What does Independence Day mean for India’s street performers as they battle penury amidst pandemic?

I wonder what Independence Day means for Shantabai Balu Pawar?

Shantabai is a 85-year-old woman from a community of traditional street performers who specialise in acrobatics. Recently, a video of this elderly grandmother performing martial arts on the streets of Pune went viral. Soon the media, Bollywood actors and even a minister or two were making a dash for her humble home bearing promises and taking selfies with the woman who the local media dubbed “the warrior queen”.

Nobody bothered to ask her to tell her story. All they did was to make her perform again and again and again only so they could take pictures and videos on which they could claim authorship. No one bothered to pay Shantabai or even ask her permission.

What is the story of Shantabai’s life? Why was she having to work at an age she should be enjoying a comfortable retirement? India does not offer any social security for people like her. She is just one of the 90 million Indian citizens who comes under the category of “casual workers and self-employed” workers.

But Shantabai is not a statistic. She is a person with a family and a life of struggle. She is counted as illiterate or uneducated yet her training...

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