Opinion Strokes of protest
Chittaprosads political caricatures detailed the ravages of the Bengal famine and peasant unrest
Creating an iconography for an oppressed class has often fallen upon artists,the political caricature being one of the most potent weapons of protest against class injustice or a particular regime. In France,Honoré Daumiers cartoons and sculptures commented on social and political life in the 19th century,while Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lionised the disenfranchised cabaret dancers and sex workers at the Moulin Rouge with his lithographic poster art. In America it was Norman Rockwells slightly saccharine photo-realist imagery of red-necked,working-class people that became the symptom of the wholesome American dream. Rockwell also straddled the world of fine art and illustration,taking many of his works into the realm of popular culture through newspaper and magazine publications.
In India it was Chittaprosad,the bespectacled,lanky youth from Chittagong who went out into the field with his sketch-book,pencils,pen and ink to capture the ravages of the politically induced Bengal famine,the peasant uprising in Bengal and the turbulent Indian mutiny against colonialism. Along with photographer Sunil Janah,Chittaprosad created a visual manifestation of the political ideas of the Communist Party of the early 1940s. Some argue that Chittaprosad idealised the peasant class,casting the men as dark-skinned,muscled Herculean characters,while his women were courageous,full-bodied and yet doe-eyed. In line with the Marxist-Brechtian mode of Mother Courage and Her Children,many of his political caricatures like The Road is Made with Blood,Liberty,Bangladesh War and the Stop Killing People series place the woman at the epicentre of the struggle.
It has,however,taken many years for his work to reap the accolades that were his due. In fact,an ongoing retrospective of the socialist painter and caricaturist,currently mounted at the Delhi Art Gallery in Hauz Khas,is a good place to get a detailed overview of his entire oeuvre. It has a rare oil paintings like the Royal Indian Naval Uprising,which captures the 1946 naval officers revolt against the British in Bombay.
Chittaprosads images take the viewer on an accelerated journey into the epicentre of the revolt that started with the Mutiny, in the words of British collector Kito De Boer,who has an extensive collection of his work. Boer points out,however,that Chittoprasads images are more powerful when he weeps for his subjects than when he draws with a clenched fist. So while his sketches are humane and detailed,accompanied by artist notes that serve as vignettes into the lives of those struck down by the famine,his political cartoons do appear slightly heavy-handed and propagandist. Despite this,however,Chittaprosad remains one of the most prolific and significant political caricaturists to have addressed Indias social and economic travails.
His contemporaries like Bangladeshi Zainul Abedin had also painted the Bengal famine,as did Somnath Hore and Gopal Ghosh. Abedins imagery was more poetic,unlike Chittoprasads direct,distilled rage. Hores drawings are powerful lines that abstract the form rather than Chittoprasads close,detailed renditions. Ghosh was seen as belonging on the borders of the Communist Party and his art moved more towards the lyrical Chinese landscape painting style rather than hard-hitting political works that Chittaprosad is known for.
The first political cartoon by an unknown Indian artist was printed in a paper called Sulabh Samachar in the 1870s. It captured a dead coolie with his wife weeping next to his body. Perhaps we have come a long way from such tragic imagery contemporary political cartoonists lace their politically incisive work with generous helpings of humour. The Indian Institute of Cartooning in Bangalore encourages young caricature artists to inject their own brand of humour into their caricatures,although many of the popular styles tend to show heavy influences from the West.
While satire and parody have occasionally surfaced in Indian art,caricature as a systematic weapon of social criticism began with the popular art of Kalighat,born in colonial Calcutta in the 19th century. Modern caricature as a form of journalism was imported from Britain by expatriates in India,and it grew and matured from there. It is interesting and ironic,therefore,that an artist like Chittoprasad could appropriate this very style to fire a salvo at the colonisers.
georgina.maddox@expressindia.com
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