Research Category: The Disappearance Project

The term “disappearances” has traditionally been associated with individuals, and in a political context, with the state practice of making persons disappear. Disappearances enforced by or with the sanction of the state have long been associated with colonialism, slavery, genocide or autocratic regimes. In a control society, the intentional rendering of bodies as delinquent and their systematic erasure serve the interests of the state. Acts such as lynchings, forced disappearances, police encounters, custodial killings, and incarcerations are legitimised, as reflected in contemporary India’s felicitation of Hindutva vigilantes and pride in Adityanath’s policing model.

While conventional understanding of disappearances typically pertains to physical absence, The Polis Project seeks to expand this notion and document the Indian state’s policies and practices of disappearances through three primary lenses: of bodies, of lands, and of minds.