‘We want to see a society that is based on the Indian Constitution’: Curator Prabhakar Kamble

In August 2019, on the occasion of the second centenary of the discovery of the Ajanta Caves, a group of 50 arts came together for a workshop at the footsteps of the world heritage site. Organised Secular Art Movement, the workshop was based on the book, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India social reformer BR Ambedkar. The research and works that came out of that national workshop are currently exhibited at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. On display till March 28, the exhibition marks Secular Art Movement’s first gallery outing.

Curator Prabhakar Kamble, convenor of Secular Art Movement, has named the exhibition after Ambedkar’s book, calling it “Revolution and Counter-Revolution”. “This is a rare combination of arts. There are people from rural backgrounds and from urban areas. There are arts who are self-taught and those with formal training. The common thread is their ideology,” says Kamble.
‘Home is a woman’s sphere’ Mayura Chari. (Photo: PR handout)
The exhibition features 60 arts, including those who contributed their works after the workshop concluded. There is Mumbai-based Vikrant Bhise with his painting titled Labour Leader, which shows a labourer cleaning a statue of Ambedkar, covering its eyes in the process. This is the art’s comment on the exploitative conditions that informal sector workers are put through, a situation that Ambedkar would have been greatly aggrieved . The painting came out of observations of migrant labourers during the pandemic, where changes in labour laws have affected their legal protection. In a similar vein, art Shailesh Patne evokes through locked grinding stones how governments failed the people during lockdowns. Daisy K’s photograph of the now-demolished Bharat Bhushan Printing Press in Dadar is also seen here. The press, once known as Buddha Bhushan Printing Press, was started Ambedkar in 1927. Mayura Chari uses a silk sari to portray the patriarchal norms that govern women’s labour. Inspired a poem social reformer Savitribai Phule, Chari embroiders the line ‘Home is a woman’s sphere’ on the sari in 14 different languages.

The Secular Art Movement is a branch of the Secular Movement, founded in 2014 academic Gautamiputra Kamble, who was associated with the Ambedkarite social foundation, Dalit Panthers. The group follows the secular thought that is the hallmark of Phule-Ambedkarite ideology and the Indian Constitution, drafted Ambedkar. Secular Art Movement, which was founded in 2018, has previously had exhibitions at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on Ambedkar Jayanti, which falls on December 6. “Revolution and Counter-Revolution” is one of the rare instances when Ambedkarite art finds a presence in a gallery. Kamble says, “The exhibition is not only Ambedkarite arts but secular arts. It is there for intervening in all the systems that cause and endorse exploitation, mainly religious exploitations. We want to see a society that is based on the Indian Constitution.”
Hatred in the belly Shraddha More. (Photo: PR handout)
In the exhibition, Ranjeeta Kumari uses the Preamble of the Indian Constitution but questions its implementation painting images of marginalised people over it.
Kamble says, “In the midst of rising fasc power, we think art is a non-violent tool. We have a different definition of art. Art is not for art’s sake.”
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