Imagining (Hindu) nation through popular grids of geopi-ety/ ty

Imagining (Hindu) nation through popular grids of geopi-ety/ ty

“If you feel no shame for your country you cannot be a nationalist”- Benedict Anderson*

“Patriotism in modernity requires peculiarly novel technologies of persuasion. Maps of national territory are among the most intriguing and compelling of these”
- Sumathi Ramaswamy, Visualising India’s geo-body.

If the state’s disenchanted cartographic imperative is surveillance through an abstraction Balaji re-imagines the maps like the patriot who aimed to weave a structure of sentiment around the nation’s geo-body during the colonial times. He follows the same patriotic “modern” sense of cartography where the geo body is available as a framed whole, as a picture*. But it also follows that the enchanted patriotic sensibility invested in these maps as pictures by him brings to fore the contemporary crisis surrounding the idea of nation. My attempt in this piece is to read the works of Balaji as reflecting the fragile nature of “geo bodies” which is ephemeral and shows the tensions involved in maintaining its materiality. By comparing with the popular cartographic anxiety of the colonial times I would try to see how his works also deals with such an anxiety to interpret the nation’s map/ nationalism in the contemporary times.
Historically the “cartographic anxiety” both of the state and the patriot had always been in a constant tension in its production of meanings. Balaji adds “the sense of pity” to what Yi- Fu Tuan has charecterised as “geo piety”. He also uses texts as an important device to speak about nation. It is here that Balaji’s earlier engagement with the popular sign boards and vehicle paintings come to the fore. As an artist who had been practicing these poplar representations, his usage of the text is closer to the sign boards and popular signs than the high art practices lately. If one is familiar with the popular sign boards particularly in the south one could grasp the context of these texts. The texts in those popular signs have a particular style of functioning both as texts and visuals. The texts are rendered in such a way that the texts itself speak or represent the idea/ name they stand for. So if we take these texts as “textual-bodies” in his works, i.e. texts themselves standing for the idea of nation it would be apt to charactersie his usage. The texts in his paintings are themselves the titles of the paintings. The texts are often related directly to the visuals but they often bring in contradiction/oppositions within the paintings. The texts like “mera Bharath mahan”, “India is my country” are the popular utopic texts in circulation through the entire stretch of the country in almost all the vehicles and popular signs. These patriotic texts are at once contradicted with its double and adversaries which bring the dystopic reality of the nation today.
He uses specific visual devices which might be called post modern in the formal level but they inherently have the popular signage. The use of grids, frames, photography, text etc… and attempts at a subversion but might be populist in its core. His usage of soot serves both as a formal aesthetic device and a definitive signifier. It is used sometimes to close thereby to open up the hidden histories and realities behind. Another interesting aspect is that though his work resembles some of the patriotic maps of the colonial period his maps are without the feminine “bharath matha” but textually refer to her always. Grids and frames are the devices which structure his paintings and hold them in an order. His usage of grids might serve more the aesthetic viewing than the symbolic one since he draws those grids over the image and not as a ground/base/tool to build up his image. His use of frames in most of the paintings is another aspect which is closer to the popular signs where the border acts a significant element in the overall composition and function of the boards. In the painting “India is my country” the frames are people themselves holding the banner “but I don’t own an inch of land in India”. Arranged like a border they occupy the position of the internal others of the central text of nation which is written in smoke emitting from the flying planes. The rituals of national day parades where the acrobatic planes perform their skills in writing such texts are downplayed by the popular banner of protest of the people. Interestingly the ephemeral smoke of patriotic text is bound to vanish in thin air and the relatively permanent banner is to stay until the people are made to witness at the corners. The paintings portraying the nationalist leaders resemble the patriotic images in circulation during the colonial times. But the significant difference is that the colonial portraits of these leaders were used for urging the nation/ people to die for the motherland. The leaders in his paintings though show a similar nerve of sacrifice and remind the nation also lament their struggle. The painting where the portraits of the national leaders are shown as match sticks flickering out is about the present where these leaders and their struggle are forgotten. It resembles the text book curriculum where the texts of the life struggles are drilled in the minds of the pupils. What is also interesting is the range of national leaders who have been selected. You have portraits of Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Rani Laxmi bhai, Sarojini Naidu, Sarvarkar, Tilak, Azad, Patel, Bhagat singh …etc. The ideologically antagonistic positions taken by these leaders are nullified in his paintings like Ambedkar sharing the same plane with Savarkar or Bhagat Singh sharing with Gandhi etc... As the text book curriculum nullify the caste, class difference in the national struggle for independence so does the uniform plane of Balajis paintings flatten the different caste/ class positions of these leaders. Such ideologically antagonistic positions are taken for granted as national symbols for veneration in the public life. In the painting ‘I hate India. I love bharath’ once again the yearning for the Hindu nation comes to the surface. Again the letters ‘I hate.. .’ are written through the emitting smoke whereas ‘I love bharath’ is written in a manner that they are to stay permanently. Does it remind one of the ever recurring Hindu nationalism in India? Does “bharath” textually refer to the visual body of “bharath mata” in the colonial times? The painting ‘deep devotion makes them disappear’ is another example of such ideas in circulation. The images of gods and nationalist leaders are covered in the smoke soot probably out of deep devotion in the Hindu manners. Politically correct images of Dalit leaders like Ambedkar are left out of this Hindu veneration. The regular ‘arathi’ of camphor have blackened or made them disappear. The national leaders are seen in par with the bazaar gods whom adore the Hindu middle class homes.
In the painting ‘delete’, the text of national anthem dominates the whole picture. Beneath it are further layers of a sketch of a teacher teaching students which is overlapping a map probably of colonial times? The word “Sind” is covered with smoke or probably deleted by smoke. His attempt to delete the word ‘Sind’ now Pakistan from the national text and to give the text referring to the actual national boundary as it exists today can be seen as a utopic attempt to make a cartographic abstraction coincide with the actual reality existing out there. Can it be also read as the national forgetting of the people (both Muslims/ Hindus of now Pakistan) in the joint struggle for freedom from British?
The map of India in his paintings is always singular. The “enchanted globe of patriotism which frequently features India, as if it is the only entity that exists on the surface of the earth is a powerful visual enactment of the patriotic claim of the singularity of the nation”. . The India that of the patriotic globes (colonial) stretched its extent and reach and were left to the patriotic imagination. Unlike that his maps and text of national anthem makes us rethink that patriotic stretch into a reduced boundary with Pakistan separated. Also the soot which develops in the map is the ephemeral map which would bend and vanish as the internal conflicts from all the stretches are increasing from north to south from east to west. All brings to fore the fragility of the Indian state to hold together the differences which were portrayed as blended in a unity out of diversity. If one could see a formal connection with the painting “enemy at the doors but anyways they meet at the end” and the painting where the map of India is formed by the soot emerging from the neighboring houses brings in some interesting understandings. Though both talks about the neighbors, the second show the neighbor’s house also emitting the smoke to form an Indian nation and not any other neighboring country. Who can be our good neighbour? The patriotism which is exhibited by his works is in contrast to the patriotism which was whipped up during the colonial times. During the colonial times the maps or bodyscapes were always stimulating a positive light to fight, but what we find in his paintings is the negative and the failure of the democratic project in India. By remembering these leaders sacrifice an attempt is made to think of the glorious past of struggle for freedom under the stewardship of these leaders. Again the popular notion that the rule of these leaders would change the problems of today is yearned upon. Also is the loin claded worker/ farmer is the face of India today who has been neglected. As the work suggests “mera bharath mahan” the nation is great ‘but I am not’ and the work India is my country but I don’t have an inch of land. It brings in the problem of the displaced people, farmers, tribal and the labouring working classes who are within the painting but yet are the borders of the great country.

His entry into the aesthetic is via the popular there by the intellectual and the critical gathers its subjectivity from these popular visible ideologies in circulation which have created/ addressed an audience which is receptive to these slogans of nationalism and Indianess. What Balaij does is not to restructure the ways the country is imagined but to re-imagine pitiably the (Hindu) nation through the popular texts of geo piety which are still in circulation at large.

*Interview: Lorenz Khazaleh, translated by Matthew Whiting (http://www.culcom.uio.no/aktivitet/anderson-kapittel-eng.html)

Picturing possibilities

Of the numerous words which are related to the fine arts, visual arts in particular, it’s the word “picture” which is most interesting for the myriad and contradictory meanings it stands for. This is owing to the contexts within the various discourses it’s entwined with which defines (defies) the varied meanings of the word. The oxford dictionary offers a set of meanings for the word “picture” like a painting, drawing or a photograph, an image on a television screen, a cinema film. It’s also an impression formed from a description of something, and it also means to form a mental image of. What might interest us in Devaraj’s paintings are these three meanings of painting, a photograph and to form a mental image of. The reason for such an attempt is Devaraj’s indebtedness to (popular) photography and his passion for painting. What strikes immediately in his paintings is the amount of skill (labour) that he has put in making it. Often his paintings are based on photographs of people, objects and places which he himself pictures. Though high modernism had categorically rejected the realism or illusionism in painting, we know through various sources how the masters of western art themselves were indebted to photographs of models for doing their paintings and sculptures. But the argument about the pictures/paintings of Devaraj is not the same. We pass through another discourse of the ‘popular’ which in his case is very much local.
Devaraj comes from Mandya which is in between the all well stimulated metropolis of Bangalore and the cultural picturesque Mysore. He completed his graduation from CAVA, Mysore and is now working as a computer graphic designer in Bangalore. Even as a student he had been continuing the popular paintings like portraits, marriage set works/ backgrounds, photography, and public sculptures etc in Mandya and other places. This semi urban/rural mandya known as the sugar bowl of Karnataka has been recently in news for the tragic suicides of the very farmers. The visuality in and around Mandya is also very significant while talking about the works of Devaraj. In Mandya the tradition of figurative popular paintings are still continued in Bullock carts, popular film personalities in the cut outs, sign boards, advertisements and other public works. This would be the ideal ground for locating Devaraj’s works in contemporary context.
The idea of “popular commercial paintings” or colloquially called “order works” has been always seen as “supplement” or as the “other” of the fine art practice. The academic modernisms particularly in India have been instrumental in delocalising the culture and efficient in creating quasi national and international styles in painting/ works of art. Though there have been attempts for negotiating the local through the indigenous styles, the short coming was always the hypothetical attachment with the roots of tradition. Devaraj works opens up a possibility to read the local in its contemporary context without essentialising/ valorising the tradition. Devaraj tries to make a picture/painting according to the norms of art school training. But the reference for such a painting/picture is not necessarily what the discourse is ingrained with. The high art values are easily subverted by the mental images (picture) of his referents which can be read as the popular pictures. The popular signs and other forms have the efficiency to decontextualise any image and put it in own context there by ripping off the aura attached with the image/picture. In one of his works he uses the plaster cast models which were considered as the classical types of any academic studies are dethroned in his paintings. The high pedestals which they occupy within the discourse of the western art are replaced by the kitschy images. Interestingly they occupy the position below the popular lingerie sporting female busts. The female busts are references from magazines and dailies which were considered outside the realm of high arts. The replacement still but holds the idea of the male stereotypical representations. This but can be read as the popular reproduction of the idea of gender in his pictures. In the very painting though there is another cast over a pedestal we see that the pedestal itself is getting disengaged or dismantled. The peculiar technique of the popular painters is to merge the contradictory values in a single picture. This is also what we find evident in the pictures of Devaraj. He blends the ground where the photographic and the realistic (representation) occupy the same space. Thus he blends the mental and the mechanical to create a contest for the same space. His use of graphing technique to transfer the images from the photos of his choice is blended with the mental picture of what his painting is to be. His other paintings using the chess pawns with the photo realistic representation of the same in the real life also bring the analogical play of signs within the same picture. The painting with the lady praying over the chess board with the image of the crucifix is yet another example of the skilled labour. The background reminds of the aspect of “getup” as the popular artists (sign board, studio artist) give effects to their paintings. This brings us to the still debated criteria of defining the popular and the high. Though high art discourses have consumed the popular in varied ways like “pop art” and other languages. The popular realm still suffers owing to its stain of un-intellectuality and the investment on excessive manual skill/labour. Probably this makes his painting differ the meanings of picture making. His pictures can be then summed up as the curious contest/play of the mental and physical labour which is the deciding factor of what value the painting is to generate in the respective discourses it is entering into. It is this value then which decides/differs the meaning of the word “picture”.

V.Divakar