Independence From The British Art
Part 2 of the investigation of Pakistani Identity through Art
THE NEW FLAME
At the turn of the twentieth century in India, some important developments had occurred. The British imperial power was weakening. Under the banner of Congress, Indian nationalism was on the rise. Muslims in India were feeling left behind. Only a few native loyalists of Raj remained. And three years before in 1897, a boy was born in Lahore named, Abdur Rahman Chughtai.
As the independence from British Raj gained momentum, a quest to create a distinct ‘native’ identity also picked up pace. This aesthetic movement was led by the Tagore family and would be known as the ‘Bengal School of Art’.
In the British eyes, western aesthetic was still the KING. This meant, any other aesthetic was inferior, just as they considered people of Indian race inferior. So if artists wanted to create great art, they would have to mimic ‘colonial aesthetic’. Ideals of western aesthetic of nineteen century can be summed up by; Materialism of the west & Colonial urban values. The medium of their choosing was oil on canvas.
A prime example of this was, Ravi Varma, an Indian painter, who was heralded by the Britishers as a great artist. He was a local artist who was great at mimicking western aesthetic.
This was a lose-lose situation for artists as described by Art Historian Partha Mitter; ‘if the product is too close to its original source, it reflects slavish mentality; if on the other hand, the imitation is imperfect, it represents a failure’.
The Bengal School challenged this notion vehemently. They rebelled against ‘western’ values to create their distinct identity, critiqued materialism, idealized rural spaces & praised primitive way of life.
Amartya Sen points out that; ‘the Bengal school of thought decided to bring out spiritual qualities distinct to India, as opposed to materialism of the west’. Its prime example is BHARAT MATA by Abanindranath Tagore, nephew of the famed poet, Rabindranath.
The painting shows a saffron-clad woman (depicted as a Hindu deity), holding a book, sheaves of paddy, a piece of white cloth and a rosary in her four hands. A nationalistic call for Independence with religious overtones.
This painting reflects the general political mood of the time. The struggle of independence felt like a match between Britishers & Indians. And Muslims were the 12th man.
Rejecting the western aesthetic also meant rejecting their materials. Which in for painters meant, replacing oil on canvas was with watercolors. Thus Bengal School based in Calcutta became the center of art movement in British Raj.
These were the realities in which AR Chughtai was born into. He was based in Lahore. The city’s arts & architecture shows influence of Mughal rule. But the Mughals were no more, meaning no state patronage of arts. In this period, artists sold their painting on the sidewalks & public festivals. Painters found work illustrating for newspapers & book covers for Hindu mythology, Punjabi folk tales & poetry. A few art patrons that remain seek painting of Hindu deities.
We started our story from this painting of Wazir Khan Mosque. Ironically, inside the chambers of this Mughal era architecture was a workshop of a ‘naqqash’ (painter) named Baba Miran Baksh. Here, A R Chughtai first learned about his craft. At the age of 15, he was learning at Mayo School of Art (now NCA, Lahore) and in three years time, he was teaching at the same school. Around the same time he send his painting to Calcutta and got featured in several magazines. He visited Calcutta during 1919, aged 22, his status as an emerging star was firmly established.
Upon his return to Lahore, Chughtai was determined to create a separate style from the masters in Bengal. This created for an awkward relationship with VP of Mayo School, Mr. S N Gupta, a disciple of Bengal School.
In the next five years, Chughtai dominates the art scene of Lahore, winning several prizes, featuring in many exhibitions. In 1924, Chughtai participated in British Empire Exhibition (earlier & sinister version of ‘Biennale-s’), under the Punjab pavilion to create a rival art movement to Bengal. He encouraged other artists from Punjab to do the same. Interestingly, S N Gupta participated under the Bengal pavilion. The relationship between Gupta & Chughtai deteriorated, which meant the latter couldn’t continue teaching at Mayo School. Chughtai left teaching. But being a hit at the Empire Exhibition, Chughtai gained a few supporters of his art, and government job didn’t seem necessary anymore. But up till now, Chughtai was just another emerging painter, albeit a Muslim one. He was making similar paintings to the Bengali masters, invoking Hindu themes.
To really be known as unique, he had to do something Big. But Chughtai only had questions & no answers so far. As Chughtai was facing internal turmoil, the external world around him was also going through turbulent events.
THE FLUTTERING FLAME
The political environment was rapidly changing. The formation of Muslim League was a direct result of Muslim feeling threatened as a minority group in India. The First World War ended, in which 1.3 million Indians also took part in. Gandhi returned to India and entered the political arena. He started non-cooperative movement & was jailed. Jinnah left politics (he would return triumphantly). Communal tension between Hindus & Muslims were on the rise. RSS, a militant Hindu party came into existence. Muhammad Iqbal emerged as a strong Muslim voice; his poetry invoked Islamic symbolism, imagery and subjects. As the calendar turned to 1928, Abdur Rahman Chughtai entered thirties.
If you are looking to do something BIG. What will be your subject? what are the things you take inspiration from? What will be your medium?. These were the questions facing AR Chughtai.
Chughtai faced many problems. Firstly, he had no role models in his field. There was no Muslim painter that Chughtai could look up to. So what Chughtai did, (and not for the last time), he dug into past. He found inspiration from Kamaleddin Behzad, a 16th century Persian painter.
Behzad was a master at his craft, something Chughtai appreciated and was close to achieving.
Second was the question of separate style from the ‘West’ & Bengal. Chughtai had to find a link that could connect his art with foregone era of Muslim rule in India. At the same time, he also wanted to give a new direction to art aesthetic.
Even though Chughtai’s push to create a rival art to Bengal didn’t take off, it did have a positive outcome. Because Chughtai also wrote on art, he managed to engage with the booming Urdu literary scene of Lahore. Chughtai had made a cover for Iqbal’s 1922 poem Khizr-i rah. Apart from Iqbal, some of the greatest Urdu writers were present in Lahore, like; Sufi Tabassum, Patras Bukhari , Ghulam Abbas & Muhammad Din Tasir. It was the later, whose friendship with Chughtai would propel him to a new venture. Chughtai writes:
“Tasir and myself became friends at a time when we sought each other and needed each other. During those days, the fame of modern Indian [Bengal School] painting was at its peak and was pulling every cultivated person [ahl-i zauq] towards it”.
This engagement with Urdu literary circle was important in his next venture; ‘Murraqa-i-Chughtai Devaan-i-Ghalib’
THE EXTINGUISHED FLAME
As the flame of British Raj was dimming, another flame of a distinct South Asian identity, separate from the Hindu, was being lit up. The chief architect (in painting) of this movement was AR Chughtai. Through his literary friends circle, Chughtai came to a decision.
He decided to illustrate Ghalib’s poetry, thus connecting with the past Muslim rule in the subcontinent. As Ghalib was associated with Mughal court and so was ‘Ghazal’ genre. Another connection to the past was the decision to illustrate written text. A practice perfected by the Royal Workshops of Mughal & Safavid empires. These royal workshops produced manuscripts which included painting, but also involved other crafts like; paper-making, line drawing, margin making, calligraphy, book-binding & bordering. Another connection was through his conscious choice of the title; ‘Murraqqa’, a word associated with codex albums of Mughal & Safavi Persia. Ghalib’s Urdu poetry made the project relevant to present as well. Chughtai decision was a masterstroke, connecting on so many levels of past & present.
The plan was perfect,and now came the matter of execution. Initially, Chughtai’s friend Tasir, selected a few of Chughtai’s existing painting and tried to match it with Ghalib’s words. But this suggestion was discarded. Original paintings had to be made. To be true to the tradition of manuscripts required that text should be hand-written. This meant a calligrapher was to be hired and suitable paper should be selected. Local supply of paper was not up to the standard that Chughtai envisioned. So they had to order paper stock from Europe. The scope of the project soon begin to seem ominous. So Chughtai involved his two brothers & other members of his extended family. Now came the issue of payment, Chughtai didn’t have access to a treasure chest, so they had to involve a bank and pay it in installments. After the text was written, the next step of the process involved printing. Now the group had to import a printing press from London. After if was delivered and tested, quality of printing press was deemed unsatisfactory by Chughtai, so they sold it and purchase one locally. The new printing press was set up at Chughtai’s home in Lahore. But the printing press required commercial-grade electrical connection to run. This took another three months of persistence to get it approved from city administration. Cover of the manuscript required a good material, for this they ordered samples from Manchester. The last step to complete the manuscript was book-binding, a local firm was given the task. All this work were ‘side-jobs’, as the main task for Chughtai was to make illustrations.
Chughtai put in considerable effort to finally produced 30 illustrations. Again, he decided not to print these paintings locally. The group helping Chughtai suggested to get these painting printed from London. But by now, Chughtai had burned through his saving. Meanwhile, Tasir suggested to Chughtai that Iqbal should write a foreword for the book. When the duo contacted Iqbal, he refused. At that moment, Chughtai must have thought; all his efforts were for nothing…
Tasir contacted Iqbal again & again to convince him to write the foreword. Chughati’s brother writes;
“We had to hold numerous meetings. Abdur Rahman (Chughtai) was becoming fed-up with all this, but Tasir and myself continued to insist that we must persuade Iqbal to undertake this task.”
Half-convinced, Iqbal asked for Chughtai’s painting to study, which were provided to him by Chughtai’s younger brother. After a frustrating back and forth, Iqbal finally wrote a foreword. This was a big win for the artist and also attached a significant meaning to his work. As in a couple of years, Iqbal would be the first person to call for a separate Muslim land named Pakistan.
On the other front, Chughtai’s friends helped him to secure funding from the Maharani of Koch Behar State in exchange for acquiring the original paintings Chughtai had created for the Murraqa. The final result was printing of 210 ‘deluxe signed editions’ expensively priced and a larger number of normal editions that were cheaply priced.
On importance of this venture, Iftikar Dadi notes in his book ‘Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia’; “Chughtai’s Muraqqa is significant for orienting the artist’s career toward the Urdu literary past and in relation to the emergent Urdu literary criticism”. After the independence of Pakistan, the book was twice reissued during the 1960s.
THE FLAME KEEPS ON BURNING
The book resulted in establishing Chughtai as the ‘First Muslim Modern Painter of South Asia’. The method utilized by Chughtai of digging into past to create a new identity, however, wasn’t restricted to arts itself. This practice was first started by Hindu historians, later reflected in art of the Bengali masters. Then, Muslim historians followed suit.
And it was in painting, that Chughtai utilized this same practice.
This excavation of the past was to gain further importance in the next part of our series, which will discuss Independence of Pakistan.
For now Chughtai had given future ‘Pakistani’ painters a blueprint to follow. The biggest achievement of Chughtai was to challenge the establish notion that Muslims were second class citizens of the Art World. As for Chughtai, he would go on to produced further monumental works of arts. He received much adulation in his lifetime, including ‘Pride of Performance’ and ‘Hilal-i-Imtiaz’ titles from Government of Pakistan.
His famous painting from Murraqqa-i-Chughtai is titled ‘The Extinguished Flame’, which is apt as, Chughtai had extinguish the flame of British Raj’s claim of ‘inferiority of subcontinental art’. And more than that he managed to create a distinct Subcontinental identity apart from regions of modern India. Though not nationalistic in his art yet Chughtai was truly the first Pakistani Painter.
