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Art and the Middle Class! (Part 4)
Through this article series, Satish Naik, Editor of Chinha Art News takes an overview of the changing art scenario in Maharashtra and India with a special reference to the artistic taste of the middle class. This insightful series offers glimpses of various transformative phases of the art world through the past decades till today. In this fourth part, the growing urbanization and declining art culture in the state is reviewed.
Today, the construction business is booming. Anywhere you go, even in remote settlements, towers have started cropping up. Malvan is my home town, located about five hundred and fifty kilometers from Mumbai. But when I saw ten to twelve storied towers come up there in my recent visit, I realized that the builders have literally captured this area and so also the entire Maharashtra. In the past, knightly kings used to conquer territories one by one by mounting raids. This is the modern form of it. Barring a few exceptions, almost all politicians have become builders now. How would their followers be left behind when the leaders collect immense black money for their monstrous ambitions and feed it to the tribe called builders and have started ruining every city by building large settlements in every city in Maharashtra?
First Mumbai, then Pune, then Nashik, then Nagpur, after the capture of each city by the builders fed by these leaders, it would have been surprising if their followers had not followed in their footsteps and started turning villages into cement concrete jungles. This is the implication of these towers which are being erected by bending all rules and regulations in a scenic place like Malvan, which is considered as ‘God’s Land’.
Those politicians who have unlimited and monstrous ambitions, who do not even know the meaning of the word ‘culture’, are the same as their stupid followers who are the builders. This inhospitable alliance has literally played havoc on Maharashtra’s urbanization, civilization and culture. Once upon a time the post of ‘Town Planner’ was in place in Maharashtra. I know this because the father of one of my friends from J J held that post. It was from him that I got to know the importance of this post. But now I don’t know if it exists anymore or not. Probably not. In fact, someone must have brought there a dumb fellow with connections. Obviously, there is no wonder if all MPs, MLAs, Corporators, Zilla Parishad members, Gram Panchayat members etc. in every district of Maharashtra have become ‘unauthorized town planners’ overnight. As a result, the construction business flourished in Maharashtra on a large scale and each district got urbanized.
This urbanization would have been appropriate to the least if it had included well trained technicians. But as that did not happen, and due to unrestricted felling of trees as well as extensive filling of river banks and creek borders ignoring the flood line, flooding became a common phenomenon everywhere. With that all the cities and villages started becoming inhospitable. Apart from Konkan, Goa and Kolhapur district in the western Maharashtra, Marathi community elsewhere had no sacrament of art. The connection between the Marathi community and art was severed soon after reaching the fifth standard in school, wherein the crayons or colour pencils that were held by them in the Montessori class, started falling off.
A large number of artists emerged from the Konkan region during that period. Haldankar Father-Son duo, Acharekar, Adarkar, Amberkar, Dhond, Fernandes, Gaitonde, Chimulkar, Chudekar, Dalal, Nageshkar, Parandekar, Pai, Karmarkar, Manjrekar, Mulgaonkar, Sadwelkar, Souza, Sonawadekar and so many to name. The curious must read Dhond Master’s book (Mauj Prakashan) in this regard. From that one can know how the artists of Konkan influenced Maharashtra. Some of these names are from Goa. But since it is the same strip of land, I have deliberately kept it that way. What can be said about Konkan, same is the case about Kolhapur too. Kolhapur is a city of art. This city’s love for art is unparalleled. I am reminded of an anecdote narrated by Baburao Sadwelkar.
(To be continued)
Satish Naik
Editor, Chinha Art News
Prior publication: ‘Samatawadi MuktSanvad Patrika’ Monthly, September 2023.
Re-published in ‘Chinha Art News’ with prior consent of the editor.
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