‘We want to see a society that is based on the Indian Constitution’: Curator Prabhakar Kamble

‘Home is a woman’s sphere’ by Mayura Chari. (Photo: PR handout)

The exhibition features 60 artists, including those who contributed their works after the workshop concluded. There is Mumbai-based Vikrant Bhise with his painting titled Labour Leader, which shows a labourer cleaning a statue of Ambedkar, covering its eyes in the process. This is the artist’s comment on the exploitative conditions that informal sector workers are put through, a situation that Ambedkar would have been greatly aggrieved by. The painting came out of observations of migrant labourers during the pandemic, where changes in labour laws have affected their legal protection. In a similar vein, artist Shailesh Patne evokes through locked grinding stones how governments failed the people during lockdowns. Daisy K’s photograph of the now-demolished Bharat Bhushan Printing Press in Dadar is also seen here. The press, once known as Buddha Bhushan Printing Press, was started by Ambedkar in 1927. Mayura Chari uses a silk sari to portray the patriarchal norms that govern women’s labour. Inspired by a poem by social reformer Savitribai Phule, Chari embroiders the line ‘Home is a woman’s sphere’ on the sari in 14 different languages.

The Secular Art Movement is a branch of the Secular Movement, founded in 2014 by academic Gautamiputra Kamble, who was associated with the Ambedkarite social foundation, Dalit Panthers. The group follows the secular thought that is the hallmark of Phule-Ambedkarite ideology and the Indian Constitution, drafted by Ambedkar. Secular Art Movement, which was founded in 2018, has previously had exhibitions at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on December 6, Ambedkar’s death anniversary. “Revolution and Counter-Revolution” is one of the rare instances when Ambedkarite art finds a presence in a gallery. Kamble says, “The exhibition is not only by Ambedkarite artists but by secular artists. It is there for intervening in all the systems that cause and endorse exploitation, mainly religious exploitations. We want to see a society that is based on the Indian Constitution.”

Hatred in the belly by Shraddha More. (Photo: PR handout)

In the exhibition, Ranjeeta Kumari uses the Preamble of the Indian Constitution but questions its implementation by painting images of marginalised people over it.

Kamble says, “In the midst of rising fascist power, we think art is a non-violent tool. We have a different definition of art. Art is not for art’s sake.”

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