Celebrating Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th Birth Anniversary
Lithographs | Art365
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is known as Mahatma meaning ‘Great Soul’. He was an astute political campaigner and his example of non-violent protest is still revered throughout the world today. It lead to the successful campaign for India's independence from British Rule and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
Born and raised in coastal Gujarat and trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for various social causes and for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.
Gandhi led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and political protest.
Popular art, as we know it today, was born in the dying years of the 19th century, spurred by the genius of Raja Ravi Varma and the emergence of cheap printing technology. The Indian print is part of a strong tradition of art for the masses. It has been used for dissemination of information, entertainment, advertising and propaganda.
The idea of printing caught on in a big way when India was in the throes of fighting British colonial rule and it was not long before the images of Bharat Mata (Mother India) & the well known political figures of the day, all of whom had caught the imagination of an oppressed populace in India and beyond, were on posters, labels and calendars.
Printing presses like the Ravi Varma Press, Chitrashala Press, Brijbasi & Sons, SC Banerjee & Co, Photo Service Company, Kwality Calendar Company, Vadilal Dyeing & Printing Works, Calcutta Phototype Co, Joshi Art Works and Modern Pictures Publishers churned out prints in large numbers. The heroes of the freedom movement were elevated to the status of quasi-divinity. These were sold cheap in shops or distributed on the streets and came to be identified as street art.
Today, these posters and prints are difficult to obtain and have become collectors’ items. They provide not only a historic account of a particularly turbulent and inspiring time in modern India’s history, but also hold their own as works of art.
Gandhi's birthday on the 2nd of October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Our collection of lithographs, photographs and prints celebrates the father of the nation on his 150th birth anniversary and the movement he led that helped India achieve her independence.
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