The art of unification

Did art play a role in the making of India’s republic? Its independence? It might surprise readers to note just how significant art was to prove in both cases, even though those contributions now remain neglected by an ill-informed society.
 
One of the critical elements in the struggle for freedom was forging a national identity in a country riven by language, consisting of over 500 princely states and Crown-administered provinces. From reformists and philosophers to writers, poets and politicians, they struggled to find a common, unifying cause in a country that was culturally knit together without the perspective of a unified whole. It was into this chasm that the self-taught artist Raja Ravi Varma stepped in to give India an iconography for its gods, goddesses, historical heroes and mythological heroines, leading to the creation of a pan-national image to which anyone could lay claim. This effort would have been in vain, however, were it not for a colour printing press he acquired, soon churning out these images to sell in bazaars and around temples. The prints became a rage, and the Himachali, the Maharashtrian and the Bengali were quick to take them home as icons for both their puja rooms and their living rooms.
 
The popular nationalistic upsurge led to Abanindranath Tagore rejecting his training in Western art practice in search for one that was more indigenous, thereby laying the roots of what came to be known as the Bengal “School”. His subjects came from India’s cultural moorings, but most importantly, his painting of Bharat Mata — an iconocisation of the country as motherland — became a unifying image for the freedom fighters of the time. The demand for freedom went beyond provincialities to embrace all of India. 
 

Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharat Mata, an iconocisation of India as motherland, became a unifying image for freedom fighters of the time

Mahatma Gandhi soon realised that a largely illiterate citizenry needed a visual language to represent the idea of a subaltern India that was free of elitist compulsions. He commissioned the artist Nandalal Bose to paint “posters” for conclaves of the Congress Party, most notably the Haripura Congress of 1938 for which he made 81 paintings of peasants, farmers, musicians, folk dancers and performers, giving place to what till then had been the marginalised within the political process. The idea of an identity forged by its common people was reinforced.
 
Gandhi himself was visualised by Nandalal Bose as the staff-bearing Mahatma on the Dandi March which went on to become a celebrated print, and came to be associated with him in popular perception. Photography provided images of the national leaders as inexpensive prints that were rendered as posters, calendars and labels, furthering their identity with the cause of independence.
 
Nor was art provided less than its deserving mantle in the new republic. The viceregal palace had murals painted by European and Indian artists in the Western tradition, but the circular walls of Parliament House were painted in the manner of murals illustrating scenes and episodes from history and mythology, forging the idea of the nation through its culture, even though parliamentarians rarely tarry to admire these works, being as unfamiliar with art as the average — alas! — Indian.
 
The Constitution, too, was handed to Nandalal Bose to illustrate, and he put together a team of artists for the task. While he and some artists were responsible for painting historical episodes, others took on the responsibility of creating decorative borders. Alas, the citizens of the republic it serves rarely see or take pride in facsimile editions of the Constitution. That the visualisation of a national identity is built into the very foundations of independent, republic India is a lesson we would all do well to remember.

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Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated