titvala - 6 drawings of chittaprosad by chittaprosad.pdf

7/28/2019 TITVALA - 6 DRAWINGS OF CHITTAPROSAD by Chittaprosad.pdf

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ONE DAY | ONE EVENT

IN THE LIFE OF A de-classed RADICAL

OR

TITVALA: 6 DRAWINGS OF CHITTAPROSAD

Akansha RastogiCurator and Independent Researcher, [email protected]

With Sanjoys presentation the stage is already set for me, where I can begin the

reimagining of the Radical. In my first option for the title I use de-classed Radical

for Chittaprosad for two reasons. Firstly, to indicate what all of us know already know

that Chittaprosad gave up his second name Bhattacharya gesturally suggesting the

disowning of the class and caste he was born into, and becoming an individual. And

thus, also performing within the framework of a political ideology. The Party giving

him a mode, sanctions and a platform to perform in a definitive way, for example his

act of reportaging invested in the construction of the heroic image ofthe insurgent.

The second reason is I borrow the term from an article published in Masses of India,

Vol. 2 No.3 in 1926, that mentions, the declassed intellectuals are beginning to

recognize the importance of establishing relations with the massesthe talents of the

revolutionary bard, Nazrul Islam should be devoted to the voice of suffering and

aspirations of the downtrodden dumb millions. Let him sing for them to inspire

them with the courage to revolt against exploitation and with the hope for a new era of

freedom and prosperity.

This quote brings us to think about the relationship between the poet/ artist-activist

and the agricultural labourers and industrial workers. The artist/ poets role is to

inspire, giving a voice to the marginalised, as they are incapable of rising by

themselves. They need to be awakened, and the big pre-supposition dumb millions

articulates the same prejudice that Partha Chatterjee refers to while positioning of the

subaltern.

This brief presentation is part of my bigger research-project that is the visual

representation of peasants and workers movements in the 1940s works of

Chittaprosad, Qamrul Hassan and Somnath Hore. Today, I want to concentrate on oneday in the life of Chittaprosad, the works or the visual records made by him in the

span of a single day in a single location. Which is as much to see what all he is

annotating to the case he is making So, I present six drawings that he had

painted on 7 January 1945 at Titvala, a small town in Thane district, Maharashtra.

These seven drawings are visual records of the momentous date, 7 Jan 1945, when the

Communist Party of India had organized its first session of the Maharashtra

Provincial Kisan Sabha at Titvala. Kisan Sabhas also resonates the context and the

title of this conference AWAZ DO.

Maharashtra Provincial Kisan Sabha at Titvala was attended by the local Warlis, andproved to be a benchmark, developing into Warli peasants revolt in 1946. Narayan


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Kulkarnee in his essay The Warli Revolt writes, In January 1945 the Communist

Party under the leadership of Mrs. Godavari Parulekar and her husband Comrade

Shamrao Parulekar set up a Maharashtra Prantik Kisan Sabha which held its first

conference at Titwala, very near Kalyan to which they managed to get, with great

difficulty the attendance of about 250 warlis to begin with. Thereafter a host of

Communist workers descended into this part of Thana district, began to prepare theWarlis to fight against the injustice, held many meetings and taught them the

principles of Communism. (p.362)

This is the biggest drawing of Chittaprosad (amongst whatever I have seen of his

works, and I have seen a lot). Showing the panoramic view of the conference with

Warlis assembled inside and outside the shade, their carts parked under the trees, flags

of CPI hoisted, loud-speakers placed, and the rough, dry landscape in the backdrop.

Now, if we begin with a simple reversal of the process of what Chittaprosad saw and

what he visually annotated to actually reading from what he annotated and reaching to

what he saw.

It is strikingly different from the insurgent raw energy, the awakened clamour of most

of the drawings of CPI assemblies that Chitta has painted. It is the silence of the

gathered and yet scattered / dissipated masses (individuals), seated in all attention

with their backs towards the viewer that engulfs the whole work. This silence also

suggests Chittaprosads position, sitting far away from the actual event. He captures

something in process, in occurrence, a moment of highly charged meditation with no

active judgement of its success or failure of this rural mobilisation and the signs of

solidarity in terms of political subjectivity of the gathering being suggested within the

painting, nor the emergence of a collective peasant consciousness.

This panoramic view is followed by the zooming in, and recording of the details. This

Untitled work depicts a group of women and children, attending the conference,

standing under the tree facing towards the right, and listening attentively.

Compositionally, the group makes a triangle, a unified geometric formation

juxtaposed with the solid form of the tree-trunk. Again, the landscape serves as a

strategy of registering and essaying the figures in the locale, as if to convey it is not

just anyone, not a general man/woman, but people from a specific location,

community and region.

From exteriors he goes to an interior in this work. An educated gentleman in shirt is

explaining the exhibition and introducing the communist leaders to the MarathaAboriginal Untouchables (I quote from the inscription on the drawing). Stalins

image is easily recognisable. Here we are introduced to the ancillary exhibitions part

of CPI conferences, for which Chittaprosad himself has also made drawings and

posters. I quote Chitta from an interview in a documentary film on him Confession,

made by Czechoslovakian director Pavel Hobl in 1972, talking about the beginnings

of his political initiation and its relationship with his artistic practice.

At the beginning of the 2nd World war I took refuge in a village near the Burmese

border. There I happened to meet with several organisers of underground peasant

movement. From them I learned for the first time about fascism and civil war. The

assault on Burma brought the war closer to the borders of Bengal and the members of

the organisation asked me to produce posters against the Japanese fascists. Posterswere attached to the bamboo poles and mats on the cut field behind the village. And it


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was actually my first exhibition. His own experience of assimilation into the Party

and awakening brings us to dwell upon the political initiation of the masses in the

Kisan Sabha, and the role of such exhibitions in achieving that. This drawing actually

depicts the double bind of artworks in an artwork, serving the same purpose of

sharing, awareness and documentation.

Most of the works form this series of drawings have a border enclosing the picture-

space, presenting a frame as he makes portraits of specific individuals as well as

drawings mapping the entire scape. During the same day, 7 January 1945,

Chittaprosad goes on to making portraits of peasants, local leaders embedded within

the landscape. This is a portrait of Budhaje Khordke, father of Thakar Bhai with his

face diagonally placed within the bordered picture-space, cutting through the

landscape behind him. The wrinkles on his face are fine lines, juxtaposed with the

framing of thicker ones that are used for the turban and the neck, which also resonate

the rough graphic landscape behind him. To highlight this point further I bring this

work which he had made 4 days ago while touring other nearby villages. These two

works offer a productive relationship between the body and the landscape, i.e. ofreading the local-native inscribed or situated inside the landscape, and also the body

resonating the landscape.

Thus, the body of the protagonist, or the even of the collective masses (the number)

emerges as the site of negotiation. Inscribing the portrait or a group of figures in the

geographical landscape, or the issue of the land itself is an important pictorial aspect

in the Titvala series of drawings. In this context of such a reading and juxtaposition of

the body of the peasant as a site and the farmlands as geographical site, the non-

cultivating zamindars and sahukars become the antibodies. It is different from

situating the figures in an interior of a house or a village, in terms of the claim that is

being built through the pictorial coding. However, also in the same day Chittaprosad

makes this portrait of Thakar Bhai, son of Bhudajee Khordke, which is different from

what we have seen today. Patil, the Headman of Maratha Peasants is painted all alone,

without any backdrop. While drawing the Headman Chittaprosad returns to his

regular angular perspective from the ground that makes the protagonist figure gigantic

and assertive in his political choice as the transformed, awakened subject.

In each of these drawings individuals are made more important than the landscape,

and in some they are minusculed by it. Also, in all these drawings the need to

resistance, the enemy is out.

a historical project | documentation

titvala - 6 drawings of chittaprosad by chittaprosad.pdf

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