Even as the world and the rest of India was living in isolation and trembling in fear in the wake of the first wave of Covid-19, those in Kerala were pitched into another nerve-wracking situation: the inter-state borders were sealed off; truckloads of cereals, grain, grocery and vegetables from the neighbouring states were stopped from moving to the state. For the first time, it was shockingly brought to the imminent danger of its blissful consumerism—what had been common knowledge for decades was now felt at the pit of the stomach.
Rice production in Kerala, which has a history of more than 4,000 years, has been spiralling downward. Kerala now depends on other states for 80% of its domestic rice consumption. The case of cereals, vegetables and other essentials gives us more or less the same picture. Despite many universities, many more colleges and institutions devoting themselves to the study of agricultural science and engineering, and an equally good number of government departments, boards and research centres functioning to promote agriculture, no perceptible change was felt. Still, the state looked unusually handsome and healthy, and was even proud of its developmental model. In reality, there was always heavy internal bleeding.
Widespread unemployment was its insidious disease. It was steadily resolved through emigration, particularly to the Middle East (89.2%). “One of the pillars of the Kerala model of development for the last four decades has been emigration and remittances. The Covid-19 pandemic has started the process of destroying the pillar,” says one study. For the past one year (May 2020 to June 2021), around 15 lakh Keralites working abroad have returned to the state, of which 10 lakh are found unemployed with no hope of returning. This is going to hit the state economy in no time, giving rise to painful stories of depression.
This is not to be seen as a crisis that rained all of a sudden with the outbreak of the pandemic. Although there were efforts, and still there are, to promote agriculture, the state could not largely accomplish a sustainable agrarian economy that guarantees both self-sufficiency in food security and employment in allied areas.The pandemic has just brought this ground reality back to our sight. It speaks much for the system of art prior to the pandemic.
There is no denying that art is not as inevitable as agriculture. Still, it is curious to see that human culture in its long history has never been willing to renounce art, even during its hard struggle for existence. This alone encapsulates the fact that man, essentially a “thinking consciousness” (Hegel), also needs food for thought, and art contributes an important ingredient in it. It implies that art cannot manifest itself in seclusion, but in constant touch with society. In this broad sense, it is not the artist but society that produces art. It is the same society that consumes what it produces. However, this social structure of reciprocal relationship of production-reception was a thing of the past. Deep fissures began to develop in it once the traditional patronage was lost forever in the wake of modernity. We could not offer in its place an alternative with a balanced production-consumption system of art.
Its profound consequence has rippled through diverse areas. Out-migration of Malayalee artists to cosmopolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, etc., has been one of its ever-increasing spin-offs (which corresponds to the Malayalee emigrants to the Middle East). It is true, some of them have regular shows in India or abroad, have good catches in the art market and are placed in a full blaze of fame. Moreover, over the decades, they have been contributing a significant share to what constitutes “contemporary Indian art” (just as Kerala contributes the major share in India in the export of spices). Despite this, to a great extent, it articulates individual narratives of struggle and success in a competitive field. It does not represent a socially engaged artistic culture of a given society but an alienated dream world that the emerging artists at their homeland can aspire for, like most unemployed Malayalees awaiting an offer from abroad.
Back to Kerala, there is something baffling. Unlike literature and film, which predominate the cultural sphere in the state, the public has been maintaining social distance from the art exhibition since its emergence. Whatever reasons one can cite, it results both in the lack of visual sensibility abreast of the times and the absence of a domestic art market. In other words, Kerala has never been engaged in art as a socially productive venture. Yet, it suffers not from the lack of production but from overproduction and over-visibility. Annually, around 19,000 works are put on public view across the state, only to find their way back to artists’ own studios. Artists busy themselves with producing works of art. At the same time, they struggle to eke out a living.
To effect a radical change in this direction, a new artistic culture offering new sensibility and economy was introduced through the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Returns to the tune of Rs 1,500 crore was expected in its every edition. But it could not strike a positive chord so far, both aesthetically and economically, except for the stream of visitors. Something again went wrong deep into this whole imagination. Like the agrarian economy, here too we are left with passive consumption of the essentials of the contemporary world art without having active involvement in its production. The crux of the problem, as Arnold Hauser says elsewhere, is that sensibility or ‘good taste is not the root but the fruit of artistic culture’. It is this crucial point we are missing. We have seeds and the land. But we did not prepare the land for the seeds to sprout. If we continue to ignore the significance of this grassroots-level work but concentrate on staging international art events, it will be self-deception for cultural snobbism.
Chandran T V
Art critic & author. Teaches art history at the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram
(chandrantv67@gmail.com)