JPM QUARTERLY Apr - Jun 18

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1 JPM QUARTERLY Apr - Jun 18

2 Past Programmes: No Parallel? The Fatherly Bodies of Gandhi and Mao: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue February 20, 21, 22 & 23, 2018, 6.30 pm Barbara Mittler (Chair in Chinese Studies, Heidelberg University) and Sumathi Ramaswamy (Professor of History, Duke University) in conversation with Atul Dodiya, Yang Jiechang, Arshiya Lokhandawala and Martina Köppel-Yang Gigi Scaria, No Parallel, 2010 (detail), with permission of the artist The four-day seminar took as its starting point, Indian artist Gigi Scaria s eponymous 2010 video installation. Scaria s work presented two of the most iconic and hyper-visible, yet seemingly contradictory men of the 20th century, MK Gandhi and Mao Zedong, in images that incredibly have formal parallels. The object of the interdisciplinary seminar, part of a larger ongoing project (focusing, as a method, specifically on visual representations), was to JPM Quarterly Apr-Jun 2018 consider the transformation of the two men, over the course of the last century, through visual imagery and image-events, into globally recognisable bio-icons. Situated at the intersection of the visual politics of masculinity and the cultural politics of fatherhood, the transcultural project aims to illuminate how the corporeal is critical to the affective and ethical reach of such bio-icons within the imagined communities of their respective nations. The first three days included presentations in tandem by Barbara Mittler, who holds a Chair in Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg and is Director of the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, and Sumathi Ramaswamy, Professor of History at Duke University and Co- Director of Duke s India Initiative. Mittler and Ramaswamy, focused on Mao and Gandhi respectively - whom they referred to as master choreographers of their bodies. Each day was dedicated to exploring a particular aspect of the two fatherly bodies. Producing Charisma: Clothing and Unclothing of the Fatherly Body Both Gandhi and Mao could be seen as responding to dominant Western stereotypes about their respective countries. The latter s corpulent figure was in stark contrast to the idea of the skeletal sick man of Asia. Mao embodied the protective father and nourishing mother concurrently, a concept strongly rooted in Chinese cultural tradition; reflected in the East Asian bodhisattva Guan Yin, portrayed interchangeably as male and female. He famously donned a jacket styled after Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the JPM Quarterly JPM Newsletter Quarterly Oct-Dec Apr-Jun

3 Republic of China. Gandhi, on the other hand, sardonically embraced the stereotype of the emaciated Indian. Dressed strictly in a short dhoti, his nakedness became an anathema not just to Victorian Englishfolk but also caused a fair bit of anxiety to the Indian middle-class. Notably, in most photographs and images of Gandhi, his followers and associates are almost always completely clad, throwing the Mahatma s bare figure in stark relief; whereas the Gandhian woman was inadvertently overly clothed. The Mahatma s appearance is resonant with images of the fasting Buddha, Tamil Saint Karaikal Amma, Dying Inayat Khan, and Christ. The Mao figure became a beacon of hope for a rising nation. Gandhi embodied the countless Indians forced into destitution under the British Raj, albeit through a careful reconstruction of the bare minimum attire the former were compelled into by their circumstances. The point remains that the clothing/unclothing had to be necessarily choreographed and managed, the charisma of the two figures had to be manufactured. Sovereign Performances: Toward an Aesthetic of the Ambulatory and the Aquatic In July 1966, the 73-year-old Chairman Mao Zedong plunged into the Yangtze River for a historic swim across, a supreme gesture of a return to power following the catastrophic famine caused by the Great Leap Forward. The act created global news, inspiring a series of propaganda posters and even a film released later that year. Numerous images portray Mao in the aftermath of the swim, surrounded by the people, at his revolutionary best. Sovereignty in China is both a territorial and moral concept, and Mao s supposedly superhuman act (he was believed to be ailing at the time), established his divine mandate to lead the nation again. In Chinese tradition, sovereignty has to be won ; Mao did so taming the fearful waters of the river. He is often portrayed with people flocking to him, and providing them with food, reiterating the dual mother/father embodiment. Barbara Mittler and Sumathi Ramaswamy speak during No Parallel? The Fatherly Bodies of Gandhi and Mao: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue Mao s natatory performance has its parallel in Gandhi s 1930 ambulatory march to Dandi for his salt satyagraha, symbolising civil disobedience against an unfair salt-tax, and British rule in general. Another meticulously planned event, it was designed to generate a mass movement (as it did) and to court arrest. The colonial authorities 35 JPM Quarterly Newsletter Apr-Jun 2018 Oct-Dec 2014 JPM Quarterly Apr-Jun 2018

4 refused to arrest Gandhi and fuel the fire, whereas most leaders of the Congress dismissed the march thinking it bereft of any real political significance. However, the satyagraha had far-reaching impact. The striding Mahatma at his disobedient and mobile best got the attention of the global press, just as it captured and continues to capture the imagination of artists world over. His image with the walking stick and uplifted foot is ubiquitous across visual media, particularly in painting and sculpture, and Richard Attenborough s 1982 film. Another aspect to Mao was his writing. Especially poetry exalting himself over and above China s past great kings, with allegorical comparisons to natural monuments (also prevalent in Chinese visual culture), that bolster his aura. Gandhi of course was a lifelong writer and journalist. Absent Presences: Death of the Father This segment brought psychoanalysis in conversation with the overarching ideas developed earlier, particularly Freud s idea of the productive nature of the father s death for his followers. Gandhi s death, a collective traumatic event for the Indian psyche, according to Ramaswamy, led to an explosion of visual melancholia, a phenomenon exemplified in the works of the artist Atul Dodiya, especially Evening Walk and Highway. However, popular lithographic prints show Gandhi joyously transcending from his corporeal form to divinity. His successful desire for a violent death has been well documented by historians, and could be analysed in terms of his death drive. Another aspect is the absence of Gandhi s killer, Nathuram Godse, from most of these works. He is JPM Quarterly Apr-Jun 2018 typically reduced simply to his gun or the three puncture wounds on Gandhi s torso. MF Husain produced scores of paintings on the subject, but has only a solitary work portraying a towering figure of the Mahatma against tricolor hues and a diminutive figure of his shadowy assassin. The most provocative example here remains that of Debanjan Roy who fuses the faces of the assassin and the Mahatma, creating a strange intimacy that could reflect, as per his own final words, Godse s enduring respect for Gandhi - having already delivered what he saw as a necessary death sentence. Mao, who wished to be cremated (as Gandhi was), never got the death he wanted. His body was instead embalmed and the Mausoleum became the point of a great personality cult. This, claims Mittler, necessarily had to be done - the figure of Mao being irreplaceable. For her, Mao, unlike Gandhi, had always already been both father and God. His death was soon made into a sort of non-event, the perfectly preserved body seemingly capable of vitality at any given moment. This persistent absent-presence of Mao in Chinese socio-cultural and political life has led to what Mittler calls Visual Jouissance. Chinese artists, especially those born after Mao s death, have presented scathing, distorted, grotesque, and irreverent images of the Chairman - in stark contrast to the ubiquitously manufactured Mao image of divine perfection. This finds its complement in the work of Dalit artists in India, antagonised by Gandhi s problematic caste politics. JPM Quarterly JPM Newsletter Quarterly Oct-Dec Apr-Jun

5 Iconographies of Power: An Artists Forum The seminar found a fitting conclusion in the final day s forum. The opening address was by Atul Dodiya, whose obsession with Gandhi has resulted in over 2,000 works. Dodiya shared paintings as well as his intimate and reverential relationship with Gandhi. Next was the Chinese artist Yang Jiechang, with his wife, German curator Martina Köppel-Yang. Jiechang passionately made a case for Mao, the great calligraphic artist, an aspect that never gets enough attention. Mao utilised different forms and styles for a variety of political and cultural ends. Notably, his handwriting on the Monument to the People s Heroes in Tiananmen Square - a radical, transgressive departure from the official orthodox script hitherto used for such purposes - a fact Jiechang celebrates. He also maintained, mirroring Dodiya s attitude towards Gandhi, that the irreverent artists of today don t know Mao and made a point about their art finding a ready audience in the West. Finally, Arshiya Lokhandwala presented her survey exhibition India Re-Worlded, which invited 70 artists to examine one year of their choosing from the last 70 years, sharing the works featuring Gandhi was represented by Dodiya s installation, which looks at the year of the independence and partition from the perspective of the disappointed Mahatma. R.N. L to R: Martina Köppel-Yang, Yang Jiechang, Arshiya Lokhandwala and Atul Dodiya at the Iconographies of Power: An Artists Forum 37 JPM Quarterly Newsletter Apr-Jun 2018 Oct-Dec 2014 JPM Quarterly Apr-Jun 2018

6 L to R: Yang Jiechang, Atul Dodiya, Arshiya Lokhandwala, Barbara Mittler, Sumathi Ramaswamy, Martina Kopel Yang and Rohit Goel at the end of the fourth day of the Gandhi/Mao seminar series We know we have made a difference. Our endeavour to encourage and facilitate pedagogy meaningfully continues with the firm belief that the humanities are indispensable to the well-being of the community and the individual. Queens Mansion, 3rd Floor, G. Talwatkar Marg, Fort, Mumbai India JPM Quarterly Apr-Jun Follow us on Instagram: Jnanapravaha_Mumbai