Artist Atul Dodiya’s watercolour Morning Walk depicts a featureless, stooped figure with a skull balanced on his head. “When we think of Gujarat and we think of the kind of genocide that we observed in 2002,” said Dodiya, “that burden, that weight, that fear, agony and anxiety, we still carry with us.” This fortnight, his painting will be part of a fundraiser show for Citizens for Justice and Peace, an organisation that was formed after the riots to promote communal harmony and provide legal aid to victims of communal conflict. This is the second such fundraiser for the CJP.

Artist Atul Dodiya’s watercolour Morning Walk depicts a featureless, stooped figure with a skull balanced on his head. “When we think of Gujarat and we think of the kind of genocide that we observed in 2002,” said Dodiya, “that burden, that weight, that fear, agony and anxiety, we still carry with us.” This fortnight, his painting will be part of a fundraiser show for Citizens for Justice and Peace, an organisation that was formed after the riots to promote communal harmony and provide legal aid to victims of communal conflict. This is the second such fundraiser for the CJP.

Dodiya’s artwork was created for the fundraiser, and reflects his reaction to the Godhra fire and the Gujarat riots. Most of the other artists will be showing earlier work that may have nothing to do with those events but a few have related themes. Artist Nilima Sheikh’s contribution, My Hometown, is from a series she did on the suffering of the people of Kashmir. “The painting is about negotiating the territories of conflict,” said Sheikh. Gauri Gill’s Untitled photograph is from the series Nizamuddin at Night, which she shot while wandering around the old Delhi neighbourhood. The money raised during the fundraiser will go towards paying the lawyers CJP has hired to fight cases on behalf of the Gujarat riot victims and organising memorial programmes. But Setalvad believes that their work will have consequences beyond Gujarat. “It’s not just about Gujarat because one of the impacts of our legal cases has been national awareness for witness protection,” said Setalvad.