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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