Gandhi in Raza
Gandhi in Raza The iconic modern Indian painter Sayed Haider Raza returned from France to India, his homeland, to spend the last five-and-half years of his life and artistic career. Throughout his life, Raza continued to feel deeply interested in the Gandhian ideals, inspired by the concepts of truth and peace. The image of the Mahatma remained etched in his mind since when he was 8 years old and he first saw Gandhiji. Towards the end of his life, in 2013, Raza did a set of paintings by way of his tribute to the Mahatma and this book Gandhi in Raza is an attempt to put together these artistic works in perspective and context. Thinker Gopalkrishna Gandhi, also Gandhiji’s grandson, and Raza’s close poet-critic friend Ashok Vajpeyi have contributed to the volume with an essay each. This book also carries an essay written by the master artist Nandalal Bose to provide a historical perspective and to recall the deep interest the Mahatma had in arts. Raza almost musically, certainly rhythmically, creates a Gandhi saptak through this set of works exploring the conceptual universe which the Mahatma created: Characteristically Raza inscribes on one of his works the last words the Mahatma uttered before he dropped dead to the bullets of his assassin and on the other a favourite hymn of the Mahatma, a verse by the medieval poet Narsi Mehta. Raza, following the footsteps of the Mahatma, had been coming back to the theme of ‘peace’ in many of his works over the years. So here is the great master artist, Sayed Haider Raza, exploring some key concepts of the Mahatma in his own idiom, a rare series relating both to the subject—Mahatma, and the creator—Raza.
with 7 paintings and 11 photographs.
Gandhi in Raza
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Gandhi in Raza Nandal al B o se
•
Gopalk ris hna G andhi
Asho k Vajpeyi
•
SH R aza
First published in 2017 by
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Akar Prakar
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Text © Authors
Mapin Publishing
Photographs © Raza Foundation, Sanjiv Choube, Akar Prakar
in conjunction with a show titled “Gandhi in Raza”
ISBN: 978-93-85360-32-9 (Mapin)
at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on the occasion of the 95th birth
ISBN: 978-1-935677-90-1 (Grantha)
anniversary of S H Raza. The show will be on display at Akar Prakar Art
LCCN: 2017934151
Advisory from 1st – 31st March, 2017. Copyediting: Ashok Vajpeyi Simultaneously published in the United States of America in 2017 by
Proofreading: Ankona Das
Grantha Corporation
Editorial support: Akar Prakar and Raza Foundation
E: mapin@mapinpub.com
Archival research: Raza Foundation Book design: Bena Sareen
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Front Cover: S H Raza, ‘Shanti’, 2013 Frontispiece: S H Raza, ‘Satyamev Jayte’, 2012
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Back Cover: S H Raza, ‘Satya’, 2012
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Contents
The S eve n Pai nt i ng s : A prev iew
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L i fe, Art and G and hi an L igh t | A sh ok Vajpeyi
29
The Mo ral Ae st he te i n G a n dh i | G opalkr ish n a G an dh i B ap uj i | N and al al B o s e
65
47
8
...mais entends ce qui soufflĂŠ, le message ininterrompu Qui se forge de silence. ...But listen to the voice of the wind, and the ceaseless message That forms itself out of silence. ~Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies, The First Elegy)
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One late afternoon in 2013, barely two years after his residence in India, I found him doing a canvas in very subdued hues. I was intrigued since his usual geometrical shapes were not there...The painting in question was the first one which had the last words of the Mahatma as he fell down dead to 12
the bullets of his assassin saying “Hey Ram”. It is appropriately somber, subtly refuses to be an end-of-it-all work: it has a significant use of white—indicating both purity and hope but also engulfing the canvas with the mist or cloud of sadness. The solid column seems to suggest a certain defiance and stubbornness: the body killed but the spirit surviving. —Ashok Vajpeyi
‘hey
ram’
a c r y l i c o n c a n va s
23.5
x
2 3 . 5 ” 2 01 3
...Raza’s work is totally abstract; its many layers perhaps indicating that truth can be reached or felt only after passing and struggling through many 14
layers of effort and darkness visualized in thick layers coming across even when one knows that it is near. —Ashok Vajpeyi
‘ s at ya ’
a c r y l i c o n c a n va s
59
x
47. 2 5 ” 2 013
In ‘Shanti’ Raza recapitulates his old theme of peace—the heart of being as 16
he perceives it. He strongly believed that energy, centralized as it was for him in bindu, flows from and towards peace. —Ashok Vajpeyi
‘shanti’
a c r y l i c o n c a n va s
59
x
47. 2 5 ” 2 013
...inspired by the famous Narsi Mehta verse, a favourite of the Mahatma, defining the true men of God as those who understood the pain of others. 18
...It is remarkable that there is no didactic intention but only an invocation, also subtly communicating the difficulty of feeling the pain of the other, ‘Peed Parai’. —Ashok Vajpeyi
‘peed
pa r a i ’
a c r y l i c o n c a n va s
59
x
59 ” 2 013
...Raza returns to his spiritual geometry by creating a vibrant image to embody a bold idea taken from a favourite bhajan of the Mahatma. Instead of eulogizing Ram, as the verse does, Raza picks up for visual 20
manifestation the key concept of the bhajan: Ishwar Allah Tero Nam, Sabako Sanmati De Bhagawan. —Ashok Vajpeyi
‘ s a n m at i ’
a c r y l i c o n c a n va s
59
x
59 ” 2 013
Swadharma was a favourite concept of Raza which he picked from Vinoba Bhave. He felt that everyone should sooner or later discover 22
his/her swadharma and act accordingly. His own dharma, he was clear, was to paint and he stuck to it throughout his life. —Ashok Vajpeyi
‘ s wa d h a r m ’
a c r y l i c o n c a n va s
59
x
59 ” 2 01 3
As a painter Raza felt fascinated by words and always treated them with awe and regard. The words of the 24
Mahatma were for him almost holy scripture and he put them on the canvas on a painted background but in full primacy. —Ashok Vajpeyi
‘thoughts
of gandhi ji’
a c r y l i c o n c a n va s
59
x
47. 2 5 ” 2 013
A group of seven paintings is a kind of parikrama 26
(circumambulation) by a painter around a great soul, a Mahatma who always inspired him; a noble venture around an ennobling theme.
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Life, Art and Gandhian Light | ashok vajpeyi The iconic Indian modern painter Sayed Haider Raza saw Mahatma Gandhi in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh when he was barely 8 years old. The Mahatma had come there to address a public meeting during the freedom struggle of India. Raza’s father was a forest official of the British Government. The young Raza accompanied by a forest official to the meeting was accosted by the wife of a British official of the Forest Department who had rightly guessed that the boy was going to the meeting of the Mahatma. Raza later could not recall what he heard in the public speech of the Mahatma but the image of the Mahatma with his laathi and half-naked faquir body remained deeply etched in his mind.
India attained freedom on 15th August, 1947 but was also, most unfortunately, partitioned. Huge migrations took place as also did communal tensions and riots. Raza’s brothers, a sister and his first wife, all living in India had their houses attacked and vandalized. They all decided to move to Pakistan. Raza, however, refused to shift to Pakistan staying as he said, in his own country, in his “Watan”. Once when I probed deeper into the reason why he did not leave India with his family members, Raza confessed reluctantly that he thought he would be betraying the Mahatma if he left the nation! The image of the Mahatma remained stuck in Raza’s mind even after about 17 years when he first saw him. It reminds me of what the eminent historian Irfan Habib said in a lecture entitled ‘Gandhi’s Finest Hour’ in 2015: “It appeared as if, between danger and peace, only one man was standing and obviously it was Gandhiji. And, therefore, for us and specially for Muslims (and I am one of them) Gandhiji was the person who was responsible for us remaining in India and alive.”
Raza always believed that partition of India was a great mistake and the assassination of the Mahatma by a Hindu zealot, a great tragedy. In an interview when Raza was turning 80 years of age, I asked him of his greatest disappointments, to which he said:
My greatest disappointments, akin to un-happiness, were in 1948 when Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. It was an act of an individual who had convictions of his own. It came at a time when we 30
were full of youth and energy. We wanted to take our destinies in hand and in the period of immense enthusiasm and joy, this tragic event took place. I don’t know of any of other distress, more important, in my life. We had a sense of void and despair, a sense of sheer outrage. It was, I remember, the same years when I lost my parents. As children we were not politically conscious. And for different reasons coming from the authority of my father we were really away from any social work or political action. But the national pride was there, the desire to be independent was there. Mahatma Gandhi had mobilized the country as one magnificent source of power. The British with all their might had to leave India and it was independent. And then the father of the nation was killed. No other incident had this acute pain and distress in my life.
He used to visit Sewagram or Sabarmati or Rajghat whenever he came to India on his frequent sojourns to his native country from France, where he spent nearly six decades of his life. For him visiting a Gandhi place was like visiting a temple or a mosque or any holy place. Even when he was well above 85 years of age, some of us have watched him kneel down and touch the earth with his forehead in salutation to the Mahatma. He, of course, had read the Mahatma’s auto-biography My Experiments with Truth
Nandalal Bose (1882–1966) was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose was known for his ‘Indian style’ of painting. Gopalkrishna Gandhi (born 1946) is a former senior diplomat who has also served as Governor of West Bengal (2004–2009) and Secretary to the President of India K R Narayanan (1997–2002). Ashok Vajpeyi (born 1941) is a Hindi poet, critic, editor, culture-activist and a close friend and aide of S H Raza. Sayed Haider Raza (1922–2016) was a modern Indian painter who lived and worked in France since 1950, while maintaining strong ties with India.
other titles of interest
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART
Ganesh Haloi The Feeling Eye
Nandalal Bose, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Ashok Vajpeyi and SH Raza 80 pages, 11 colour photographs 7 colour illustrations 9.80 x 11.89” (249 x 276 mm), pb ISBN: 978-93-85360-32-9 ₹1500 | $37.50 | £23 2017 • World rights
Manish Pushkale The Painter of Light
Jacques Dupin, Ashok Vajpeyi, Jerome Neutres, SH Raza Reverie with Raza On the Occasion of Nirantar: The Aesthetic Continuum
Uma Nair
Mapin Publishing | Akar Prakar www.mapinpub.com | www.akarprakar.com
Printed in India
Gandhi in Raza
Mukund Lath, Jesal Thacker and Natasha Ginwala