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The Report
Introduction

Table of Contents

  1. Abstract
  2. Introduction
  3. Objectives
  4. Global Practices
  5. Historical Context: From Guru-Shishya to Art School
  6. Contemporary Mentorship: Evolving to Meet New Needs
  7. Methodology
  8. Findings: What the data shows
  9. A4A 2024 Residency Case Study
  10. Conclusion & Future Prospects
  11. About the Author
  12. A Note on Authorship
  13. References & Bibliography

Abstract

Mentorship is a vital yet often overlooked component of arts education in India. While institutions continue to emphasize technical skills and aesthetic inquiry, they frequently fail to equip emerging artists with the tools necessary for sustainable practice. This report investigates mentorship not only as a pedagogical method but as a support structure — one that can bridge the gap between education and professional reality. Centered around the 2024 Art For Art (A4A) Virtual Residency and Mentorship Program sponsored by Sonalika CSR, the report weaves together field data, artist reflections, and historical analysis to initiate a broader conversation about the role of care, guidance, and continuity in creative ecosystems. By doing so, it advocates for placing mentorship at the heart of any conversation about equity and longevity in the Indian art world.

Introduction

The transition from arts education to professional practice remains one of the most under-addressed challenges for emerging artists in India. While formal education often emphasizes technical training and conceptual inquiry, it rarely prepares students for the realities of artistic livelihood, including networking, financial sustainability, grant writing, portfolio development, and navigating the art market.

This structural gap has led many promising artists to abandon independent practice in favour of more financially secure or institutionally stable careers, such as teaching, advertising, or design (Kapur, 2000; Mitter, 1994). In contrast to disciplines like engineering or medicine, the art world offers no streamlined path; it is decentralised, opaque, and often exclusionary. Young artists are left to navigate this fragmented landscape on their own, without the support systems necessary for them to thrive.

In India, the problem is further complicated by underfunded institutions, geographic disparities in access, and a curriculum that remains disconnected from professional ecosystems. Mentorship — understood here as sustained, one-on-one artistic guidance — has emerged as a crucial but inconsistent response. While its value is widely acknowledged, formal structures to implement mentorship remain rare.

This report is not an exhaustive mapping of India’s mentorship ecosystem, nor does it attempt to provide a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, it presents a focused case study grounded in the A4A Virtual Residency and Mentorship Program, drawing on qualitative insights to explore the broader potential of mentorship in the Indian art context. While it touches on global precedents and India’s historical and contemporary lineage of mentorship — from the Bauhaus to Tagore, K.G. Subramanyan, and recent peer-led initiatives — its intent is not encyclopaedic. Rather, it is to initiate a dialogue, propose a framework, and argue for the need to make mentorship central to artistic education and sustainability today.

It is, above all, a call for intentional, inclusive, and interdisciplinary approaches to guiding artists through the uncertain but essential journey from education to practice.

Objectives

This report aims to:

  1. Investigate the structural gap between formal arts education and professional practice in India.
  2. Situate mentorship as a critical support system for emerging artists, beyond the classroom.
  3. Present a case study of the A4A Virtual Residency and Mentorship Program as a contemporary model.
  4. Highlight the lived experiences of both mentees and mentors to demonstrate the impact of mentorship.
  5. Advocate for the integration of mentorship — conceptual, professional, and emotional — into arts education and cultural policy frameworks.

Global Practices

Mentorship has long been a central component in the transmission of artistic knowledge across cultures. In Europe, it developed through structured guild apprenticeships, where aspiring artists trained under master practitioners in immersive, long-term settings. These models offered clear pathways for skill development, professional identity, and eventual autonomy (Abbing, 2002).

The Bauhaus movement (1919–1933), founded by architect Walter Gropius in Weimar, further developed these traditions. Merging hands-on workshop training with conceptual experimentation, the Bauhaus introduced a new paradigm of interdisciplinary learning. Students learned directly from practising artists and designers in studios that dissolved boundaries between craft, art, and theory — a legacy that continues to shape global arts education (Bauhaus-Imaginista.org, 2020).

This ethos is visible in several major institutions today, including the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the United States. These institutions embed mentorship into their educational frameworks through studio critiques, portfolio development, alumni networks, and peer exchange. At RISD, for instance, over 75% of students participate in mentorship or internships, supported by one of the largest artist-alumni networks globally (RISD Career Centre, 2021). While RCA and RISD are prominent, they represent a broader global trend in which mentorship is not an afterthought, but a pedagogical foundation.

In East Asia, mentorship is often institutionalised through studio-based residencies supported by national art universities. At the Korea National University of Arts and the Tokyo University of the Arts, students receive both technical instruction and sustained guidance from senior practitioners. According to the Korea Arts Management Service (2020), nearly 70% of artists who participated in these programs continued as full-time practitioners — a testament to the long-term value of embedded mentorship models. These diverse international models share a common understanding: mentorship must be structurally embedded, not incidental. When treated as a foundational element of arts education, mentorship enables not only skill acquisition but also the development of artistic identity, critical thinking, and professional resilience.

Summary Takeaways

Historical Context: From Guru–Shishya (teacher-student) to Art School — Early Mentorship in Indian Art Education

Mentorship has long been integral to the transmission of artistic knowledge in India. Rooted in the guru–shishya parampara — a one-to-one model grounded in proximity, discipline, and holistic training — the relationship between master and disciple was deeply immersive and spiritual as well as technical (Mitter, 1994). However, its informality meant that it was never systematised within national education frameworks, limiting its long-term scalability.

A transformative moment arrived in 1919 with the founding of Kala Bhavana at Santiniketan by Rabindranath Tagore. Drawing from ancient gurukul traditions and global pedagogical experiments, such as the Bauhaus, Tagore envisioned an arts education based on nature, co-learning, and freedom from rote instruction. Under the leadership of Nandalal Bose — himself a disciple of Abanindranath Tagore — Santiniketan developed into a mentorship-driven institution where knowledge was shared through lived experience. Bose mentored artists like Ramkinkar Baij and Benode Behari Mukherjee, even involving students in landmark national projects such as the illustration of the Indian Constitution. In doing so, he established a living chain of artistic lineage, where mentorship was both a method and a value system (The Print, 2022).

In contrast, colonial institutions like the Sir J.J. School of Art (1857) and the Government College of Art & Craft (1854) were initially modelled on European academies, prioritising draftsmanship and rigid examination systems. Post-Independence, these institutions gradually underwent Indianisation. Faculty began to encourage more independent thinking, and informal mentorship found space even within hierarchical structures. Artists such as F.N. Souza and S.H. Raza carried forward foundational learnings — and quiet influences from sympathetic mentors — even as they rejected institutional orthodoxy.

Parallel developments at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and the College of Art, Delhi, demonstrated how individual mentors shaped generations. B.C. Sanyal, a founder of the Delhi Shilpi Chakra, mentored artists like Satish Gujral and Amar Nath Sehgal through a combination of teaching, studio support, and exhibition building, effectively functioning as a proto-residency system. Delhi-based educators such as K.S. Kulkarni, Dhanraj Bhagat, and O.P. Sharma continued this ethos, creating community spaces that extended learning beyond the classroom.

A major pedagogical shift occurred with the establishment of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU), Baroda, in 1950. K.G. Subramanyan, a Kala Bhavana alumnus, championed the model of the "artist-teacher" — blending hands-on practice with conceptual dialogue. Subramanyan mentored artists such as Bhupen Khakhar, Mrinalini Mukherjee, and Jyoti Bhatt, encouraging experimentation with material, method, and philosophy. Alongside colleagues like Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh and N.S. Bendre, Baroda fostered a collegial, workshop-like environment where mentorship became the engine of innovation.

Other institutions, such as Hyderabad’s JNAFAU and BHU’s Faculty of Visual Arts, continued to emphasize a hybrid of classical and modernist instruction. The strength of these models lies in their ability to adapt the emotional intelligence of the guru–shishya bond within the formal rigour of the classroom.
By the late 20th century, India’s most dynamic art schools were those where mentorship — whether formalised or not — remained central to learning. They demonstrated that education systems rooted in shared dialogue, co-creation, and continuity could nurture not only strong artistic practice but also cultural legacy.

Summary Takeaways

Contemporary Mentorship: Evolving to Meet New Needs

In recent years, Indian art mentorship has expanded beyond formal institutions to include residencies, collectives, and digital platforms. While the spirit of the guru–shishya parampara continues to inspire, structural support for mentorship remains uneven and limited in scope.

Today’s emerging artists require mentorship that addresses not only conceptual growth but also professional competencies — from writing applications and building portfolios to navigating residencies, markets, and funding systems. Yet most mentorship opportunities remain scattered, unstructured, and largely concentrated in major urban centres.

Some forms of informal mentorship persist through studio apprenticeships, collaborations, and peer-led initiatives; however, access to these opportunities is often determined by proximity, privilege, or existing networks. Without robust institutional scaffolding, such relationships are difficult to scale or sustain.

Where mentorship does occur meaningfully, its impact is tangible. It enables young artists to develop confidence, clarify their voice, and access professional opportunities in an increasingly competitive and fragmented art world. But such instances remain isolated rather than systemic.

It is in response to this gap that the Art For Art (A4A) Virtual Residency and Mentorship Program was conceptualised. Rather than viewing mentorship as an optional add-on, A4A treats it as essential infrastructure, pairing conceptual depth with career readiness, and lived artistic inquiry with professional literacy.

Drawing from historical Indian traditions and global mentorship models, A4A offers a template for what future-focused, inclusive, and context-responsive mentorship could look like in the Indian arts ecosystem. Through this program, mentorship is not peripheral; it is the foundation.

Summary Takeaways

Methodology

To assess the impact of mentorship on emerging artists in India, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach, integrating both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The methodology is grounded in the lived experiences of participants in the 2024 A4A Virtual Residency and Mentorship Program, enabling both statistical trends and individual insights to inform the analysis.

1. Surveys

A structured, self-administered survey was disseminated among alumni of past A4A residencies. The questionnaire included both closed-ended and open-ended questions, capturing mentees’ reflections on:

  1. Conceptual development
  2. Confidence in their practice
  3. Access to networks, exhibitions, and collaborations
  4. Career preparedness and professional development

The data was then analysed thematically to identify trends in how mentorship influenced their trajectories.

2. In-depth Interviews (IDIs)

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of four mentees and four mentors from the 2024 cohort. These conversations explored:

  1. Artistic background and education
  2. Experiences during the residency
  3. Specific challenges as emerging artists
  4. The perceived role and value of mentorship

The semi-structured format allowed for both consistency and openness, ensuring key themes were covered while also allowing space for nuance and narrative (Patton, 2015; Bryman, 2016).

3. Case Studies

Detailed case studies were developed for each mentee, charting their journey across the three-month residency. These included:

  1. Evolution of their artwork and ideas
  2. Shifts in material or conceptual approach
  3. Professional opportunities accessed post-residency
  4. Reflections on their mentor-mentee relationship

These case studies not only illuminate individual experiences but also illustrate recurring patterns, such as the importance of psychological safety, one-on-one feedback, and structured reflection.
Together, these methods provide a comprehensive view of mentorship: not just as a pedagogical tool, but also as a catalyst for artistic confidence, professional readiness, and long-term creative sustainability.

Findings: What the Data Shows

Mentorship as a Bridge Between Education and Practice

In India, the transition from art school to professional life is often steep and disjointed. Young artists often exit institutions with strong technical training but limited exposure to financial literacy, proposal writing, marketing, or even effective communication about their work. This is where mentorship, not as a one-off workshop or lecture, but as sustained dialogue, becomes transformative.
The study conducted a brief survey of A4A’s past residency artists to examine key trends in demographics, current art practices, sources of support, and challenges, particularly emphasising the role of mentorship. The goal was not to collect exhaustive data but to generate actionable insights that can inform the design of future artist residencies and mentorship programs.

Main Findings

  1. While most artists are actively practising, female and rural artists remain underrepresented and face greater challenges in accessing gallery affiliations, academic roles, and mentorship.
  2. Only 23% of surveyed artists reported having mentors, with access to mentors being concentrated among urban male artists.
  3. Male artists were more likely to cite both the presence and absence of mentorship as pivotal, suggesting a more entrenched awareness of and valuation for such support.

The numbers tell a story — but so do the voices. Mentees repeatedly spoke about how isolated the post-college phase felt, and how difficult it was to find guidance that wasn’t formulaic, hierarchical, or gatekept.

The 2024 A4A Residency Case Study: Mentorship as Infrastructure

Reimagining Residency Post-Pandemic

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, Art For Art (A4A) restructured its flagship residency to address a pressing need: mentorship. Instead of a physical retreat, the 2024 edition became a digital space for sustained one-on-one artistic engagement.
This shift enabled greater inclusivity — artists from across India, regardless of geographical location or socioeconomic background, could now participate without leaving their studios. More importantly, it repositioned mentorship as the core of the residency model, not an optional feature.

Program Framework

Duration: September to November 2024
Support: Financial stipends, individual mentorship, group sessions, and guided documentation
Themes: Environment and Gender — chosen to reflect both global urgency and local relevance


Program Goals:

  1. Enhance Creative Practice: Encourage risk-taking and material exploration
  2. Promote Professionalism: Support mentees in grant writing, artist statements, and career planning
  3. Foster Collaboration: Build community and peer exchange across disciplines
  4. Address Critical Themes: Tackle urgent issues through personal, situated practice

Structure and Format

Each of the four selected mentees was paired with a renowned mentor for monthly one-on-one sessions. Additionally, group discussions, reading circles, and open studio presentations built a communal rhythm. The virtual format allowed the residency to integrate seamlessly into the artists’ everyday lives, especially for those balancing creative work with economic or familial responsibilities.
The program culminated in a public Open Day at ChampaTree Art Gallery in April 2025 — a space where process was celebrated, not just final output.

Mentor–Mentee Pairings: Artistic Lineages in Motion

Mithu Sen → Vanshika Babbar
Mithu Sen is a conceptual artist working across performance, drawing, sculpture, and video. Her internationally exhibited practice interrogates language, identity, and power structures with irreverence and sensuality.
Vanshika Babbar is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice incorporates video, zines, and humour to critique capitalism, gender roles, and domestic mythology.

Gigi Scaria → Mohd. Intiyaz
Gigi Scaria is a multimedia artist known for his installations and video works that address urbanisation, displacement, and spatial politics. He represented India at the 54th Venice Biennale.
Mohd. Intiyaz is a visual artist whose practice draws from personal histories of migration and child labour, using zardozi embroidery, paper collage, and found objects.

Shantamani Muddaiah → Shilpeksh G. Khalorkar
Shantamani Muddaiah is a Mysore-based sculptor whose works explore ecology, time, and ritual through materials like stone, ash, and carbon.
Shilpeksh G. Khalorkar is a Baroda-based sculptor using decay and termite damage as metaphors for psychological and material erosion.

Vasudha Thozhur → Arindam Manna
Vasudha Thozhur is an interdisciplinary painter and educator whose work draws on memory, trauma, and feminist ethics. She is a founding faculty member at Shiv Nadar University.
Arindam Manna is a Delhi-based artist working with video, sound, and installation to explore social history, urban space, and personal memory.
Each pairing represented a unique dynamic, with mentors bringing distinct practices and mentees arriving in moments of flux, ready to grow.

Mentorship as a Mirror

“I had ideas I’d stopped working on. The residency gave life to those again.” — Vanshika
Mithu Sen’s sessions with Vanshika were dialogic, not prescriptive. They explored shared experiences, artistic decisions, and digital self-presentation.
“You don’t expect senior artists to tell you to get on social media. But Mithu ma’am was clear — if you don’t want to depend on a gallery, that’s a tool.”

Rebuilding from the Basics

“It was very basic advice. But it became very important.” — Shilpeksh
Shantamani encouraged her mentee to write, sketch, and observe as forms of introspective research. Photography became a new sketching tool, shifting his sculptural process.

Clarity Through Dialogue

“My thought process got polished. That’s what mentorship did — it gave shape to something loose.” — Arindam
Vasudha helped Arindam approach site-specificity with confidence. He explored Ghitorni through light, sound, and movement, integrating fieldwork into concept-building.

Conceptual and Emotional Grounding

“I’ve always had ideas. But now I know how to talk about them.” — Intiyaz
Intiyaz used zardozi embroidery and found objects to explore labour histories. His mentor helped him build a professional vocabulary to articulate these complex ideas.

Three Core Takeaways from Mentorship

  1. Conceptual Confidence
    “I used to have romantic ideas about my work. But talking to Mithu ma’am, I saw how humour and critique could work together.” — Vanshika
  2. Real-World Readiness
    “In college, I never wrote a concept note. I’d ask friends, or just use Google Translate. This residency was the first time I could articulate my own work.” — Intiyaz
  3. Emotional Holding
    “Shantamani ma’am didn’t give me instructions — she gave me space. That’s what I needed: not to be taught, but to be seen.” — Shilpeksh

Rethinking Mentorship: A Method of Care

From Hierarchy to Co-Thinking
“It wasn’t like being taught. It was like being heard.” — Vanshika
Mentors became co-travellers — not instructors but collaborators in thought.
Non-Prescriptive, Personal Guidance
“She encouraged me to stop trying to sound ‘artistic’ — to use my own words. That changed everything.” — Vanshika
“Even just writing what I’m feeling... that became important. It’s basic, but I’d forgotten it.” — Shilpeksh
Encouraging Instincts
“It was a small thing, but it changed everything. I realised I could do it my way.” — Arindam
“There was no pretence. Just someone saying: ‘yes, you’re on to something — keep going.’” — Shilpeksh
Mentorship as Shared Vulnerability
Mentors shared their doubts, failures, and methods, blurring boundaries between instruction and dialogue.

Documentation as Dialogue

Documentation was embedded as a method, not a formality. Mentees tracked their thinking, refined ideas, and documented process as part of the work.
“Every time I documented something, I saw what was missing — or what needed more time.” — Arindam
“When you look back at what you’ve written or recorded, you realise what you’re really trying to say.” — Vanshika
Documentation Was:

  1. A method of reflection
  2. A creative companion
  3. A living archive for future practice

“It’s something I’ll keep going back to — even when I don’t know what the next work is yet.” — Shilpeksh

Gaps in Formal Education: Why Mentorship Is Needed

Artists repeatedly emphasised what college left out:

  1. Professional practice (grant writing, portfolio building, applications)
  2. Understanding the art market
  3. Institutional mentorship
  4. Cross-disciplinary collaboration

“We don’t even know which platform is right for our kind of work.” — Intiyaz
“There’s a romantic idea in colleges that you shouldn’t care about career-building. But outside, you realise professionalism matters — and no one taught us that.” — Vanshika
“Through collaboration, you get refined. But we didn’t have that structure.” — Shilpeksh
A4A filled this post-college void by offering the space, language, and confidence that formal education often fails to deliver.

Suggestions for the Future

Mentees and mentors offered valuable feedback for growth:

  1. Hybrid models: Combine virtual flexibility with in-person depth
  2. Theme flexibility: Allow broader conceptual entry points
  3. Longer timelines: Enable deeper inquiry
  4. Apprenticeship follow-ups: Sustain mentor–mentee relationships
  5. User-friendly documentation tools: Templates and formats for reflection
  6. Mentor support: Honorarium and structured time allocation

These are not critiques — they are acts of care. They signal how artists and mentors alike want this program to evolve.

Summary Takeaways

  1. The A4A model repositions mentorship as core infrastructure, not a side benefit.
  2. One-on-one engagement with mentors fosters creative risk, emotional confidence, and professional readiness.
  3. Flexible documentation became an integral part of the practice, not a separate entity.
  4. Artists crave structure, mentorship, and support after formal education, and often lack access to it.
  5. The program’s future lies in deeper engagements, hybrid models, and continued advocacy for mentorship as a pedagogical norm.

Conclusion & Future Prospects

Across India, few formal structures exist where mentorship is recognised as a critical component of arts education. Institutions such as the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), through its Emerging Artist Award+, and Khoj via its Peers Residency, have played a foundational role in shaping how early-career artists are supported through mentorship, critique, and professional development. These models have set important precedents, proving how meaningful mentorship can transform not just artistic practice but also professional sustainability.

Art For Art (A4A) was among the early independent initiatives in India to support emerging artists through residencies, exhibitions, and dialogue. In its renewed form, A4A places mentorship at the core of its mission, not merely as a support mechanism, but as an ecosystem of learning, reflection, and exchange.

Looking ahead, A4A is committed to deepening this vision. Our future goals include:

  1. Extending mentorship beyond three-month cycles
  2. Hosting in-person exhibitions and open studios
  3. Building a resource archive with toolkits and recorded sessions
  4. Offering expert-led workshops on writing, funding, and career strategies
  5. Collaborating with institutions and funders to scale mentorship access
  6. Advocating for mentorship to be embedded in arts education and policy frameworks

In summary, mentorship in Indian art has evolved from the intimate guru-shishya dialogues under the banyan tree to structured residency labs and mentor panels – but its core purpose remains the same. It is about nurturing the next generation of artists, transmitting not just techniques but values, context and confidence. From Tagore’s Santiniketan experiments to the Baroda school’s artist-professors, and now to contemporary foundations’ mentorship residencies, one can trace a clear line of continuity. Each era adjusted the mentorship model to its needs: the early 1900s needed a cultural renaissance (hence Tagore’s holistic gurus); the post-independence period needed national modern art institutions (hence artist–teachers like Subramanyan building curricula); the current era requires professionalization and global integration (hence mentors who also guide careers). Understanding this trajectory underscores why a structured mentorship initiative like A4A’s is so timely. It stands on a rich historical foundation – the belief that art is best taught through guided personal exchange – while addressing today’s demands for comprehensive skill-building. By combining the “heart” of the guru-shishya parampara with the “head” of strategic professional training, programs like A4A’s can carry forward the legacy of Indian art mentorship into the future, ensuring that young artists not only excel in their craft but also thrive in the real world of art.

This report, and the solar-powered annual Residency Journal that houses it, is a step toward that future.

Summary Takeaways

  1. Arts education in India is highly technical, but it lacks structured support for professional development, leaving young artists to navigate the post-college transition on their own.
  2. The guru–shishya parampara offered holistic, relational mentorship, but modern institutions have not retained this ethos in structured ways.
  3. Historical mentorship legacies — from Tagore's Santiniketan to Subramanyan's Baroda School — demonstrate how artist-teachers shaped generations through care, critique, and creative exchange.
  4. Contemporary models, such as studio apprenticeships and informal peer networks, exist but are fragmented, unrecognised, and geographically limited.
  5. The A4A Residency and Mentorship Program offers a scalable, structured model that blends conceptual guidance with practical skills, including writing, documentation, and career planning.
  6. Mentorship at A4A enabled artists to refine their voices, gain confidence, articulate their practices, and feel professionally and emotionally supported.
  7. The study reinforces that mentorship is not a supplement but a vital infrastructure for long-term sustainability and growth in the arts.
  8. There is a pressing need for formal recognition and policy-level integration of mentorship in India’s arts education and funding ecosystems.
  9. A4A aims to scale mentorship as an ecosystem — expanding formats, archiving resources, advocating policy change, and building intergenerational solidarity through care-based pedagogy.

About the Author

Pooja Bahri is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and arts enabler based in India. She is the Co-Founder of the Art For Art Foundation (A4A) and the Artistic Director of Champatree Art Gallery, both of which champion the development of emerging artists through exhibitions, mentorship, and collaborative initiatives.

Her own artistic practice spans video, performance, and installation, and often engages with urgent themes of ecology, faith, and socio-political critique. She was awarded the Gold Medal for Video Art at the 2011 Florence Biennale and has participated in residencies and exhibitions across India and internationally.

In addition to her work in the arts, Pooja has previously served as a spokesperson and led the research team for a leading political party in Delhi, contributing to cultural and environmental discourse during the drafting of its 2019 election manifesto. Her experience in arts-related research and policy development informs her sustained interest in structural change within India’s creative ecosystems.

This report is part of her ongoing inquiry into the gaps between formal arts education and professional practice, and how mentorship, when practised with care and criticality, can serve as a transformative bridge between the two.

Website:www.poojabahri.com

Email: [email protected]

A Note on Authorship

This report was authored by Pooja Bahri, with research support from Suparna Aggarwal, who co-developed the framework, conducted field interviews, and synthesised insights across case studies and surveys.

The writing and organisation of this document were supported at key stages by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, used for structural clarity, grammar refinement, and articulation of complex ideas. AI served as a research and editorial assistant, but all decisions — conceptual, curatorial, and editorial — were led by the author.

In line with responsible attribution:

  1. AI is acknowledged as a tool, not listed as an author.
  2. All interpretations and arguments are grounded in lived experience and collaborative research.

Deep thanks to Archana Sapra, Co-Founder of A4A, for her unwavering encouragement, critical feedback, and co-visioning of this initiative from the beginning.

A special acknowledgement to Jagadeesh Reddy, Project Manager at A4A, whose close reading, logistical support, and contextual suggestions were instrumental in finalising this publication.

This report is not a static endpoint — it is a shared, evolving inquiry. Authored with integrity, built in dialogue, and hosted with care.

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