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Illusions of empire: Amartya Sen on what British rule really did for India

It is true that before British rule, India was starting to fall behind other parts of the world – but many of the arguments defending the Raj are based on serious misconceptions about India’s past, imperialism and history itself

T he British empire in India was in effect established at the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757. The battle was swift, beginning at dawn and ending close to sunset. It was a normal monsoon day, with occasional rain in the mango groves at the town of Plassey, which is between Calcutta, where the British were based, and Murshidabad, the capital of the kingdom of Bengal. It was in those mango groves that the British forces faced the Nawab Siraj-ud-Doula’s army and convincingly defeated it.

British rule ended nearly 200 years later with Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous speech on India’s “tryst with destiny” at midnight on 14 August 1947. Two hundred years is a long time. What did the British achieve in India, and what did they fail to accomplish?

During my days as a student at a progressive school in West Bengal in the 1940s, these questions came into our discussion constantly. They remain important even today, not least because the British empire is often invoked in discussions about successful global governance. It has also been invoked to try to persuade the US to acknowledge its role as the pre-eminent imperial power in the world today: “Should the United States seek to shed – or to shoulder – the imperial load it has inherited?” the historian Niall Ferguson has asked . It is certainly an interesting question, and Ferguson is right to argue that it cannot be answered without an understanding of how the British empire rose and fell – and what it managed to do.

Arguing about all this at Santiniketan school, which had been established by Rabindranath Tagore some decades earlier, we were bothered by a difficult methodological question. How could we think about what India would have been like in the 1940s had British rule not occurred at all?

The frequent temptation to compare India in 1757 (when British rule was beginning) with India in 1947 (when the British were leaving ) would tell us very little, because in the absence of British rule, India would of course not have remained the same as it was at the time of Plassey. The country would not have stood still had the British conquest not occurred. But how do we answer the question about what difference was made by British rule?

To illustrate the relevance of such an “alternative history”, we may consider another case – one with a potential imperial conquest that did not in fact occur. Let’s think about Commodore Matthew Perry of the US navy, who steamed into the bay of Edo in Japan in 1853 with four warships. Now consider the possibility that Perry was not merely making a show of American strength (as was in fact the case), but was instead the advance guard of an American conquest of Japan, establishing a new American empire in the land of the rising sun, rather as Robert Clive did in India . If we were to assess the achievements of the supposed American rule of Japan through the simple device of comparing Japan before that imperial conquest in 1853 with Japan after the American domination ended, whenever that might be, and attribute all the differences to the effects of the American empire, we would miss all the contributions of the Meiji restoration from 1868 onwards, and of other globalising changes that were going on. Japan did not stand still; nor would India have done so.

While we can see what actually happened in Japan under Meiji rule, it is extremely hard to guess with any confidence what course the history of the Indian subcontinent would have taken had the British conquest not occurred. Would India have moved, like Japan, towards modernisation in an increasingly globalising world, or would it have remained resistant to change, like Afghanistan, or would it have hastened slowly, like Thailand?

These are impossibly difficult questions to answer. And yet, even without real alternative historical scenarios, there are some limited questions that can be answered, which may contribute to an intelligent understanding of the role that British rule played in India. We can ask: what were the challenges that India faced at the time of the British conquest, and what happened in those critical areas during the British rule?

T here was surely a need for major changes in a rather chaotic and institutionally backward India. To recognise the need for change in India in the mid-18th century does not require us to ignore – as many Indian super-nationalists fear – the great achievements in India’s past, with its extraordinary history of accomplishments in philosophy, mathematics, literature, arts, architecture, music, medicine, linguistics and astronomy. India had also achieved considerable success in building a thriving economy with flourishing trade and commerce well before the colonial period – the economic wealth of India was amply acknowledged by British observers such as Adam Smith.

The fact is, nevertheless, that even with those achievements, in the mid-18th century India had in many ways fallen well behind what was being achieved in Europe. The exact nature and significance of this backwardness were frequent subjects of lively debates in the evenings at my school.

An insightful essay on India by Karl Marx particularly engaged the attention of some of us. Writing in 1853, Marx pointed to the constructive role of British rule in India, on the grounds that India needed some radical re-examination and self-scrutiny. And Britain did indeed serve as India’s primary western contact, particularly in the course of the 19th century. The importance of this influence would be hard to neglect. The indigenous globalised culture that was slowly emerging in India was deeply indebted not only to British writing, but also to books and articles in other – that is non-English – European languages that became known in India through the British.

Figures such as the Calcutta philosopher Ram Mohan Roy, born in 1772, were influenced not only by traditional knowledge of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian texts, but also by the growing familiarity with English writings. After Roy, in Bengal itself there were also Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Madhusudan Dutta and several generations of Tagores and their followers who were re-examining the India they had inherited in the light of what they saw happening in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Their main – often their only – source of information were the books (usually in English) circulating in India, thanks to British rule. That intellectual influence, covering a wide range of European cultures, survives strongly today, even as the military, political and economic power of the British has declined dramatically.

I was persuaded that Marx was basically right in his diagnosis of the need for some radical change in India, as its old order was crumbling as a result of not having been a part of the intellectual and economic globalisation that the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution had initiated across the world (along with, alas, colonialism).

There was arguably, however, a serious flaw in Marx’s thesis, in particular in his implicit presumption that the British conquest was the only window on the modern world that could have opened for India. What India needed at the time was more constructive globalisation, but that is not the same thing as imperialism. The distinction is important. Throughout India’s long history, it persistently enjoyed exchanges of ideas as well as of commodities with the outside world. Traders, settlers and scholars moved between India and further east – China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and elsewhere – for a great many centuries, beginning more than 2,000 years ago. The far-reaching influence of this movement – especially on language, literature and architecture – can be seen plentifully even today. There were also huge global influences by means of India’s open-frontier attitude in welcoming fugitives from its early days.

Jewish immigration into India began right after the fall of Jerusalem in the first century and continued for many hundreds of years. Baghdadi Jews, such as the highly successful Sassoons, came in large numbers even as late as the 18th century. Christians started coming at least from the fourth century, and possibly much earlier. There are colourful legends about this, including one that tells us that the first person St Thomas the Apostle met after coming to India in the first century was a Jewish girl playing the flute on the Malabar coast. We loved that evocative – and undoubtedly apocryphal – anecdote in our classroom discussions, because it illustrated the multicultural roots of Indian traditions.

The Parsis started arriving from the early eighth century – as soon as persecution began in their Iranian homeland. Later in that century, the Armenians began to leave their footprints from Kerala to Bengal. Muslim Arab traders had a substantial presence on the west coast of India from around that time – well before the arrival of Muslim conquerors many centuries later, through the arid terrain in the north-west of the subcontinent. Persecuted Bahá’ís from Iran came only in the 19th century.

At the time of the Battle of Plassey, there were already businessmen, traders and other professionals from a number of different European nations well settled near the mouth of the Ganges. Being subjected to imperial rule is thus not the only way of making connections with, or learning things from, foreign countries. When the Meiji Restoration established a new reformist government in Japan in 1868 (which was not unrelated to the internal political impact of Commodore Perry’s show of force a decade earlier), the Japanese went straight to learning from the west without being subjected to imperialism. They sent people for training in the US and Europe, and made institutional changes that were clearly inspired by western experience. They did not wait to be coercively globalised via imperialism.

O ne of the achievements to which British imperial theorists tended to give a good deal of emphasis was the role of the British in producing a united India. In this analysis, India was a collection of fragmented kingdoms until British rule made a country out of these diverse regimes. It was argued that India was previously not one country at all, but a thoroughly divided land mass. It was the British empire, so the claim goes, that welded India into a nation. Winston Churchill even remarked that before the British came, there was no Indian nation. “India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator,” he once said.

If this is true, the empire clearly made an indirect contribution to the modernisation of India through its unifying role. However, is the grand claim about the big role of the Raj in bringing about a united India correct? Certainly, when Clive’s East India Company defeated the nawab of Bengal in 1757, there was no single power ruling over all of India. Yet it is a great leap from the proximate story of Britain imposing a single united regime on India (as did actually occur) to the huge claim that only the British could have created a united India out of a set of disparate states.

That way of looking at Indian history would go firmly against the reality of the large domestic empires that had characterised India throughout the millennia. The ambitious and energetic emperors from the third century BC did not accept that their regimes were complete until the bulk of what they took to be one country was united under their rule. There were major roles here for Ashoka Maurya, the Gupta emperors, Alauddin Khalji, the Mughals and others. Indian history shows a sequential alternation of large domestic empires with clusters of fragmented kingdoms. We should therefore not make the mistake of assuming that the fragmented governance of mid-18th century India was the state in which the country typically found itself throughout history, until the British helpfully came along to unite it.

Even though in history textbooks the British were often assumed to be the successors of the Mughals in India, it is important to note that the British did not in fact take on the Mughals when they were a force to be reckoned with. British rule began when the Mughals’ power had declined, though formally even the nawab of Bengal, whom the British defeated, was their subject. The nawab still swore allegiance to the Mughal emperor, without paying very much attention to his dictates. The imperial status of the Mughal authority over India continued to be widely acknowledged even though the powerful empire itself was missing.

When the so-called sepoy mutiny threatened the foundations of British India in 1857, the diverse anti-British forces participating in the joint rebellion could be aligned through their shared acceptance of the formal legitimacy of the Mughal emperor as the ruler of India. The emperor was, in fact, reluctant to lead the rebels, but this did not stop the rebels from declaring him the emperor of all India. The 82-year-old Mughal monarch, Bahadur Shah II, known as Zafar, was far more interested in reading and writing poetry than in fighting wars or ruling India. He could do little to help the 1,400 unarmed civilians of Delhi whom the British killed as the mutiny was brutally crushed and the city largely destroyed. The poet-emperor was banished to Burma, where he died.

As a child growing up in Burma in the 1930s, I was taken by my parents to see Zafar’s grave in Rangoon, which was close to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. The grave was not allowed to be anything more than an undistinguished stone slab covered with corrugated iron. I remember discussing with my father how the British rulers of India and Burma must evidently have been afraid of the evocative power of the remains of the last Mughal emperor. The inscription on the grave noted only that “Bahadur Shah was ex-King of Delhi” – no mention of “empire” in the commemoration! It was only much later, in the 1990s, that Zafar would be honoured with something closer to what could decently serve as the grave of the last Mughal emperor.

I n the absence of the British Raj, the most likely successors to the Mughals would probably have been the newly emerging Hindu Maratha powers near Bombay, who periodically sacked the Mughal capital of Delhi and exercised their power to intervene across India. Already by 1742, the East India Company had built a huge “Maratha ditch” at the edge of Calcutta to slow down the lightning raids of the Maratha cavalry, which rode rapidly across 1,000 miles or more. But the Marathas were still quite far from putting together anything like the plan of an all-India empire.

The British, by contrast, were not satisfied until they were the dominant power across the bulk of the subcontinent, and in this they were not so much bringing a new vision of a united India from abroad as acting as the successor of previous domestic empires. British rule spread to the rest of the country from its imperial foundations in Calcutta, beginning almost immediately after Plassey. As the company’s power expanded across India, Calcutta became the capital of the newly emerging empire, a position it occupied from the mid-18th century until 1911 (when the capital was moved to Delhi). It was from Calcutta that the conquest of other parts of India was planned and directed. The profits made by the East India Company from its economic operations in Bengal financed, to a great extent, the wars that the British waged across India in the period of their colonial expansion.

What has been called “the financial bleeding of Bengal” began very soon after Plassey. With the nawabs under their control, the company made big money not only from territorial revenues, but also from the unique privilege of duty-free trade in the rich Bengal economy – even without counting the so-called gifts that the Company regularly extracted from local merchants. Those who wish to be inspired by the glory of the British empire would do well to avoid reading Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, including his discussion of the abuse of state power by a “mercantile company which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies”. As the historian William Dalrymple has observed: “The economic figures speak for themselves. In 1600, when the East India Company was founded, Britain was generating 1.8% of the world’s GDP, while India was producing 22.5%. By the peak of the Raj, those figures had more or less been reversed: India was reduced from the world’s leading manufacturing nation to a symbol of famine and deprivation.”

While most of the loot from the financial bleeding accrued to British company officials in Bengal, there was widespread participation by the political and business leadership in Britain: nearly a quarter of the members of parliament in London owned stocks in the East India Company after Plassey. The commercial benefits from Britain’s Indian empire thus reached far into the British establishment.

The robber-ruler synthesis did eventually give way to what would eventually become classical colonialism, with the recognition of the need for law and order and a modicum of reasonable governance. But the early misuse of state power by the East India Company put the economy of Bengal under huge stress. What the cartographer John Thornton, in his famous chart of the region in 1703, had described as “the Rich Kingdom of Bengal” experienced a gigantic famine during 1769–70. Contemporary estimates suggested that about a third of the Bengal population died. This is almost certainly an overestimate. There was no doubt, however, that it was a huge catastrophe, with massive starvation and mortality – in a region that had seen no famine for a very long time.

This disaster had at least two significant effects. First, the inequity of early British rule in India became the subject of considerable political criticism in Britain itself. By the time Adam Smith roundly declared in The Wealth of Nations that the East India Company was “altogether unfit to govern its territorial possessions”, there were many British figures, such as Edmund Burke, making similar critiques. Second, the economic decline of Bengal did eventually ruin the company’s business as well, hurting British investors themselves, and giving the powers in London reason to change their business in India into more of a regular state-run operation.

By the late 18th century, the period of so-called “post-Plassey plunder”, with which British rule in India began, was giving way to the sort of colonial subjugation that would soon become the imperial standard, and with which the subcontinent would become more and more familiar in the following century and a half.

H ow successful was this long phase of classical imperialism in British India, which lasted from the late 18th century until independence in 1947? The British claimed a huge set of achievements, including democracy, the rule of law, railways, the joint stock company and cricket, but the gap between theory and practice – with the exception of cricket – remained wide throughout the history of imperial relations between the two countries. Putting the tally together in the years of pre-independence assessment, it was easy to see how far short the achievements were compared with the rhetoric of accomplishment.

Indeed, Rudyard Kipling caught the self-congratulatory note of the British imperial administrator admirably well in his famous poem on imperialism:

Take up the White Man’s burden – The savage wars of peace – Fill full the mouth of famine And bid the sickness cease

Alas, neither the stopping of famines nor the remedying of ill health was part of the high-performance achievements of British rule in India. Nothing could lead us away from the fact that life expectancy at birth in India as the empire ended was abysmally low: 32 years, at most.

The abstemiousness of colonial rule in neglecting basic education reflects the view taken by the dominant administrators of the needs of the subject nation. There was a huge asymmetry between the ruler and the ruled. The British government became increasingly determined in the 19th century to achieve universal literacy for the native British population. In contrast, the literacy rates in India under the Raj were very low. When the empire ended, the adult literacy rate in India was barely 15%. The only regions in India with comparatively high literacy were the “native kingdoms” of Travancore and Cochin (formally outside the British empire), which, since independence, have constituted the bulk of the state of Kerala. These kingdoms, though dependent on the British administration for foreign policy and defence, had remained technically outside the empire and had considerable freedom in domestic policy, which they exercised in favour of more school education and public health care.

The 200 years of colonial rule were also a period of massive economic stagnation, with hardly any advance at all in real GNP per capita. These grim facts were much aired after independence in the newly liberated media, whose rich culture was in part – it must be acknowledged – an inheritance from British civil society. Even though the Indian media was very often muzzled during the Raj – mostly to prohibit criticism of imperial rule, for example at the time of the Bengal famine of 1943 – the tradition of a free press, carefully cultivated in Britain, provided a good model for India to follow as the country achieved independence.

Indeed, India received many constructive things from Britain that did not – could not – come into their own until after independence. Literature in the Indian languages took some inspiration and borrowed genres from English literature, including the flourishing tradition of writing in English. Under the Raj, there were restrictions on what could be published and propagated (even some of Tagore’s books were banned). These days the government of India has no such need, but alas – for altogether different reasons of domestic politics – the restrictions are sometimes no less intrusive than during the colonial rule.

Nothing is perhaps as important in this respect as the functioning of a multiparty democracy and a free press. But often enough these were not gifts that could be exercised under the British administration during imperial days. They became realisable only when the British left – they were the fruits of learning from Britain’s own experience, which India could use freely only after the period of empire had ended. Imperial rule tends to require some degree of tyranny: asymmetrical power is not usually associated with a free press or with a vote-counting democracy, since neither of them is compatible with the need to keep colonial subjects in check.

A similar scepticism is appropriate about the British claim that they had eliminated famine in dependent territories such as India. British governance of India began with the famine of 1769-70, and there were regular famines in India throughout the duration of British rule. The Raj also ended with the terrible famine of 1943. In contrast, there has been no famine in India since independence in 1947.

The irony again is that the institutions that ended famines in independent India – democracy and an independent media – came directly from Britain. The connection between these institutions and famine prevention is simple to understand. Famines are easy to prevent, since the distribution of a comparatively small amount of free food, or the offering of some public employment at comparatively modest wages (which gives the beneficiaries the ability to buy food), allows those threatened by famine the ability to escape extreme hunger. So any government should be able stop a threatening famine – large or small – and it is very much in the interest of a government in a functioning democracy, facing a free press, to do so. A free press makes the facts of a developing famine known to all, and a democratic vote makes it hard to win elections during – or after – a famine, hence giving a government the additional incentive to tackle the issue without delay.

India did not have this freedom from famine for as long as its people were without their democratic rights, even though it was being ruled by the foremost democracy in the world, with a famously free press in the metropolis – but not in the colonies. These freedom-oriented institutions were for the rulers but not for the imperial subjects.

In the powerful indictment of British rule in India that Tagore presented in 1941, he argued that India had gained a great deal from its association with Britain, for example, from “discussions centred upon Shakespeare’s drama and Byron’s poetry and above all … the large-hearted liberalism of 19th-century English politics”. The tragedy, he said, came from the fact that what “was truly best in their own civilisation, the upholding of dignity of human relationships, has no place in the British administration of this country”. Indeed, the British could not have allowed Indian subjects to avail themselves of these freedoms without threatening the empire itself.

The distinction between the role of Britain and that of British imperialism could not have been clearer. As the union jack was being lowered across India, it was a distinction of which we were profoundly aware.

Adapted from Home in the World: A Memoir by Amartya Sen, published by Allen Lane on 8 July and available at guardianbookshop.com

This article was amended on 29 June 2021. Owing to an editing error, an earlier version incorrectly referred to Karl Marx writing on India in 1953. The essay was written in 1853.

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The Bombay Progressives: Breaking New Ground at the Dawn of India’s Independence

Witness the radical shift in visual language that coincided with the historic events of 1947, through the paintings of the bombay progressive artists in the kerala museum.

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The year of Indian independence, 1947, also marked the formation of the  Progressive Artists Group (PAG) in Bombay. FN Souza, HA Gade and others were founder members. Their first formal exhibition was at Bombay Art Society's Salon, then located at Rampart Row in 1949.  These young artists had leftist leanings and were impressed by the new art movements such as Cubism and Expressionism in post-war Europe. They rejected the historicism of the Bengal School and set out to develop a new modern visual language for independent India. They experimented with form and colour, and many veered towards abstract art.  Most of the Progressive Artists Group artworks in the Kerala Museum collection are from the later phase of these artists' careers. They are excellent examples of the iconic styles that these artists are celebrated for.

Although the group lasted only a year (it was disbanded in the 1950s), each member of the Progressive Artists Group went on to stellar international careers. They continue to be among the most recognised Indian artists to this day. This photograph is of the Progressives' first formal exhibition at the Bombay Art Society's Bombay Art Salon. From left to right: MF Husain, FN Souza, SK Bakre, KH Ara, SH Raza, and HA Gade.

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Untitled (1991) by Ram Kumar Kerala Museum

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Exhibit Curation : Supriya Menon Content Editors : Arundhathy Nayar, Aditi Nayar, Jyothi Elza George & Gopika Krishnan Malayalam Translator : Geeta Nayar Video : Memoir (Revisited), by artist Murali Cheeroth, created for the inauguration of the exhibition Collecting the Artist: The Madhavan Nayar Collection . This project received support from the India Foundation for the Arts under the Archival and Museums Fellowship Initiative, with support from the Tata Trusts. Video recording and editing by Sooraj and Jose Mohan. Photo of the Progressive Artists Group courtesy DAG Modern.

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आज़ादी का अमृत महोत्सव | 75 years of india’s independence.

‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ is an initiative of the Government of India to celebrate and commemorate 75 years of independence of progressive India and the glorious history of its people, culture and achievements.

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ by flagging off ‘Dandi March’ from Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad on 12th March, 2021. The celebrations started 75 weeks before our 75th anniversary of Independence and will end on 15th August, 2023.

Department of Higher Education and Department of School Education & Literacy have planned various activities under ‘आज़ादी का अमृत महोत्सव’.

Activities planned by D/o School Education & Literacy

• Shikshak Parv focusing on the evolving role of Teachers since independence will be organised
• International Webinar
• On India’s Unique Toy-based Pedagogy
• Incorporated in the National Curriculum Framework, in the period between August-December 2021.
• Essay Competitions / Seminars /Cycle Rallies in every Schools
• School Assemblies to focus on Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsava
• Special School Badge with logo of Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsava
• National Initiative for Proficiency and Understanding Numeracy and literacy is the National Mission for achieving Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in five years.
• National Digital Educational Architecture – a digital architecture to support teaching and learning activities educational planning, governance and administrative activities of the Centre and the States/ Union Territories in accordance with NEP 2020
• Change in QP pattern in Board exams (10% change in class 12 and 20% change in class 10) in accordance with NEP 2020
• Certification of approximately 24 lakhs elementary school teachers for completing NISHTHA
• School Nutrition Gardens – teaching gardening and agriculture concepts and skills to students that integrate with several subjects, such as math, science, art, health and physical education, and social studies, as well as several educational goals, including personal and social responsibility
• Launch of Vidyanjali portal – connect volunteers/ alumni/ community/ organisations etc. to schools
• Launch of an interesting Yoga Quiz, Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Story writing competition on “The contribution of Paired state in India’s struggle for freedom” for children on MyGov platform
• History through Grandparents – all schools to participate
• Launch of NISHTHA modules for secondary school teachers and teachers at foundational levels
• Introduction of optional one-time improvement exams in CBSE
• Schools post celebration of Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsava on social media, and works of art/craft, music, dance, etc. on this occasion.
• Online music competition by KendriyaVidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas on patriotic songs of paired states under Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat
• Celebration of Rashtriya Ekta Diwas on 31st October under Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat
• Pilot launch of new 4-year integrated B.Ed programme
• Development of dictionary of approximately 2000 words in ISL
• International Webinar on Toy-based learning and pedagogy
• Webinar on India’s freedom

Activities planned by D/o Higher Education

• Mentoring Yuva Scheme
• Publications
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The Progressive Artists Group

Post-Independence India was a new revolution in India’s history. As the struggle for freedom was finally achieved, new mindsets were formed. The new free India respected and worshiped humanity at its best along with promoting freedom of expression. At this point, a group of supreme artists came together who shared a common art type: modern art for the new free India and called themselves the Bombay Progressives Art Group!

They intended to " paint with absolute freedom for content and technique, almost anarchic, save that we are governed by one or two sound elemental and eternal laws, of aesthetic order, plastic co-ordination and color composition ." [3]

An Introduction to The Progressive Artists Group

The Progressive Artists Group was formed in 1947 by F.N Souza, S.H Raza, M.F Husain, K.H Ara, H.A Gade, and S.K Bakre. Notable artists like Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Bhanu Athaiya, Krishen Khanna, and Mohan Samant also joined the group later. Since the group was formed in Bombay it is often referred to as the Bombay Progressive Artists Group. All the six founding members hailed from different parts of the country with each one’s journey being completely different from the other but the only aspect that united them was their skill of painting and more than that a determination to break through traditional art rigidness and explore new art forms. 

This powerful team of six wanted to pass on art forms that were forced upon during the British Raj. This included:

Academic Art: a painting style influenced by European Academies of Art featuring movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

The Bengal School of Art also known as ‘The Indian Style of Painting’: an art movement of the early 20th century inspired by Indian nationalism. It was led and promoted by Abanindranath Tagore and British arts administrators. Artworks of this form took inspiration from Mughal art, Indian spirituality, and rejected materialism. F.N Souza criticized the Bengal School of Art paintings as ‘sentimental pictures’ for the nostalgic gouaches of pining damsels (ref: The Progressive Revolution, Page 17).

Art for the Progressives rejected these traditional art forms and believed in experimentation for new art types, the most popular being abstraction which was never seen before. They wanted to associate not only with art in India but also at an international level. As every member of the group hailed from their different life type each one of them was influenced by modernism in their way. For F.N Souza it was Expressionism whereas for Vasudeo S. Gaitonde it was abstract art and for M.F Husain it was influenced by his posters.

Anything new especially something that is against the traditions and society norms is difficult to establish. This was also the case with Modern Art and members of the Progressive Artists Group faced harsh criticism for their art. Souza was criticized for his erotic paintings (especially a painting in his early exhibition in which he painted full length nude of himself), Akbar Padamsee was taken to court.

Despite these criticisms’ members of the Progressive Artists Group continued their movement and traveled from all parts of Bombay to meet up at Chetna restaurant, Bombay Art Society, Marine Drive, and Rampart Row to discuss their art. S.H Raza describes their meetings as:

“ What we had in common besides our youth and lack of means was that we hoped for a better understanding of art. We had a sense of searching and we fought the material world. There was at our meetings and discussions a great fraternal feeling, certain warmth, and a lively exchange of ideas. We criticized each other's work as surely as we eulogized it. This was a period when there was no modern art in our country and a period of artistic confusion ” (ref: The Progressive Artists Group, Pg 30)

Each member had its unique journey exploring modern art. In this blog, we highlight the artistic journeys of the founding members. Souza and Raza left India in the late 1950s, followed by S.K. Bakre also leaving the group which ultimately led to the group being dissolved in 1956.

Ebrahim Alkazi: A Significant Supporter and Promoter of the Progressive Artists Group

Ebrahim Alkazi and his wife Roshen Padamsee were significantly responsible for promoting many members of the Progressive Artists Group not only in India but also at an international level. Apart from Alzaki; Mulkraj Anand, Walter Langhammer, Emmanuel Schlesinger, Rudi Von Leyden, and Kekoo Gandhy were also active as collectors.

Alkazi strongly believed that modern art in India needed to be fuelled by international exposures. New ideas were the need of the hour. 

Alkazi established himself as a theatre director making plays inspired from the West along with being tweaked to have Indian viewpoints. Loving the work of members of the Progressive Artists Group, Alzaki was friendly to most of them. He invited M.F Husain to design the sets and costumes (for example half masks in Alkazi’s production of T.S Eliot’s Murder in The Cathedral) of his plays to showcase both Greek and Indian realism.

Alkazi also launched a monthly arts publication called the Theatre Group Bulletin to promote the emerging art scenario in India. He paid specific attention to works of The Progressive Artists by putting them on the cover page, encouraging writers to review their painting, mentioning their awards and invitations they received to go abroad. This helped the Progressive Artists Group gain popularity not only in India but also among Theatre Group Bullentin’s international subscribers.

Francis Newton Souza

“I do not believe that a true artist paints for coteries or for the proletariat. I believe with all my soul that he paints solely for himself. I made my art a metabolism; I express myself freely in paint in order to exist. I paint what I want, what I like, what I feel.”

F. N. Souza, Words and Lines

This quote by F.N. Souza pretty much sums up his belief as a true member of the Progressive Artists Group. Very boldly, he breaks through stereotypes of paintings made to please the viewers. His art is a way to stress out and enjoy what he loves the most: the freedom to paint whatever he feels like.   

Souza was born in Goa to Roman Catholic parents. His birthplace Goa inspired a lot of his paintings until he left for London. He often painted Roman Catholic households showcasing their beautifully maintained gardens and trees, Churches, and his perception of spirituality.

When he moved to Bombay, he joined JJ School of Arts. In 1947 he was expelled from his college for participation in the Quit India Movement. From the shift of Goa's scenic beauty to Bombay city hustle-bustle his paintings in the 1940s depicted scenes from Bombay. Soon his paintings started featuring various scenes and inspirations from different parts of India, for example, South Indian bronzes and erotic designs portrayed in the Khajuraho temples of Madhya Pradesh. Souza was often criticized for eroticism in his works of art. When he formed the Progressive Artists Group in Bombay he aimed to promote international avant-garde art in India and explore as much of art as he can. 

Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia describes him as:

" At the heart of Souza's creativity was the belief that society's destructive aspects shouldn't be suppressed, they should be aired and confronted. Be it the hypocrisy of the church, the corruption of the upper classes, or the repression of sexuality in a country that has a Khajuraho , he was uncovering the underbelly of existence. ”

When Souza moved to London he worked as a journalist side by to make a living. He wrote an autobiographical essay in Stephen Spender's Encounter Magazine and that is when Spender introduced him to the owner and art collector of Gallery One. That was his turning point! Souza's 1955 exhibit of paintings was sold out!

Sayed Haider Raza

S.H. Raza another co-founder of the Progressive Artists Group hailed from Madhya Pradesh and in 1950 moved to France to explore his career as an artist. He is significantly known for the projection of Indian ethnographic concepts like Bindu, Purush Prakriti, and Nari in his geometric abstract art pieces. Raza bagged various awards and recognitions like Padma Shri, Fellowship of The Lalit Kala, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Prix de la critique for his path-breaking journey as an artist. He has studied at Nagpur School of Art followed by J.J School of Arts in Bombay and further at École Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts  (ENSB-A) in  Paris .

During the partition of India and Pakistan Raza's brothers and sisters migrated to Pakistan but Raza chose to be in India.

Krishen Khanna during the Gallery Cruz exhibit in Paris describes Raza’s artistic style as being the most unique one:

“ Souza and Padamsee painted in a quasi-modern fashion. Raza, however, made a throwback to the Mughal period, creating jewel-like watercolors, with the pigment rubbed in with a shell. He was vastly successful and acquired by important collectors. "

Raza experimented with Western Modernism, Expressionism, Abstract art, and Tantrism. His most famous works highlighted landscapes in the 1944 exhibit which was admired by critics as 'juicer' and 'delightful'. His greatest contribution to the Progressive Artists Group was rejecting naturalistic ways of painting landscapes and adopting new art forms to depict nature's beauty.

Krishnaji Howlaji Ara

K.H. Ara fled away from his birthplace Hyderabad and came to Bombay where he took up a job of a houseboy for an English family. In his leisure time, he explored his hobby for painting which he didn't realize was a great talent until it caught the attention of Times of India art critic Rudy Voh Leyden and later Walter Langhammer who was so impressed that he enrolled Ara in J.J School of Arts to sharpen his skill.

Ara was the first contemporary artist to use female nudes as his subject. However, his painting of female nudes has been criticized as being not accurate and a false depiction by several critics. Just like other members of the Progressive Artists Group, Ara experimented not only with the subject of his art but also with his artistic style. His most celebrated artistic style was the impasto effect where he used a thin pigmentation to highlight his paintings. Ara rose to fame when he won the Governor’s prize at Bombay Art Society in 1944 for his painting ’Two Jugs’.

Hari Ambadas Gade

Hari Ambadas Gade was famous for his mastery in colors. Most of his works included landscape paintings that were brought to life with watercolors followed by his later techniques of oil paintings. He came in the limelight with two of his paintings: ‘Narrow Lane’ and ‘Fountain Jubbalpore’ displayed in the 1947 exhibition of Bombay Art Society. These landscape paintings were praised for their emotional understanding of colors and for being in a hand to hand relation with Raza's landscapes. Unlike other members of the Progressive Artists Group, Gade had a strong educational background holding a degree in Science and Mathematics from Nagpur University followed by a diploma from J.J School of Art. His paintings reflect his knowledge of science with geometrically designed landscapes which also relate to the art of cubism.

Gade won a gold medal at the Bombay Art Society in 1956 for his avant-garde style of landscape artwork.

Sadanand Bakre

Sadanand Bakre was the only sculptor of the Progressive Artists Group. His friendship with Ara encouraged him to be part of the Progressive Artists Group founders’ team.

Bakre was born in Baroda and started working under sculptor Raghunath Phadke from his early teenage years. Mastering the art of sculpting, Bakre was always inclined towards exploring painting but did not have the funds to pursue a painting course or buy the materials.

Image Via: Sotheby's

After reading about modernism, Bakre was inspired to try out distinctive styles of both painting and sculpting. Bakre’s artworks were extremely unique as he portrayed the subject sharply rather than focusing on its features or structure. He was also praised for his accurate sense of color combinations.

He returned to India in 1975 and later lived a solitary life. Bakre also won a lifetime achievement award from the Bombay Art Society in 2004.

M.F. Husain

Maqbool Fida Husain is one of the most renowned pioneers in the history of Indian art and also a significant founding member of the Progressive Artists Group. 

Partition of India and Pakistan and the idea of a secular India had a huge impact on his paintings and he strongly believed that a new modern art should prevail as the nation celebrates freedom.

He quotes "When the British ruled, we were taught to draw a figure with the proportions from Greek and Roman sculpture … That was what I thought was wrong…the walk of a European is erect and archaic .”

Husain believed that India no longer needed the influence of the Western culture and that Indian history and the religion of Hinduism already has a lot to inspire from. He believed that modern Indian art should follow the concept of 'Indianness' and should be recognized by the people on the streets of India.

Husain also took inspiration from strong pillars of India like Mother Terresa and Indra Gandhi for his paintings. His painting of a nude Bharat  Mata was heavily criticized following right-wing organizations to file an arrest on him for hurting religious and political sentiments.

The group which was founded in 1947, disbanded around the mid-1950s. Three group shows are recorded - 1949, 1950, and in 1953. The group disbanded as most of the founding members went overseas.

"It is a sad commentary on the cultural situation in our country and the level of art criticism. Our most creative talents in the field of art, music, and literature have had to turn to other countries through frustration and lack of recognition in their homeland. Just a few years ago three of our most eminent painters, namely Padamsee, Raza and Souza were almost hounded out of the country, not only through lack of appreciation but also through ignorant and inept attacks by the public and the press. These same painters have not only won recognition for contemporary Indian art abroad but have also carried away awards in international competitions." [1]

References:

[1] The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art For a New India edited by Zehra Jumabhoy and Boon Hui

[2]  M.F Husain’s Modern India by Bowdoin Journal of Art

[3] The Progressive Artist Group - by Rudra Majithia

[4] Bindu Period by Gayatri Sinha, India Today, 8/8/2016

[5] God, sex & Souza by Neelam Raj, Times News Network, 5/5/2010

[6] Francis Newton Souza- Enfant Terrible of Modern Art  by Neha Berlia

[7] Wikipedia

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Progressive Writers in Postcolonial India

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Orientalism left a hysteresis effect as our English-educated leaders diminished the vast pluralistic culture into a monolithic Hindu India. They diligently maintained the human degradation in Caste and created Quotas, levels, and sub-levels of the society. We live in a fractured society, and post-colonial modernism is its critical frame. Modernism challenges the reliability of elitist history that gave birth to the structure of the "national-popular" where the claim is: the ideas of the Nationalist elites motivated the people to the arena of "politics" from their "pre-political" state. Gandhi significantly created a vital strategy with 'mass,' using a larger front of the population in his peaceful protests. Since then, the presence of a large mass, the Janata, became a front in post-colonial politics. But this mass, ahistorical as they are, sometimes Hindus sometimes Muslims or Christians, the tribal or the city workers, but they always took the brunt of social maladies. They died in Bengal Famine, once crossed the borders during the Partition of India; now, they are the migrant-workers in millions lost job, shelter, and food, due to the sudden lockdown of the nation in the Covit-19 pandemic. This mass has no profile, never had, but essential in endless Yojanas, Bollywood scripts, and political rhetoric. Modernism has a historical belonging to the west. But ideas always traveled and found another context in new localization. In the Indian context, modernism could not be viewed as a simple translation as much of the realities and innovations have had different challenges. With the larger population outside the cities, modernism is not all urban-centric dialogue, like in Europe. It has its autonomous space and critical expressions, such as in literature, cinema, theatre, music, and contemporary folk expressions; it is a search in academic discourses and the Mantra in all developmental dynamism. Modernism creates ideas and consciousness but does not control individual or social action. However, within change and chaos, the tolling bell is already ringing. In essence, the emergence of corporatization created another sense of 'authenticity,' contextualizing global modernism. As it prioritized the global system, it already foreclosed on the autonomous trends of culture, focusing on transregional expansion. Westernism is yet the central theme where post-modernism flourishes with another connotation, the global modernism.

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... his periodic taunts directed at the Progressive movement, have not prevented recent scholars of Urdu literature, such as Priyamvada Gopal, from ... essay/story titled 'Sa'adat Hasan Manto.' Also in this category are Manto's genre-defying 'open letters,” including 'Pandit Manto's First ...

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Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was a versatile man of letters, who wrote in English as well Urdu. He was famous as a novelist, short story writer, playwright, and screen writer. He also wrote a travelogue and his own autobiography and was a very well known journalist. We have grown up watching his movies but hardly ever hear his name. Strangely enough, critics do not accept him as a writer, calling him a mere a journalist. Many even went so far as to call him ‘adab farosh’, because he sold his literary works to film industry which was considered taboo by them. His first novel was written in English, and he himself translated many of his works from Urdu. He wrote a column Last page for the English Blitz newspaper, the longest running column in the history of Indian journalism, as well as for its Urdu edition. Despite all this I could hardly find a well researched work on him. Not a single good book on him in English, or in Urdu can be found. There are some, but they are not well researched, and they underestimate Abbas’s accomplishments. For my dissertation I have chosen only a few of his works—his English novel Inqilab, considered a masterpiece, some famous short stories, and his travelogue. The first chapter introduces the Progressive Writers’ Movement, its formation, its objectives, and its influence on Indian literature. As Abbas was part of this, his writing has been influenced by this movement. The second chapter provides an introduction to Abbas’s life, his background, his books and style. The third chapter examines his masterpiece novel Inqilab. The chapter discusses the background of the novel and the autobiographical elements in it, and then analyses it thoroughly along with what other critics have said about it. The fourth chapter discusses his short stories. Here I have chosen only those of his short stories that have literary merit and are representative of his progessive worldview. The fifth chapter discusses his travelogue, Aik Musafir ki Diary, which is considered to be important as in it Abbas constantly presents pictures of exploitation in different, so called, affluent countries of the world. II Finally, the conclusion sums up Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s literary achievements and legacy.

Introduction Culture is a much complex term. It not only includes the fine arts such as painting, drawing, music, dance etc., but also includes literature, drama, media, science and technology, knowledge, architecture, religion, philosophy, foods and clothes etc., everything that is valuable and has been achieved by mankind through ages. All have their origin in the activities of man and nature, acting on each other. Man by his activities transformed nature to suit to his needs. His existence depends on either whatever is available to him in nature or whatever he has produced by acting on nature. Therefore, the process through which he produces his livelihood and which sustains him is basic to him and the rest of the other things are the results of this process and his relationship to his fellow men, and are called as superstructures. Relationship of base and superstructure in Marxist theory has been much discussed and debated by various writers. Here, we will first discuss Marx’s conception of it, its dimensions in various fields i.e. philosophy, religion, culture, etc., and move on to Gramsci and Raymond Williams’ analysis of it and their new concepts regarding hegemony and the material conditions determining the consciousness explaining the things more clearly rather than the concepts of base and superstructure and the clarifications of Engels to the questions raised in his time and will try to understand that the concepts expressed by Gramsci and Raymond Williams etc., are not new and we find them in the writings of Marx and Engels but Marxism is not a static but a living and evolving concept and these writers have not denied or contradicted what has been laid down by the founders of Marxism but further elaborated these concepts in the more developed and modern situations. We will also try to understand the workings of the hegemony in the field of culture, media, literature and theatre both by the ruling classes and the emerging classes and how they have evolved in our country and what are their effects.

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Orders of are accepted for higher levels only (University, Master's, PHD). Please pay attention that your current order level was automatically changed from High School/College to University.

Andre Cardoso

Customer Reviews

What is the best custom essay writing service?

In the modern world, there is no problem finding a person who will write an essay for a student tired of studying. But you must understand that individuals do not guarantee you the quality of work and good writing. They can steal your money at any time and disappear from sight.

The best service of professional essay writing companies is that the staff give you guarantees that you will receive the text at the specified time at a reasonable cost. You have the right to make the necessary adjustments and monitor the progress of the task at all levels.

Clients are not forced to pay for work immediately; money is transferred to a bank card only after receiving a document.

The services guarantee the uniqueness of scientific work, because the employees have special education and are well versed in the topics of work. They do not need to turn to third-party sites for help. All files are checked for plagiarism so that your professors cannot make claims. Nobody divulges personal information and cooperation between the customer and the contractor remains secret.

Write an essay from varied domains with us!

The experts well detail out the effect relationship between the two given subjects and underline the importance of such a relationship in your writing. Our cheap essay writer service is a lot helpful in making such a write-up a brilliant one.

Customer Reviews

A standard essay helper is an expert we assign at no extra cost when your order is placed. Within minutes, after payment has been made, this type of writer takes on the job. A standard writer is the best option when you’re on a budget but the deadline isn’t burning. Within a couple of days, a new custom essay will be done for you from the ground up. Unique content, genuine research, spot-on APA/MLA formatting, and peerless grammar are guaranteed. Also, we’ll provide you with a free title page, bibliography, and plagiarism check. With a standard writer, you can count on a quality essay that will live up to all your expectations.

Finished Papers

We suggest our customers use the original top-level work we provide as a study aid and not as final papers to be submitted in class. Order your custom work and get straight A's.

Essays service custom writing company - The key to success

Quality is the most important aspect in our work! 96% Return clients; 4,8 out of 5 average quality score; strong quality assurance - double order checking and plagiarism checking.

Diane M. Omalley

• Words to pages
• Pages to words
• Exploratory

Looking for something more advanced and urgent? Then opt-in for an advanced essay writer who’ll bring in more depth to your research and be able to fulfill the task within a limited period of time. In college, there are always assignments that are a bit more complicated and time-taking, even when it’s a common essay. Also, in search for an above-average essay writing quality, more means better, whereas content brought by a native English speaker is always a smarter choice. So, if your budget affords, go for one of the top 30 writers on our platform. The writing quality and finesse won’t disappoint you!

Premium essay writers

Essay writing help from a premium expert is something everyone has to try! It won’t be cheap but money isn’t the reason why students in the U.S. seek the services of premium writers. The main reason is that the writing quality premium writers produce is figuratively out of this world. An admission essay, for example, from a premium writer will definitely get you into any college despite the toughness of the competition. Coursework, for example, written by premium essay writers will help you secure a positive course grade and foster your GPA.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Expository Essay
• Persuasive Essay
• Reflective Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Admission Application/Essays
• Term Papers
• Essay Writing Service
• Research Proposal
• Research Papers
• Assignments
• Dissertation/Thesis proposal
• Research Paper Writer Service
• Pay For Essay Writer Help

Paper Writing Service Price Estimation

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Customer Reviews

We hire a huge amount of professional essay writers to make sure that our essay service can deal with any subject, regardless of complexity. Place your order by filling in the form on our site, or contact our customer support agent requesting someone write my essay, and you'll get a quote.

Finished Papers

Niamh Chamberlain

Customer Reviews

• Individual approach
• Fraud protection

Sophia Melo Gomes

Finished Papers

Our team of writers is native English speakers from countries such as the US with higher education degrees and go through precise testing and trial period. When working with EssayService you can be sure that our professional writers will adhere to your requirements and overcome your expectations. Pay your hard-earned money only for educational writers.

A writer who is an expert in the respective field of study will be assigned

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Emilie Nilsson

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