48 Hours with the Cadets of India’s National Defence Academy

AKSHAY MAHAJAN

National Defence Academy, Poona.
2014

This series on the National Defence Academy in India joint Services academy of the Indian Armed Forces, where cadets of the three services, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force train together before they go on to pre-commissioning training in their respective service academies. It is the first tri-service academy in the world.

In 2013, I travelled to NDA to realize the portraits of cadets from one of the most important military academies in the post-colonial world. Interested since for a long time in the quest of looking at the so-called “Indian” Military identity — I met these young officers cadets who are a symbol of the link that exists between their school’s traditions and their history, and the future these cadets hold for the subcontinent’s military system. I have chosen to shoot portraits to create a topographic overlay of the academy beyond any nationalistic identity.