstrual hygiene products combined with unclean private sanitation facilities undermine their rights. Over 77% of menstruating people in India use old cloths which they will reuse  – an extremely unsanitary and unsafe method of hygiene. In order to accelerate absorption, 88% of Indian women will use newspapers or dried leaves in addition.^[7] All of these unsafe methods provide poor protection, and compounded upon by unsanitary washing facilities, these women have increased susceptibility to infection.

In order to combat these misconceptions surrounding menstruation, it is important to raise awareness through education, since young girls’ mothers shy away from discussing these issues with them. Adult women may therefore pass on cultural taboos and bad hygienic practices. A study conducted through the socio-ecological model in Lucknow found that on the individual level, most young women lacked knowledge about menstruation.^[8] At the institutional level, few resources supported menstruating young women due to dirty public toilets and broken doors – thus exacerbating women’s lack of participation in higher education because of their period. Very few participants out of 70 young girls interviewed had learned or heard about menstruation prior to menarche, or their first time menstruating.^[9] Their mothers were not able to explain why menstruation occurs and the biological phenomenon behind it. Only five young women out of 70 described receiving menstruation education from their school or through NGO programs, but the few instances in which women were able to find confidants in mothers or other women to communicate about menstruation, it supported the possibility to lift the stigma surrounding periods.^[10] Furthermore, school teachers and students perpetuate stigmas through miseducation and a lack of normalizing menstruation. Several young women were embarrassed or ashamed when teased by male peers about menstruating due to the shared bathrooms, and teachers had chided them from time to time about allowing male janitors to see period products.^[11] Community-based health education campaigns can spread awareness among both school teachers and young girls about safe menstruation practices and remove the cultural stigma associated with it. It is imperative that nonprofit organizations and other corporate entities, perhaps in the reproductive health market, form public-private partnerships with the government to deliver both community-based and nationalized education programs about the basic biology of menstruation and hygiene.

Especially during the pandemic, stringent stay-at-home orders exacerbated period poverty, leading key period packaging distribution centers and nonprofit organizations to ramp up their operations. Compounded with job loss, some women had to resort to using cloths rather than pads to absorb menstrual flow after losing their jobs. In March 2020, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued “a total ban of coming out of your homes,” he inherently banned the production of menstrual products, since period-related products were not on India’s list of “essential goods” that were exempt from shutdown orders.^[12] Later, menstrual products were added to this list, but there were examples of some young women who came together to create their own pads, inspired by previous community-based menstrual education programs sponsored by the non-profit SAHAYOG.^[13] Furthermore, without access to public toilets, many women living in homes without toilets now faced the added dimension of lack of proper sanitation and hygiene, something that is required during menstruation. In Jaipur, only 51.27% of households had access to toilets within their own homes.^[14]

Sustainability is also a concern with regards to sanitary waste disposal, especially in a country such as India where the urban waste management infrastructure is a mosaic of inefficient systems of collection, recycling, and transport that often result in hazardous toxic waste dumps. There have been numerous documented events of these trash piles falling into rivers, even bodies of water deemed holy, and polluting them. The plastics used in disposable sanitary napkins are not biodegradable and contribute to environmental hazards, which are only exacerbated by the unorganized methods of urban solid waste management. According to the 2016 Solid Waste Management Rules, only two cities in India – Bengaluru and Pune – introduced solid waste management measures to segregate and classify menstrual waste during garbage collection.^[15] Since studies indicate that it can take up to 800 years for a sanitary napkin to decompose, it is of utmost importance that future social entrepreneurs continue to look toward biodegradable and affordable menstrual hygiene solutions.^[16]

Increasing women’s access to the political sphere and ability to use their voice in policy decisions will allow women to advocate for sanitary napkins and adequate public toilets – for example, in Delhi, women can access only 8% of the total number of public toilets for men.^[17] Finally, low-cost pads can be locally produced and distributed within rural areas and slum neighborhoods. Recently, the government of India approved a scheme to improve menstrual hygiene for 15 million adolescents by distributing low cost pads to rural areas under the National Rural Health Mission since 2010.^[18] In 2018, India scrapped a 12% tax on sanitary products, another step toward making these expensive products accessible to India’s most socioeconomically marginalized. This was only possible after vast campaigning efforts that argued that menstrual hygiene products were not a luxury, and that periods were never a choice for women.^[19]Furthermore, men are complicit in their roles of ignorance of the Indian period poverty epidemic. The roles of male partners and belief systems are pertinent in these deep-rooted societal stigmas and systems of power which require Indian women to take care of their menstruation alone without the educational or hygienic tools to manage a normal yet painful bodily function. Men must gain knowledge of menstruation to support their menstruating family members.

The Supreme Court of India held Article 17 as an anti-exclusion principle in the context of menstruation as well, where the apex court held that notions of “purity and pollution” that stigmatize individuals.^[20] Socially excluding women due to their menstrual status is therefore unconstitutional and strongly condemned. India has also put menstrual equity and health as a cornerstone of its healthcare policies with the adopting of Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 6, in which the state pays special attention to women and the issues of women’s liberation.^[21] The menstrual hygiene management framework formulated as the MHM guidelines in 2015 obligates states to create the necessary and accepting atmosphere for menstruators.^[22] The government is tasked with facilitating regular education on safe menstrual absorbents, water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, access to safe disposal of used menstrual products especially in schools, and a pollution-free means to dispose of menstrual waste.^[23]These regulations ensure a dignified menstrual experience for adolescents and aim to increase awareness at all levels of the community. However, with these various schemes being implemented nationally and at the state level, it is still important that India approaches these laws and policies through a human rights framework, ensuring that every woman and every menstruator has the right to basic hygiene and menstrual health care.

A multidisciplinary approach across diverse sectors and fields are needed to combat the various facets of period poverty, which has only become exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sanitation and water infrastructure projects must be improved and implemented to increase womens’ access to proper hygiene when menstruating, in order to combat the risk of infection. Linking these physical infrastructure schemes to reproductive health education and programs would address the issue, while increasing community partnerships to help women dispel their menstruation myths and learn about it as a normal biological process.

References

^[1] Bridget J. Crawford and Emily Gold Waldman, “Period Poverty in a Pandemic: Harnessing Law to Achieve Menstrual Equity,” Washington University Law Review 98, no. 5 (2021): 1572.

^[2] ​​Suneela Garg and Tanu Anand, “Menstruation Related Myths in India: Strategies for Combating It,” Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care 4, no. 2 (2015): 184–86, https://doi.org/10.4103/2249-4863.154627.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] McCammon, Ellen, Suchi Bansal, Luciana E Hebert, Shirley Yan, Alicia Menendez, and Melissa Gilliam. “Exploring Young Women’s Menstruation-Related Challenges in Uttar Pradesh, India, Using the Socio-Ecological Framework.” Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters 28, no. 1 (December 2020): 1749342–1749342. https://doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2020.1749342.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] Crawford and Waldman, “Period Poverty in a Pandemic,” 1578.

^[13] Ibid.

^[14] Ibid.

^[15] Sonali P. Banerjee and Rahul Gupta, “Shhh!! It’s a Taboo Don’t Touch!! Pickles Go Sour! Sweets Become Inedible! Meals Become Impure! Plants Die!,” in Socially Responsible Consumption and Marketing in Practice: Collection of Case Studies, ed. Jishnu Bhattacharyya et al. (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2022), 105–12, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6433-5_8.

^[16] Ibid.

^[17] Garg and Anand, “Menstruation Myths.”

^[18] Ibid.

^[19] “Why India must battle the shame of period stain.” BBC News online, May 28, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52830427

^[20] Divya Salim and Kavya Salim, “Ensuring Right to Menstrual Hygiene and Health in India: A Microcosm of Right to Life,” in Expanding Horizons of Article 21 of Indian Constitution: A Critique, (The Delhi Law House, 2021): 142-146, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3962311.

^[21] Ibid.

^[22] Ibid.

^[23] Ibid.

Works Cited

Bridget J. Crawford; Emily Gold Waldman, “Period Poverty in a Pandemic: Harnessing Law to Achieve Menstrual Equity,” Washington University Law Review 98, no. 5 (2021): 1569-1606

Garg, Suneela, and Tanu Anand. “Menstruation Related Myths in India: Strategies for Combating It.” Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care 4, no. 2 (2015): 184–86. https://doi.org/10.4103/2249-4863.154627.

McCammon, Ellen, Suchi Bansal, Luciana E Hebert, Shirley Yan, Alicia Menendez, and Melissa Gilliam. “Exploring Young Women’s Menstruation-Related Challenges in Uttar Pradesh, India, Using the Socio-Ecological Framework.” Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters 28, no. 1 (December 2020): 1749342–1749342. https://doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2020.1749342.

Salim, Divya, and Kavya Salim. “Ensuring Right to Menstrual Hygiene and Health in India: A Microcosm of Right to Life,” in Expanding Horizons of Article 21 of Indian Constitution: A Critique, (The Delhi Law House, 2021): 142-146, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3962311.

Sonali P. Banerjee and Rahul Gupta, “Shhh!! It’s a Taboo Don’t Touch!! Pickles Go Sour! Sweets Become Inedible! Meals Become Impure! Plants Die!,” in Socially Responsible Consumption and Marketing in Practice: Collection of Case Studies, ed. Jishnu Bhattacharyya et al. (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2022), 105–12, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6433-5_8.

“Why India must battle the shame of period stain.” BBC News online, May 28, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52830427

Diego Rivera’s life is the stuff of legend in Mexico and the United States. An avid artist from a young age, Rivera’s family sent him to the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City at the age of 10. In 1907, the 21-year-old Rivera received government funding to study in Europe. Rivera remained in Europe for the following decade, coming back to Mexico in 1921 as the Mexican Revolution came to an end. The Revolution stoked Rivera’s Marxist leanings and reinvigorated his deep reverence for indigenous, working-class Mexican culture–a foundational starting point for most if not all of his work thereafter. The growing political nature of his artwork led to some of his most famous murals, many of which he would paint in the United States after the Mexican government’s public mural program stopped commissioning him in the late 1920s.

Mexico and South Asia have both wrestled with political, cultural, and economic structures put in place by their former colonizers. These colonial legacies continue to influence the art of both regions. South Asian truck art directly traces its roots to British colonial rule. The first trucks in South Asia were large, Bedford-brand military vehicles used to transport military equipment during World War II. When the British hastily left the subcontinent in the late 1940s, the trucks proved essential for traversing South Asia’s vast distances, complex topography, and sprawling urban centers. Truck painting grew in popularity a few years later as drivers who slept, ate, and worshipped within their trucks began beautifying their living spaces. Soon after, truck painting became a mainstay of commercial transportation—the better the truck looked, the more clients would want to contract it.

Mexican muralism, as well as the other art styles born during the “Mexican Renaissance”— the title often given to the decade following the Mexican Revolution—has a complex colonial legacy. Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco—“Los Tres Grandes”—are often credited with being the three most influential Mexican muralists. They came together in 1923, under the patronage and eager support of Mexican President Alvaro Obregon’s secretary of public education, Jose Vasconcelos, to create a set of large government murals. Vasconcelos had tasked the artists with painting these murals to foster a new National Mexican identity. Indigenous livelihood served as the bedrock for this new Mexican identity, and the murals offered the chance to effectively communicate with Mexico’s mostly illiterate populace.

Rivera and Siqueiros both studied and cultivated their artistic skills by traveling to Europe. Orozco received his art education at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts and developed his own artistic philosophy from the teachings of Dr. Atl, a professor at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, who encouraged Orozco and other students to reject European artistic traditions in favor of Indigenous visual aesthetics. Orozco became a muralist when the government commission gave him the chance to return to Mexico after fleeing to the United States during the revolution. Much of Orozco’s decisions throughout his artistic career would be driven by his pursuit of patronage and his desire to live and work in Mexico. Rivera’s interest in painting murals partly emerged from a trip to Italy during which he studied frescoes. Rivera also wished to spread his Marxist beliefs through his work. Siqueiros—an avid Stalinist—tied his devotion to murals to the artwork’s fundamental monumentality. Murals can not be privately owned.

As Yale art history professor Subhashini Kaligotla, an expert in Medieval Deccan Indian creations, explains, South Asian aesthetic theories have long incorporated discussions on “essence” or “rasa”—a fundamental quality found in aesthetic interpretation. South Asia’s beautiful, intricate truck art consistently serves as an exercise in both function and aesthetic. When it comes to painted trucks, South Asians see their aesthetic qualities and their functionality. Some of the most common and popular symbols on painted trucks began as religious iconography. Hawks pepper many trucks—an important symbol Sikh drivers use to express their faith. Some drivers adorn their trucks with political figures. Almost every truck includes instructions to other drivers, such as “Horn Please.” In Pakistan, a popular joke is often written in Urdu across the back bumper: “Don’t get too close, or you’ll fall in love.” The vivid colors, patterns, sprawling designs, and scenes on these trucks play upon aestheticism and functionality and do so at the behest of the painter, driver, and company.

Haider Ali is no stranger to the individual nature of truck art. Each truck is as much a reflection of the driver and their business as it is a testament to the painter’s skills and story. Take the white van Ali painted for the Pacific Asia Museum in Los Angeles. Throughout the van, he includes symbols of both Pakistan and California—connecting the regions together through the importance transportation, natural beauty, and language play in both cultures.  On one side, the American and Pakistani flags are joined by a bouquet of flowers. On the hood flies a bald eagle painted in the distinct truck art style. The rest of the van features symbolism from route 66, The Grand Trunk Road, native flora and fauna, and a dizzying array of design elements. Ali also painted a small easel as a thank you to the museum for facilitating his visit.

Orozco, Siqueiros, and Rivera all came to the United States in the late 1920s in search of patronage. A change in the Mexican government’s leadership led to the mural program ending in 1927, meaning the artists had to seek patronage elsewhere. After finding success in San Francisco and Detroit in the early 1930s, Rivera ended up in New York City in 1932. Influenced by his wife’s love for Rivera’s work, John D. Rockefeller Jr. contracted the muralist to paint a monumental fresco in the lobby of the near-complete Rockefeller Center. Rivera’s vision centered around the idea of competing social developments. He designed the piece to evoke a sense of symmetrical asymmetry—everything on one side has its equal and opposite on the other. Though the painting might lack diversity of gender, body type, and ability, Rivera ensured that throughout the mural workers, aristocrats, and historical figures of varying race, class, power, importance, and expertise were present. Rivera never finished the fresco. After painting the likeness of Lenin, local newspapers decried the mural as anti-capitalist propaganda. The development company responsible for his commission demanded he remove the Communist figure. Rivera refused; instead, he offered to paint Abraham Lincoln to juxtapose the Soviet figure’s presence. The development company eventually paid Rivera’s full commission and destroyed the work in its entirety. The turn of events scandalized artists and Marxists across the world. Writers deplored the loss of Rivera’s masterpiece. Rivera, a fond follower of Trotsky’s teachings, had his work besmirched, denigrated, and destroyed by the wealthy capitalists of New York City, yet Rivera had chosen to work for John D. Rockefeller Jr.—an almost archetypal embodiment of nepotism, capitalism, and class distinction. He chose his patron, and he chose a capitalist.

Professor Kaligotla emphasizes that many people are quick to discredit the agency medieval creators enjoyed under their wealthy patrons. She explains that in studying the creations of master craftsmen for various elite families, she found that there was always a degree of agency in the work. The patron—though influential and powerful in the relationship—did not control every aspect of the creative process as many might assume would occur under dynastic or feudal power structures. Kaligotla also suggests that modern creators and thinkers might be quick to diminish the agency of past creators while simultaneously overestimating their own.

Liz Ohanesian—a writer for KCET, a cultural programming organization in Southern California—wrote an article for Haider Ali’s painted van exhibition in the Pacific Asia Museum. In the article, Ohanesian described Ali’s professional trajectory: “At 16, he took on his first job, but was unsure of his skills. Ali spent nights practicing the paintings that he would apply to trucks during the day. It wasn’t until he painted trucks at the Smithsonian that Ali realized that he was good at his job.” Ali, who in other places is described as a truck painting prodigy, felt unsure of his skills until he painted a truck for the Smithsonian museum. Ohanesian may have exaggerated this point or Haider Ali may have meant something different than what is written in the article itself, but Professor Kaligotla describes what Ali’s story seems to verify: many South Asian creators seek out “ratification” from Western art institutions. As Kaligotla elaborates, these creators want the material wealth and global prestige that comes with the respect of “international”—most likely Western—institutions. Without access to that wealth and prestige, artists will almost never achieve international respect for their work.

In 1922, Siqueiros wrote the manifesto for the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors—a Mexican trade union he helped organize. He entitled the work A Declaration of Social, Political and Aesthetic Principles and demanded the world of art to fundamentally change: “We repudiate so-called easel painting and every kind of art favored by the ultra-intellectual circles, because it is aristocratic and we praise monumental art in all its forms, because it is public property… Art must no longer be the expression of individual satisfaction, but should aim to become a fighting, educative art for all.” Art, he declared, must exist for anyone and everyone. Perhaps Siquieros believed he could find a wall large enough for the world—that is the seeing world—to see. Has there ever been an artwork physically accessible to everyone—let alone culturally relevant to everyone? Rivera’s Man at The Crossroads would have displayed itself to a primary audience of wealthy New Yorkers. Each exhibition Haider Ali paints for a museum can only ever benefit those people who can afford to go to museums. Do creators ever choose their audience? Can creators choose their audience? Can creators ever choose correctly?

Siqueiros believed that monumental artworks, such as murals, could evade class distinction and aristocratic appropriation. After all, powerful and wealthy classes could not possess the wall of a government building in Mexico City. This resilience to the influence of money and power in art is a rare attribute. Debbie Lechtman—an Israeli and Costa Rican anthropologist specializing in Jewish history—remarks that, in both Costa Rica and Israel, artists and creators usually focus on producing work to sell to American tourists, even if it comes at the cost of their local cultural ideals and customs. In Israel, Jewish creators often appeal to the American Evangelical narrative which views Judaism as a precursor to Christianity rather than an independent, ancient tribal and religious tradition. This trend worries Lechtman. Even in Israel—where Jewish ethnic traditions are widely respected and cherished—the perspectives of Jewish creators are treated as secondary to the desires of Western tourists. How much worse it must be outside of Israel, where antisemitism remains a pernicious, daily reality for Jewish communities. Lechtman laments that creators often need to seek out financial stability by diminishing their own culture. She sees a similar situation in Costa Rica, where creators often caricaturize facets of Costa Rican identity to sell to American tourists.

Lechtman is herself a creator; she runs a small business making Jewish-inspired jewelry by hand. Lechtman knows that appropriation has become commonplace in jewelry-making, especially when it comes to Native American creation styles, but she continues to work against appropriation however she can: “As far as what I’ve done to combat it, I’ve done what I always do… Try to educate people on the cultural significance of those amulets. I don’t directly confront those who appropriate them because it seems like a waste of time and I don’t think it’d really be effective. My approach to these things is always education.” 

Discussions on cultural appropriation—what it is, how it works, and the consequences it has—inevitably lead to questions about power. Under this structural reading, cultural appropriation is understood to occur when members of a dominant culture take cultural elements from a systematically oppressed minority culture. Members of the minority thus take elements from the dominant culture not out of choice, but out of a need to assimilate. This reading leads to the following conclusion: cultural appropriation occurs wherever a power imbalance exists. When creators who are driven by their cultural heritage and personal experiences—as most creators are—seek out patronage outside of their original cultural context, they—in some capacity—engage with appropriation.

The city of Phoenix, Arizona’s tourism website, visitPhoenix.com, offers a gallery of photographs directed to potential and prospective tourists. The images show everything from desert parklands and mouth-watering tacos to crystal blue pools and breathtaking sunsets. They often also include a mural, painted on one of Phoenix’s many alley walls. The Chicano mural movement began in the Southwestern United States in the 1960s as a way for Mexican-Americans to showcase their culture. The mix of Indigenous iconography with motifs and scenes from the tumultuous shared histories of Mexico and the United States are a direct descendent of the Mexican Mural Movement of the late 1920s and early ‘30s. They often feature scenes of social upheaval and are meant to spark debate with their vivid and dynamic compositions. Many of the muralists who work in Phoenix often emigrate from Mexico; like “Los Tres Grandes,” they develop their work within Mexico and then find patronage in the United States. Rivera chose to paint for Rockefeller; Ali chose to paint for museums in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. Few of these creators’ work derives cultural meaning and influence from the audiences that ultimately end up having access to their work—at least the work they create outside their original cultural context. Even if it is a public mural or a large truck free from the restrictions of a paywall, what does it mean when a creator—whose work builds upon unique cultural traditions defined by complex historical legacies—creates for a community distant from that cultural narrative? Can those creations ever stay true to themselves while sitting within the walls of a museum—while adorning the communities that have no inherent connection to their origins?

Rivera did not need to paint for Rockefeller; he had enjoyed plenty of financial success in Detroit and San Francisco. Rivera chose to do so, maybe precisely because it was Rockefeller. Ali chooses to travel to spread his artwork because he wants the tradition of truck painting to live on. Young people throughout Pakistan are no longer interested in painting trucks. When he painted the van for the Asia Pacific Museum, Ali made a deliberate effort to advertise the craft to as many potential students as he could. Ali even runs an organization devoted to continuing the practice of truck painting. Many of the Mexican muralists who emigrate to Phoenix do so to gain access to opportunity, to fulfill their creative desires. It is much harder to find the kind of financial security they enjoy in the United States in their hometowns. Often the question of why a creation is located in a particular space at a particular time comes down to whether the creator had any other choice.

Contemporary creators seldom, if ever, choose their audiences. Even Rivera—who at the time of the Rockefeller incident had wide appeal and international acclaim— could not select his audience. Unless he wished to paint without concern for money or without concern for conveying a particular idea through a large platform, his audiences would almost always be limited to the Western world. Once the Mexican government stopped commissioning him, he worked all across the United States. One can blame Rivera for appropriating his own work; one can decry his pursuit of material gain over the ideals of artistic integrity; one can call him a hypocrite for following his Marxist philosophies only when it benefitted him. One can also recognize that Rivera had two basic choices: cultivate his art and philosophy within Mexico despite threats, coercion, and lack of patronage; or work in the United States and sell his artistic creations to those who might never properly understand them.

There are plenty of articles about cultural appropriation, as the topic is varied, complex, and impossible to easily solve. Despite the many articles on the subject, there is often a defensive stance those afraid of being labeled appropriators resort to: “It’s cultural exchange, not appropriation.” Sadly, it isn’t. When Orozco began working in the United States, he wanted nothing more than to return to Mexico as a respected artist. When Rivera’s Man at the Crossroads was destroyed by Rockefeller, he recreated and completed the project in Mexico. When Ali left Pakistan to share his craft, a huge factor was the ongoing survival of his life’s passion. When creators from across the Global South enter the lucrative creative markets of the West, they rarely do so out of an honest desire to play with those markets’ inherent cultural narratives and complex traditions. More often than not it is out of a sense of necessity. Today’s wealthy institutions are full of art that would rather reside and grow somewhere else. 

In a world where “Los Tres Grandes” had never left Mexico and Ali never left Pakistan, there would be no international tradition of Muralism or truck art. There would be no discussion of Rivera’s interactions with the Rockefellers. There would be no elaborately painted white van in Los Angeles. This is not the world of art without cultural appropriation. It is impossible to understand what the world of art would look like without cultural appropriation. The only thing about this world that can be predicted with any degree of certainty is that creators would be driven by something beyond the physical need to create. They’d be driven by something within themselves. There is a high degree of probability that creators the world over already do behave like this—that they “follow their hearts,” so to speak. For a select lucky few, their desires and interests align with the resources the world has bequeathed onto them, but no creator can ever know if they belong to this lucky few. Imagining this world counterfactually can never truly determine whether the ideally perfect choice was even available to the creator, let alone if they made that choice. In a world where the options are limited, there is little agency. Choosing between so-called “international” cities leaves creators with little say. Their creations will inevitably always form a conversation with an audience, with a culture, that has no foundational understanding of who they are. Appropriation is the use, manipulation, adoption, or fetishization of someone’s work without their consent. Creators currently cannot consent. They do not have enough options to do so. It wouldn’t be enough if creators had guaranteed economic security. It wouldn’t be enough if creators have the chance to work for patrons and audiences from numerous, distinct backgrounds, cultures, and desires. It will only begin to be enough when creators have both. Until then, patrons the world over will buy and commission art that never truly belongs to them. Creation without meaningful consent is appropriation.

Works Cited

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DeYoung, Bill. “SHINE up Close: Truck Artist Haider Ali.” St Pete Catalyst, October 4, 2018. https://stpetecatalyst.com/shine-up-close-with-truck-artist-haider-ali/.

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Hart, Hugh, Hugh Hart, and Hugh Hart. “A Jingle Truck Artist Brings The Mobile Art Of Pakistan To America.” Fast Company, November 12, 2014. https://www.fastcompany.com/3037627/a-jingle-truck-artist-brings-the-mobile-art-of-pakistan-to-america.

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Johnson, Maisha Z. “What’s Wrong with Cultural Appropriation? These 9 Answers Reveal Its Harm.” Everyday Feminism, June 14, 2015. https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/.

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“Man at the Crossroads by Deigo Rivera.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.diegorivera.org/man-at-the-crossroads.jsp.

Nolen, Jeannette L. “José Clemente Orozco | Mexican Painter.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-Clemente-Orozco.

Ohanesian, Liz. “Haider Ali: The King of Pakistani Truck Painting.” KCET, October 29, 2014. https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/haider-ali-the-king-of-pakistani-truck-painting.

“Siqueiros Speaks.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.nga.gov/education/teachers/lessons-activities/self-portraits/siqueiros.html.

Tikkanen, Amy. “David Alfaro Siqueiros | Mexican Painter.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Alfaro-Siqueiros.

“Visit Phoenix | Find Things to Do, Hotels, Restaurants & Events.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.visitphoenix.com/.Vox. India’s Trucks Are Works of Art, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlriwanO4e4&t=186s.

Torture is the infliction of physical torment on individuals by the state to extract a confession, gain information, or simply for intimidation.[2] While a severe human rights violation, Torture is often still widely used as one of the most brutal forms of authority. Classical notions of torture included inflicting wounds that marked the body of the tortured as a symbol of state power over  its citizens.[3] However, modern torture methods often aim to intimidate the tortured in a more psychological and less physically apparent manner.[4] Torturers sometimes avoid creating visible scars or wounds on their prisoner’s body, which makes it harder for the individual to prove their suffering. This ensures that torture remains underground, reducing the credibility of the tortured to mere accusations.

However, torture in Thailand has been used in ways that has not always been secretive in nature. While primarily used in detention centers and police custody, Thai security forces have also used torture in public spaces such as streets and police roadblocks. The 2014 coup led by army officers gave rise to an environment where few could speak up against the military. Moreover, those who did were violently silenced. The transition towards a dictatorship from a democratic system of governance ensured that torture could occur in public view.

The Royal Thai Armed Forces, led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, seized power in May 2014 and formed The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). Since then, torture and brutality by military authorities has become commonplace across the country. According to a report by Amnesty International, Thai soldiers and policemen have targeted those suspected of being insurgents, political opponents, and individuals especially from the most vulnerable sections of society. The report, “Make Him Speak by Tomorrow: Torture and Other Ill-Treatment in Thailand”, documented 74 cases of torture and other violent treatment at the hands of soldiers and the police between 2014 and 2015 alone. These include beatings, suffocation by plastic bags, strangling by hand or rope, waterboarding, electric shocks to the genitals, and other forms of painful and humiliating abuse of individuals in custody.[5]

The Thai military has referred to torturing political activists, opposition leaders, and journalists as ‘attitude adjustment’ designed to encourage them to support the government. Rather than isolated incidents, torture has been used to systemically suppress those who opposed the military government.[6] In addition to this, the military also regularly tortures suspected drug users, migrant workers, members of ethnic minorities, and indigenous people as a routine security measure. It is usual for people suspected of being drug addicts to be beaten and humiliated in public by military or police officials. Furthermore, many undocumented and unregistered migrant workers in Thailand are similarly susceptible to abuses of power by government officials. In particular, the authorities use their power to deport individuals without providing them access to judicial or administrative processes. This makes undocumented migrants particularly vulnerable to violence, coercion, and extortion.[7]

Thailand’s legal system fails to acknowledge or address the issue of torture, which has made it easier for the military to use it openly. The Thai Penal Code does not define torture as a distinct criminal offence.[8][9] Moreover, Thai law does not prohibit the practice of obtaining evidence through torture or other forms of manipulation, nor does it prohibit using the evidence in court.[10] However, Thai law has several prohibitions against any form of unlawful detention. Under the law, there is a duty to bring detainees before court within 48 hours of arrest. The detainees also have a right to a legal counselor present during questioning. However, these statutes can be easily overridden by the Thai Martial Law Act, which has been applied in several conflict zones in South Thailand continuously since 2006. Furthermore, a series of post-coup orders issued by the National Council for Peace and Order can also override the existing safeguards against illegal detention provided for by Thai law.[11] The Martial Act also allows military officers to detain suspected individuals in unofficial locations (places that are not prisons, detention centers, or police stations). This makes it easier for military officers to use torture as an intimidation tactic in an undocumented manner, and hence, it is not accounted for.

The arbitrary use of torture in Thailand has come along with the breakdown of democracy and the establishment of a more authoritarian power structure. Therefore, the use of torture is less about inflicting pain or extracting information and more about humiliation and intimidation. While the torture done in official and unofficial detention is used to suppress and intimidate those suspected of working against the coup, public use of torture humiliates and degrades the individual. The latter also uses the audience as a part of the act of torture. The public views the tortured as an outcast an example of the consequences of disobedience. The tortured individual’s humiliation by military officials is meant to send the message that their authority is absolute and demands compliance.

Works Cited

[1] Khidhir, Sheith. “Thailand: Land of Torture?” The ASEAN Post, 30 July 2019, theaseanpost.com/article/thailand-land-torture.

[2] Rejali, Darius. “Torture and Democracy”. Princeton University Press, 2007. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rwf8

[3] Rejali.

[4] Rejali.

[5] “Thailand: A Culture of Torture under the Military.” Amnesty International, 2016. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/09/thailand-a-culture-of-torture-under-the-military/

[6] Amnesty, International. “MAKE HIM SPEAK BY TOMORROW: TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT IN THAILAND.”  2016, pp. 4–47

[7] Amnesty International.

[8] “Torture in Thailand.” Asian Human Rights Commission, www.humanrights.asia/tortures/torture-in-thailand/

[9] Amnesty International, “Thailand: A Culture of Torture under the Military.” 

[10] Amnesty International, “Thailand: A Culture of Torture under the Military.”

[11] Amnesty International, “Thailand: A Culture of Torture under the Military.”

On January 28, 2020, Pakistani authorities detained two members of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) in the northwest city of Peshawar. As Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir led hundreds of supporters across the country to protest the arrest of Manzoor Pashteen, the leader of PTM, police disrupted the protest and detained the two. 

Founded in May 2016 by eight students at Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan, the Pashtun Tahaffuz (Protection) Movement has been campaigning for the rights of the nearly 35 million Pashtuns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan for over four years now. Led by Manzoor Pashteen, a student of veterinary sciences, PTM seeks to highlight the struggles of the Pashtuns who fled Waziristan due to fighting between the Pakistani military and militant groups. In the words of Dawar: “The PTM emerged as a reaction to the death and destruction unleashed upon the roughly 50 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan for years.”

Waziristan is one of the poorest and least developed districts in Pakistan, and is also the region where the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was born under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud in 2007. From 2007 onwards, armed militias including the TTP, al-Qaeda, the Haqqani Network and others caused thousands of deaths in the region, and fought against local governance as terrorist groups. In response, Pakistan’s military undertook a series of operations against these militant groups, most notably Operation Zarb-e-Azb in 2014, to remove these groups from Waziristan. 

Though the Pakistani military was mostly successful in pushing many militants out of the region, it also implemented widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the region – actions that movements like the PTM have campaigned against. As stated by Dawar: “After the military finally moved into North Waziristan in 2014, about 1 million of North Waziristan’s residents were displaced, and our homes and livelihoods were ruined.”

In 2018, PTM became very prominent as they led protests against the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a garment trader shot dead by police in Karachi, who claimed he was part of an armed militia group. Since the 2018 protests, many more Pashtuns have joined PTM, and Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir were even elected to the lower house of the Pakistani Parliament from North and South Waziristan respectively. 

As PTM came to represent the voice of Pashtuns from the northwest of Pakistan, a common rallying cry at PTM rallies was heard: “Yeh jo dehshat gardi he, isske peeche wardi he!” “This terrorism, the military is responsible for it!” In response, the military began to crack down against the PTM. 

In April 2019, the military alleged that PTM was being funded by foreign intelligence agencies. In May 2019, clashes between the military and PTM supporters in North Waziristan led to the death of three protestors. In September 2019, prominent PTM leader Gulalai Ismail revealed that she had moved to the United States after receiving multiple death threats from the military. In January 2020, the military arrested Manzoor Pashteen himself in a midnight raid in Peshawar, accusing him of sedition and criminal conspiracy. And most recently, Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir were detained by the police as well. 

The PTM’s protests has brought it into direct conflict with the Pakistani military, an institution so powerful in Pakistan that it is often considered a pillar of state. For nearly half of its existence, Pakistan has been under military rule. However, despite the threat from the Pakistani military, PTM continues to criticize, protest and fight for the rights of Pashtuns in Pakistan. 

In the words of Dawar: “My generation came of age amid bombs and bullets. We have seen our homes demolished and our elders killed. Our struggle will continue until we have the right to live, and until we win our right to live, threats to our lives are meaningless.”

Sources
“Two Pakistani lawmakers held after protests by rights activists.” Reuters, https://in.reuters.com/article/pakistan-arrest-activist/two-pakistani-lawmakers-held-after-protests-by-rights-activists-idINKBN1ZR1WB 

“Why Pashtuns in Pakistan are rising up.” Mohsin Dawar, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/17/why-pashtuns-pakistan-are-rising-up/ 

“Why is Pakistan’s Pashtun movement under attack?” Al Jazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/pakistan-pashtun-movement-attack-200128085744910.html