Special - 'Delhi Biennale Seminar Package'

The Suppressed Expression(ism)s of Dalits :
Day 2

www.artconcerns.com correspondent catches up the proceedings of the second day of the Delhi Biennale Seminar and reports.

`Public Domain: The Shape of the Argument’ was the theme of the second day of the seminar ‘elective affinities, constitutive differences.’ The speakers of the first session namely Y.S.Alone, Shivji Panicker and Santhosh S articulated their cases very well, inviting a host of for and against responses from the audience. The session revolved around the issue of articulating the Dalit Voices in the public realm of visual aesthetic discourse and in many ways the speakers could suggest alternative avenues for this kind of articulation. On the one hand, the arguments remained in the level of suggestions and on the other these arguments could radically problematize the main stream art discourse.

Underlying the neo-Buddhists’ position in the public realm of visuals Y.S.Alone, a neo-Buddhist scholar from JNU observed how the Ambedkarites (neo-Buddhists) rearticulated the traditional Buddhist architectures for emphasizing their ideological position in the public realm. The re-articulation of Chaityas and Stupas of the Buddhist Viharas found their places even in the private buildings and places of congregation. Alone also pointed out how Ambedkar insisted on portraying the Buddha images with fully closed eyes, unlike the traditional Buddha images with the half closed eyes. It indicated the awakening of a new selfhood for the neo-Buddhists, he argued.

Noted painter Savi Savarkar, who openly uses the neo-Buddhist ideological positioning in his works became a case study for both the articulation and succeeding obfuscation of neo-Buddhist ideology in the public realm. By presenting the works of Savi Savarkar, Alone argued that these works actively intervened and deconstructed the prescribed and authoritarian constructs of Brahminical aesthetic discourse. Alone, like many other Dalit theoreticians asserted that the Indian educational and art historical discourses were still firmly based on Brahminical thought process that consciously excluded the Dalit interventions.

While Alone’s attempts to put across the political concerns ingrained in the works of Savi Savarkar faltered a bit, Shivji Panicker could succeed in presenting the characteristics of Savi’s works by reintroducing a case for the Expressionist language that he uses in his works. He said that the expressionist visual language consciously employed by Savi Savarkar should be seen against the proliferation of new media art in India and elsewhere. This ‘uncouth’ and ‘unsophisticated’ expressionism became effective in the hands of the ‘subaltern other’, Shivji argued. Though expressionism was rendered ineffective and redundant in the Euro-American scholars/contexts, Shivji felt that the language still has a lot of potential to express the subaltern voices. “Expressionism can be a political tool in the hands of the subaltern (here Dalit) artists,” Shivji said.

Bringing the commodity oriented and finance based Indian art market structure into a polemic, Shivji said that the grueling experiences that Savi had to face as a growing artist and as a working professional pedagogue were not taken into consideration by the art market. “Who would be ready to collect a painting where the codifier of Hindu laws, Manu is seen defiled by the artist?” Shivji asked. He located the problem in the Brahminical ideology that had seeped even into the market and corporate thinking. Savi, despite having a modern art education, found it difficult to find acceptance in his own country thanks to its adherence to untouchability. “Savi is dis-privileged in his own locations only because of his self positioning as a Dalit and an active articulator of neo-Buddhist ideology in visual discourse,” Shivji said.

Taking off from where Shivji left Santhosh S, a PhD Scholar from M.S.University, Baroda tried to problematise the category of Dalit within the realm of contemporary aesthetic discourse. He in a way accused that the generic experience of modernity in India was ‘theorized under the rubric of the elite practitioners’ angst in relation to hegemony of western dominance.’ Santhosh said that despite the Dalits’ achievements in the field of politics and other spheres of life, they were still excluded from the cultural realm. “Their efforts to participate in the cultural practices have not been addressed adequately and still their cultures more or less remain as something that have been accused of ‘contamination’ and largely regulated by the upper caste intelligentsia,” Santhosh observed.

Though conclusions were not drawn on the issues of Dalit representation, there was an active debate on the issues raised by these three scholars. Interestingly, it was seen that none wanted to touch upon the market economy and cultural commodification vis-à-vis the Dalit articulation of aesthetics, though Shivji had raised the issue in his paper. Most of the audience showed an obscene interest for the abstract notions such as Dalits writing off Dalits and Dalit as the ‘would be endangered category’ etc as if they were participating in a purgatorial act.