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Photo by Satyadeep Singh
The people of the small village Busapedha, located in a remote part of the Northern Himalayas in Nepal, breathes the air of a tender, fragile and a complex social system. With around 20 families of mountain dwellers, the village comprises Dalits and Tamangs inhabiting their respective territories demarcated by altitude and geography. With generations of caste-based discrimination, segregation and subsequent conversion to Christianity – either voluntarily or through evangelisation, life in Busapedha is marginalised and freedom seems to be a distant dream.
Existing between documentary and staged narrative, Thy Kingdom Come by Satyadeep Singh is an ongoing work exploring the subject of identity through the dynamics of religion and caste based discrimination. The story attempts to reflect our staged identities against the backdrop of politics. Only a single colour visible behind our portraits, rooted deep from within cultures, bluntly speaking to us but spreading our wings out wide in search of more dignified life.
After 2018 the government officially banned religious conversions from the country for the next two centuries, but the numbers suggest many continue to consider it a risk worth taking and many Dalits are prepared to gamble on breaking the law in search of a more dignified life. Nepal now harbours one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world.
