Shivaani Selvaraj

Shivaani will travel to South Africa to learn and document the stories of Indians who crossed class and ethnic barrier to join forces with the ANC against apartheid. In this planning and production phase, she will film contemporary interviews with people who were part of the anti-apartheid movement, find archival footage, and film observational footage exploring the status of Indians in South African politics today. Given what is happening in the world, Shivaani sees pressing need to forge alliances of all kinds. She hopes that the story of how South Asians were incorporated into the freedom struggle despite ethnic and socioeconomic differences can provide lessons in thinking beyond these divides and show how one can enter into politics grounded in identity by not by limited by it.