A new exhibition tells the story of India’s independence through art

History is remembered in more ways than one. Paintings distil the politics of an era. Photographs capture particular moments. Literature documents history while shaping and stirring public sentiment. Music and cinema, meanwhile, capture the emotions of an age. Together, they form a repository of a nation’s history, preserving its difficult chapters, one such being India’s colonial past and its journey to independence.

Bringing these disparate forms together is the new exhibition ‘Swaraj: Revisualising India’s Political History’ in New Delhi, showing a comprehensive display of the visual iconography of India’s freedom struggle. There is Abanindranath Tagore’s celebrated Bharat Mata, alongside Felice Beato’s photographs taken in the aftermath of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny. Ketan Mehta’s poster for Mangal Pandey sits alongside Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photographs documenting Mahatma Gandhi’s final days.

Curated by archivist and curator Neville Tuli and his team at the Tuli Research Centre for India Studies (TRIS), the exhibition is on view at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, till August 16.

A walk through India’s political history

Curated to map India’s political journey, the exhibition begins with copper-engraved paintings depicting the British arrival on India’s shores, before moving to the consolidation of colonial power, including the Storming of Seringapatam in 1799. 

The narrative then turns to the 1857 uprising, represented through works spanning different periods and media. Among them is the poster for Aamir Khan’s 2005 film Mangal Pandey, followed by Beato’s photographs taken in its aftermath. The most striking is perhaps the photograph in which Beato reportedly exhumed skeletons and arranged them to stage and recreate what was presented as the aftermath of the mutiny. 

Capturing the prominent role art played in uniting people in the struggle against British rule are works by artists including Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharat Mata and Nandalal Bose’s Haripura Panels. The panels were commissioned by none other than Mahatma Gandhi himself. Bose also played a significant role in shaping the visual character of the original Indian Constitution, creating its illustrations. 

The exhibition also features striking works by artists such as Chittaprosad, who documented the devastation of the Bengal Famine of 1943-44, alongside Bresson’s photographs of Mahatma Gandhi’s final days. Among the most poignant is the grim image of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru announcing Gandhi’s death to a weeping crowd gathered outside Birla House. 

The exhibition also brings together newspaper clippings, including a striking condolence published by the RSS mouthpiece Organiser following the death of Nehru. Its later sections turn to some of independent India’s most turbulent moments, with artworks across media documenting the Emergency and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. 

“India has been this eternal sponge that absorbs everything,” says Tuli, explaining the vision behind such an expansive exhibition. 

There are deliberately no descriptions accompanying the artworks. “I stopped giving captions because people don’t read the image. They see it, but they don’t understand. Line, form, colour, texture. So let them come, read the image, learn to understand: What does the colour mean? What does the form mean? What does the texture mean?” the curator says. 

And while the absence of the usual captions may seem confusing at first, one soon realises they aren’t necessary. Moving through the exhibition becomes an absorbing journey through India’s political history, with each work inviting the viewer to pause, look and interpret.