The Week India – June 30, 2019

86 THE WEEK • JUNE 30, 2019

BY NIRMAL JOVIAL

A

gaunt, greying man whose rib bones can be

numbered. But his face has a confi dent, wide

smile; his eyes have a certain mystique. THE

WEEK cover features a Gandhi who is far away

from a cinematic image. Th is Gandhi on canvas was created

early this year by the celebrated artist Riyas Komu, who was

inspired by a 1931 photograph of Gandhi in London. Titled

Oru Jathimadam, the 6x5ft oil painting has the “fakir stand-

ing defi antly against a violent world”. Komu talks about his

major works on Gandhi. Excerpts:

What did you learn about Gandhi while researching for

your paintings?

Th e most important thing in Gandhian actions is the way

he trusted God as witness. We all know how he reversed the

statement ‘God is Truth’ into ‘Truth is God’ while con-

versing with an atheist. He said: “I see and fi nd beauty in

truth or through truth. All truths, not merely true ideas, but

truthful faces, truthful pictures or songs are highly beauti-

ful.... Whenever men begin to see beauty in truth, then true

art will arise (Young India, 13-11-1924).”

In our ‘post-truth’ times, it is compelling and incumbent

upon us to revisit Gandhi’s engagement with the idea of

truth as a witness or as a measure and test of every human

act. Another signifi cant thing that amazed me was the way

he treated ‘the other’ vis-a-vis his self. Th e legacy Gandhi

gave us is that of nonviolence, and India as a nation is built

on such a legacy. Th e crisis [that] the idea of ‘Gandhi’ is

now facing is not only political but also deeply religious.

Deeply infl uenced both by Indian traditions

and western modernity with all the challenges

both posed, Gandhi’s struggles and experiments

with truth were directed within and without. So,

today I search/re-search Gandhi amidst people.

Gandhi/sm becomes all the more signifi cant in

two more ways: as to what it contains or points to

as well as the ways in which it opened itself out to

the world, life and nature. Gandhi inspires me be-

cause the very act—creation/making—was at the

core of his scheme of things. For Gandhi, action

was the way of imagining. In other words, acting

was a spontaneous expression of imagination for

him. My journeys and research through various

manifestations like the scriptures, texts, philos-

ophies and images, are to enable us to imagine

while acting and vice versa. In my art, I work

towards imaging and imagining a diff erent world

where life is more humane and wholesome, rath-

er than oppressive, divisive and alienating.

In your work ‘Gandhi from Kochi’ (2015),

which is again a series of paintings inspired by

the same 1931 photograph, you showed Gandhi

in a revolutionary red background.

Th e infamous words of Churchill in 1931 testify

Gandhi as a thorn in the fl esh of the British em-

pire: “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr

Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now

posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East,

striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal

GANDHI PROJECTS

ARE MY EXPERIMENTS

WITH TIME

■ INTERVIEW

Riyas Komu

artist