ShahidulNews

Bangladesh, Pakistan and India through a lens

A major new exhibition of photographs from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India leaves novelist Kamila Shamsie troubled, captivated – and wanting more

Mohammad Arif Ali's photograph of rain in Lahore. Photograph: White Star, Karachi/Whitechapel gallery

So much for the post-national, globalised world. Looking through hundreds of photographs from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which will go on show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London this month, I find myself unable to follow the curators’ lead. Wisely, they have chosen to group the images thematically, rather than according to nationality; but almost immediately I am looking hungrily for Pakistan (my homeland), largely ignoring India, and pausing longest at pictures of Bangladesh from 1971, the year in which it ceased to be East Pakistan.

It isn’t that I don’t find anything of interest in India or in photographs of it. But of the three nations, India has always been the most visually reproduced; many of the photographs taken there feel over-familiar. This is not the over-familiarity of a scene I’ve personally witnessed or inhabited: it is the compositions or the subject matter or sometimes the photograph itself that I feel I’ve seen time and time again. There is Gandhi stepping out of that train; there are the Mumbai boys leaping into a body of water on a hot day; there is the movie poster in the style of movie posters.

It is something of a surprise to find how intent I am on tracking down pictures of Pakistan. I have spent the greater part of my life there and will be returning shortly, but neither homesickness nor estrangement lie behind my wanting to see more. It is the role of photographs themselves in Pakistan that may serve as explanation. There is still very little appreciation of photo-graphy as an art form, so pictures tend to fall into three categories: private celebrations, news – and cricket. I have seen countless pictures of weddings, of burning buses, of a fast bowler winding his arm over his shoulder at the end of his run-up. Life’s more quotidian details occur away from the lens, and so feel unacknowledged. Pakistan is a nation tremendously poor at acknowledging what goes on when it comes to individual lives, and bad at acknowledging the sweep of its own history. Great areas of the past and present remain away from the nation’s gaze.

If there is one period in history from which Pakistan most adamantly averts its eyes, it is 1971. That year, Pakistan ceased to be a nation with two wings, and the state of Bangladesh came into being. And so I turn to the Bangladeshi photographers in order to fix my gaze on that blood-soaked epoch. I don’t even realise I’m doing this, at first. I think I’m looking at a man’s head, cast in marble; the sculpture is cheek-down amid a cluster of stones, almost camouflaged by them. Then I read the caption: “Dismembered head of an intellectual killed 14 December 1971 by local collaborators of Pakistani army. Bangladesh.” It is extraordinarily eerie, and sad. There are other pictures of that period, too. Many, if not all, will probably be familiar to anyone from Bangladesh; none are part of Pakistan’s consciousness.

Pakistan’s erasure of its own muddled history is the subject of Bani Abidi’s witty series of photographs, The Ghost of Mohammad Bin Qasim. In the nation’s attempt to create an official history, which focuses on Muslims in the subcontinent (rather than Pakistan’s geographical boundaries), the Arab general Bin Qasim (712 AD) was lauded for being the first Muslim to successfully lead a military campaign in India – even though he did little to consolidate his position. In Abidi’s photographs, a man in Arab dress is shot at different locations in Karachi, including the mausoleum of the nation’s secular founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The man is clearly Photoshopped in, deliberately so: he represents the attempt to graft a false history on to Pakistan, linking it to the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia.

While Abidi’s work asks the viewer to engage with history and politics, there are others that draw a more visceral response. Mohammad Arif Ali’s photograph of rain in Lahore captures the size and force of raindrops during the monsoons; the vivid colours at the edge of the frame also evoke how startlingly rinsed of dust the whole world looks. The boy darting out into the downpour, ahead of a line of traffic, his shalwar kameez plastered to his skin, is both lord of the world and a tiny creature, in danger of being crushed. It brings a familiar world vividly to mind. And yet, of course, exactly this scene could be played out – and photographed – in Delhi or Dhaka. It is foolish of me to think of it as quintessentially Pakistani. Sometimes these countries are three; sometimes one: the movement between three distinct nations and one region is impossible to pin down.

Away from the pictures of 1971, the Bangladeshi images are both unfamiliar (Munem Wasif‘s picture of a Burmese worker struggling through bushes in Bangladesh) and familiar: notably, Abir Abdullah’s Women Working in Old Dhaka, which shows two women making chapatis together, though their positioning suggests distance rather than camaraderie. Is their lack of proximity a consequence of class or personality?

I turn back to the pictures of India and am almost immediately struck by Ram Rahman’s Young Wrestlers, Delhi: two boys, each wearing a pair of briefs. It is mystifying that I didn’t notice before how one of them stares assertively at the camera, his muscles relaxed, in the most casual of poses. The other’s eyes are unsure, his muscles tensed, he is trying to suck in his stomach and puff up his chest, and there is a rip, it seems, in his briefs. The boys are touching but it’s clear they aren’t friends – not at the moment, at least. I worry for the tensed boy. He is going to lose his wrestling match; he is going to lose it badly.

And then there is Anay Mann’s picture of a breastfeeding woman with headphones over her ears: she looks wary, her head angled away from the camera. Is there someone in the room, just out of the camera’s reach? Or has she retreated into her own thoughts? And why is it that children’s toys can add such menace to a picture, as is the case with the yellow smiling object, its head bobbing, at the edge of the image?

I would see this exhibition differently if it were in Karachi. Or Mumbai. Or Dhaka. In London, I am so far removed from these landscapes I’m aware of the photographs’ “otherness”. But there’s also this: any kind of simultaneous engagement between these three nations, with so much in common and so much that sets them apart, is almost unheard of within the subcontinent itself. In Karachi, Dhaka or Mumbai, I would spend a very long time watching people look at these photographs. How we see ourselves; how we see each other – these two questions would be politically charged where they are not here. Strange that, only 63 years after the Raj, London should seem such a historically neutral venue, comparatively speaking.

A Rare Treat

Subscribe to ShahidulNews

Zainul Abedin, S. M. Sultan, Shahabuddin, Manzoor Alam Beg, the list goes on. What a delightful treat. What a rare opportunity for Bangladeshis to see original works of art by these legendary artists all under one roof. Drik and the Prince Claus Fund go back a long way. The Fund has been a long standing patron of Chobi Mela, our festival of photography and Drik is a Network partner of the fund. Both organisations see culture as a catalyst for change. At a time when the world is divided and most western organisations have played safe on controversial issues, the fund has recognised and awarded outspoken artists and has ensured that their voices be heard, through their publications and by supporting and recognising their art. That has been the basis of our solidarity, and Drik has had the honour of participating in many of these projects. The Mondrian Foundation is a new friend. But the Foundation’s attempts to bridge cultural gaps is very much in keeping with Drik’s own ideals. The Netherlands Embassy remains a trusted partner.

International curators at the exhibition “Contemporary Art of Bangladesh” at the Drik Gallery. The show opened 13 March 2008 and includes original artwork from 1948 till 2008 by some of the legends of Bangladeshi Art. © Monirul Alam

This exhibition is very special. Rarely have Bangladeshis had the opportunity of seeing the work of so many outstanding artists under one roof. There are two others at the Asiatic Gallery and at Pathshala. It is a welcome change to see more inclusive exhibitions, where traditional art forms have made way for more contemporary practice. The artists have been very generous with their works, making them available at short notice and without fuss. We value this trust and are grateful for their support. Nisar Hossain admirably steered the process. Combining his passion and his leadership with delicate tact, ensuring that no feathers were ruffled and no feelings hurt. But what a treat they’ve served.

Shahidul Alam

Contemporary Art of Bangladesh

Contemporary art in Bangladesh is a vital activity. Yet its history is short, it started when an art school was set up in Dhaka in 1948 by Zainul Abedin and a few of his colleagues almost immediately after the independence of the Indian sub-continent and creation of the state of Pakistan.

Zainul Abedin @ Drik Gallery

Safiuddin Ahmed @ Drik Gallery

The Government Institute of Arts, like any other liberal, scientific and technical educational institute of this country, was established along old colonial British models. The obvious initial result was development of art forms resembling British academic tradition. But the more talented among the young graduates soon discovered the twentieth century modern art forms and willingly or unconsciously became part of this new tradition.

S M. Sultan @ Drik Gallery

Golam Kasem (Daddy) @ Drik Gallery
The artists in Bangladesh could have searched for inspiration in the very rich sculptural tradition of the country which thrived here of many centuries and whose collections are not at all insignificant. It is known that Bengal also has some heritage of drawing, painting and woodcut print making. This tradition is said to date back to the 8th century (Pala dynasty) and continued in some form or other till the 19th century. The Bengal Pata painting and the old (Ramanaya) rolls constitute the painting heritage of Bangladesh. But unfortunately, few examples of such art survive till today and few if any of the modern young artists of Bangladesh have seen them in original or even as good reproduction. For a few senior artists of Bangladesh, Jamini Roy has been a source of inspiration, and through him they have tried to search their own identity and establish a contact with the Bengal folk painting tradition. The revivalist movement of Abanindranath Tagore which has been termed by some as a partial and detour-search for tradition, has never been seriously considered by Bangladeshi artists. Neither the old Indian nor Islamic art had a significant influence upon the contemporary artists of Bangladesh. Only recently some young painters are exploring the possibility of adapting older Indian art techniques and forms.
Abir Abdullah @ Pathshala

Saidul Huque Juise @ Asiatic Gallery

The contemporary art of Bangladesh is thus based on the models of twentieth century Western art rather than anything else. Modern art has now attained universality with direct or indirect influence all over the world. The Bengali artist work within that great paradigm and as in any paradigm, so it is also in art there is a great scope for local variation and for development of original schools and of course, of individual style. The art scene in Bangladesh is no exception. The modern artist in Bangladesh has used the styles, techniques and temperament of Western art to express himself, his feelings, his emotion, his environment and his society, Sometimes, as has been noted earlier, a few have also tried the traditional-local and Oriental style, techniques and approaches as alternatives to the Western model. Sometimes there has also been a successful blending of the two.

Professor Nazrul Islam