If you were to pick the history of India, you will find millions of mentions of male warriors, with rarely any credit given to female rulers. Addressing this discrepancy, 20-year-old visual artist Tara Anand is highlighting the brave warrior women from history through her illustrations which include forgotten heroes such as Rani Durgavati of Gondwana, Mai Bhago, and Rani Chennamma, the queen of Kittur.
“I’ve always held the belief that the female side of history is almost totally untold and a project like this is my small way of fixing that,” said Tara in interview with Elle.
Her noble aim and amazing illustrations were noticed by Tulika Publishers and they have launched a fun book for children telling stories of the courageous women from history with Tara’s illustrations.
“Feminism is really central to my beliefs and the way I see the world. I think a female perspective is sorely lacking in most conversations and so I tend to lean more towards exploring female perspectives and experiences,” said Tara.
“It is not just History textbooks but everything we commemorate our heroes with. Statues and roads are named after the men, and we also make movies and TV shows on them. So yeah, there’s a general lack of female presence in the way we record and remember our history,” she said in a recent interaction with IWB.
H/T: Elle