Beautiful Witch Hunting

Noted artist Kanchan Chander was forced to resign from her teaching post at the Delhi College of Art. She fought her way through adversities but the male bastion in the college was so strong that she decided to resign. “Developing a personal teaching style was considered to be threat and I was harassed for devising such a style,” Kanchan Chander tells Mrinal Kulkarni. In this interview, Kanchan reveals her heart. Excerpts:

Kanchan Chander

Mrinal: Kanchan you spent major part of your professional life in an art institution College of Art, New Delhi, as a student as well as an art teacher. How will you define these two experiences as a woman artist?

Kanchan: When I was a student, that’s in 70’s, professionalism was not there in the College of Art but the general ambience was very nice. We were entertained by our teachers to experiment and look for new art languages. So at that time it was my dream to become a teacher in the same institute. So when I got selected for the lecturer post I was too happy as my dream was fulfilled. I was enthusiastic to share my experiences as an artist with my students I was so passionate about teaching at that time that I never felt tired even after managing three fronts; home, job and profession. I strongly feel that if you don’t practice professionally then you cannot teach. But that did not go well.

Mrinal: Do you think that the entry of women artists in academia does bring a change in the structure?

Kanchan: Possibility is there. But when I said that it did not go well just now what I meant is the way our academic system works there is very little space allowed for any new approach towards teaching. I can tell you from my experience. I consider each student as a separate case study, so you cannot maintain a unilateral approach of teaching. Therefore I adopted a person to person teaching style but the authorities felt that I am developing a biased process of teaching. They strictly told me to continue with traditional way of teaching of lecturing without a personal touch. I think the personal touch is what the basic premises of feminism.

Mrinal: What would you say about the boasting of various institutes of having more women teachers as a sign of feminism?

Kanchan: Presence of more women artists in academia has become a sing of tokenistic feminism. It is too difficult to change in this `man oriented’ university system. This system makes you so insecure that you go on disbelieving everyone and in turn start acting like the way the authority wants you. Everyone is only bothered to pull down the other person’s prospects of development. If you remember I have done a series of Ardhanarishwar images because I started feeling that I am turning into another man in this man bastion. 

Mrinal: Are you intending that there is sexism in our academia?

Kanchan: Yes it is there but in a very covert way. But it gets always underlined as you come closer to the academic system. You see so many women artists came on national and international art scene but very few of them are represented in our curriculum. So many girls do find a lack of women artists as ideals to whom they can look up to. Women teachers are there but the space is not conducive and no time is there for personal interaction in our colleges, because they are forced to concentrate only on developing skill not creativity. You might have observed an autobiographical element in my creative process but I could not incorporate that in my teachings. These things really frustrated me.

Mrinal: If you read the concepts of various universities, colleges you will find that the close knit family structure is considered valuable for the development of free mind. What do you say about this?

Kanchan: It is a trauma. Specifically in my personal life the equal amount of pressures exerted by patriarchal attitude in home (specifically married life) and working place was a trauma. I know many of the women colleagues share the same view, they may not say it. In both the places all the weapons were used to curtail my development. Disillusionment and frustration was so much that I resigned from my job. I still teach a small number of students at my studio as I want to teach and I am happy.