BENGALURU: Not many hand-painted watercolour posters have the proud legacy of being the backdrop of the 51st session of the Indian National Congress, held in 1938. Commissioned by MK Gandhi himself, the Haripura Panels, a collection of 400 posters painted by the renowned painter Nandalal Bose, provide a crucial picture of rural India from a time when the country was engaged in the freedom struggle.
Bengaluru finally has the privilege of witnessing this piece of India’s legacy, with the artworks currently being exhibited at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) on Vasanth Nagar. “These panels form part of the NGMA (Delhi) permanent collection and these have been declared as the national treasures. NGMA Bengaluru has been trying to get these panels to the city for quite some time. The proposal was initiated in 2018 and approved by the advisory committee. But thereafter, a lot of logistical and procedural things were involved leading to the delay,” says Nazneen Banu, the director of NGMA Bengaluru.
The Haripura Panels depict the everyday life of villagers in India. “Bose was asked by Gandhi to create a township kind of ambience using local materials, everything was Swadeshi. He had already executed other projects with Gandhi because at that time he was heading the Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan. About 84 of the 400 paintings were created by Bose himself and the rest were with his students and other teachers,” Banu explains. Out of the 84, 77 are now exhibited at the NGMA Bengaluru. “A couple of these exhibits were moved and displayed in fragments but this is the first time all the 77 panels are being shown comprehensively at NGMA Bengaluru.
The panels will be showcased in the city for at least 4-6 months. “We will be keeping it for as long as we can here since extensive amounts of resources have been used to get the panels. We want more and more people to be able to see it.” The exhibition also features a copy of the Constitution of India, featuring illustrations by Bose. NGMA has also launched an audio tour of the exhibition for the public. The exhibition was inaugurated by the Governor of Karnataka, Thaawarchand Gehlot, on November 3.
(The ongoing show will be open to the public until April ’24)