sympathies in satire: deformities in the indian society through art

- Ishan Ghosh

Indian society is a very dynamic society. The rush and flow of the Indian social life gives rise to waves of diverse social problems. These social problems have been represented in a varieties of ways such as photography, poetry, drama, story etc. However the most powerful of these representations are the social commentaries arising from visual artworks. In India's art history, especially from the colonial period we find a variety of such artworks which represent social degradation through caricatures and cartoons. In such artworks character design, facial expressions, actions performed by characters and some social symbols are used to allegorize and criticize a particular aspect of the contemporary social structure. Such artworks might leave a deep impression on the minds of the viewers and persuade them to question such aspects of society. 

In the context of such artworks, the first mention must be made of the Kalighat Patachitras. The style and method originated somewhere between 1800 to 1830. Initially these paintings were composed of mythological tales, however from the 1870s the artists started to represent the changing society around them. This period saw the rise of the 'Babus' – The neo-urban group of high-class, flamboyant Bengali gentlemen who came into being as a result of close interactions with the British. Most of these Babus in order to imitate the new ruling class adopted a degenerate way of living which led to a variety of issues like exploitation, scandals, domestic violence and general decline in the position of women in the society. It also planted the seeds of irony in artworks which were to bloom in the hands of artists like Gaganendranath. This development of a 'lament' through satire was depicted in works such as ‘Rarh, Bharh, Mithey Katha, Tin laye Kolkata’–describing the colonial city as a trinity of prostitutes, clowns, and deceit– they were lamenting the breakdown of old rural patronage ties as a new urban aristocracy emerged in the city through comprador relationship to the English East India Company.

The full scope of such contrasts was developed further in the 1870s with the arrival of lithographs owing to the development of Print Culture. Therefore this period saw the rise of caricatures and cartoons. In the first volume of one of the earliest Bengali cartoon journals, Basantak (1874–75), the protagonist Basantak explains to his wife Basantika, why he had to marry twice in a month before marrying her. ( His first wife, named Chirahashini–‘the ever smiling one’, had died out of endless laughter; his second wife, Katubhashini‘the foul mouthed one’, left him when her ill words turned people against Basantak ) In Basantika, he had finally found the eternal flow of satire and wit. This opening conjugal dialogue is a rhetorical staging of the ethics of pictorial humour that a magazine like Basantak claimed to stand for, its distinctly vernacular idiom a tool in forging an active public political identity of laughter. 

Gaganendranath made a witty use of the medium of visual artwork to show his discontent towards certain aspects of the contemporary society - caricatures.  He drew from the stereotypes that had been sedimenting throughout 19th century- dapper aristocrats, Anglicized gentry, dubious priests. He published three albums of caricatural art, the first being titled ‘Birup Bajra’, the second 'Adbhut Lok', and the third and the last 'Naba Hullor'. In the opening cartoon of Birup Bajra he shows a ‘species’ of an aristocrat Babu standing on a fragile bone china- one half of his body draped in traditional Indian attire and the other half in crisp European attire.

In the elaborately titled piece, ‘By the sweat of my brow, I tried to be mistaken for a sahib but still, that man called me babu’ we see a member of the urban elite profusely sweating because of his failure to adopt the Western garb. He has removed his hat to wipe his head and his bag is left behind. This pitiable mental compulsion is best depicted in the Aparadhi Chhaya – the cover page of Adbhut Lok.  The cover drawing of Adbhut Lok titled, ‘Offending Shadow’ illustrates a similar predicament. Offended by his reflection, the character breaks the mirror. The unstable psychological terrain of this schizophrenic native prototype appears as his highly distorted shadow. 

Though this period in his life is often called ‘whimsical’ the artist has produced cartoons which still echo throughout today’s society.

The work titled ‘University Machine’, shows hoards of students entering an ‘automated’ grinding machine made of fat books and towering chimneys. They are shown entering the machine well dressed with a sense of purpose, but when they come out of the grinding press they are nothing but two dimensional puppets devoid of posture and thoughts. The ‘self’ of the students is erased, thus making them programmed puppets. 

Another work titled ‘Auto-Speechola’, a puppet-aristocrat sways wielding a copy of a speech in his hand, hung from a master machine. The machine is unique. It sports a steady pool of speeches ready for any occasion the puppet might require to address: Memorial speeches, Self-Government speeches, Congress speeches, Foolish speeches, Fiery speeches, even select Bengali speeches, to suit the necessary occasion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9o7kAQFepoegcyhNNZ8VzpghXavjpKU/view?usp=sharing

check out the documentary! (by Mrittika, Durga, Samriddhi, Ishan)