How Has the Personification of India and the Indian Woman Been Reflected in the Various Paintings of Mother India? Essay

I am India. The Indian race is my body. K any(prenominal)akumari is my foot and the Himalayas my head. The Ganges flows from my thighs. My left wing leg is the Coromandal Coast, my right is the Coast of Malabar. I am this entire shoot down. East and double-u argon my arms. How wondrous is my get When I walk I sense al bingle India moves with me. When I speak, India speaks with me. I am India. I am Truth, I am God, I am Beauty.These lines, written below the Hindoo right wing organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs poster of Bharat Mata, shows how the anthropomorphic corpse of the nation as well up as Indias cartographic form coalesce together into one single entity in the form of art. And with this paper, I will attempt to do an analysis on how India as well as the Indian Woman has been personified in the form of divers(a) images of the Bharat Mata in India.In 1905, Abanindranath Tagore painted the above iconic name of nonplus India. Clad in a saffron sari, resembling a Sadhvi, the motion picturery of bring forth India over here depicts that of a Blessed cleaning charhood radiating peace and calm. On observing the ikon carefully, one nonices the gossamer nimbus behind her head, the lotus pond next to which she is standing, and the four arms each carrying an item of figureic signifi deposece. A manuscript, a sheaf of foliage, rosary beads and a piece of fabric I pose her here as a goddess. She emits grace, placidity on her face, conferring boons she is the epitome of the Goddesses Sita, Savitri, Saraswati and Lakshmi.On analyzing Nargis fictitious character of Radha in the make Mother India, one can verify that the ideals that Radha entered her conjugation can be mirrored in Abanindranath Tagores painting. Sita, cosmos the embodiment of worth, Savitri, exemplarily devoted wife, and Lakshmi, the goddess of riches and good fortune (brides are customarily likened to Lakshmi and to whom Sukhilal explicitly, and somewhat ironically, likens Radha). In the beginning of the demand, we see a timid Radha, entering her brotherhood with the ideals of creation a perfect wife, devoting herself to her hubby, exhibiting truth andchastity. These basic ideals dont metamorphose throughout the take. We see her sacrificing her food for her conserve and children we see her maintaining her chastity even though she could have foregone the debt by having familiar relations with Sukhilal. As personified by the moving picture as well, she maintains this image of being a pure woman, displaying devotion to her homeland and fasting towards her marriage. As Sister Nivedita aptly puts it, what Tagore sees in Her is made clear to all of us. ticker of the motherland, giver of all good, yet evermore virgin. The misty lotuses and the white lilting set Her apart from the common world, as much as the four arms, and Her multitudinous love. And yet in every detail, of Shankha bracelet, and conclusion veiling garment, of bare fe et, and open, sincere expression, is she not later all, our very own, heart of our heart, at once mother and daughter of the Indian land, even as to the Rishis of old was Ushabala, in her Indian girlhood, daughter of the dawn?During the independency period, there was a drastic diversify in the imagery of Mother India. From the pre-independence belief process of Bharat Mata as a serene, holy woman radiating peace and calm, the images that soon followed were that of strength, anger, wit, and innovation. Images of Gandhi being held by Mother India, Mother India meet by freedom fighters, Subhash Chandra Bose cutting false his head and offering it to the Mother on a platter. Even though the visuals managed to transfix the audience, it wasnt approximately the art form delineate but the message.On flavour at the first image presented here, on the RSS poster, one can see how the incarnation of Mother India changed immensely from the passive judge that she once was. We see a woman occupying the map of the nation, giving the nation as body a very touchable egg-producing(prenominal) form. We have here an image which takes its meanings from a wide range of heathen signifiers the smiling face of the goddess standing in front of her lion, aspect directly into the gaze of onlookers. This particular image, very famous throughout the outlandish, continues to look at people from posters and calendars everywhere. battleful and self-assured, she no longer resembles the way Abanindranath Tagore stand for her.The title Mother India immediately situates the film within the discourse of the Freedom Movement, and the film is seen to be as much about nationhood as womanhood. In the painting, I facial expression the Bharat Mata depicted as a symbol of fe manly empowerment the confidence in her eyes, the lion besides her. Radha, in the film Mother India is symbolized in the same way. She is confronted by the choice to either display allegiance towards her land or let her maternally love overpower it. But she chooses her land and goes against her familial instincts to fight for it. The transition from the painting by Abanindranath Tagores Bharat Mata to the poster by the RSS can be seen as a vision of a new Utopia that integrates features from two societies. The traditional night club, fundamentally morally sound. A woman, whose integrity never left her side. merely this society (in our analogy, India) was vulnerable to the vagaries of personality (the west). Mother India became a symbol of empowerment. Remaining real to her ethics, she opened herself up to modernity, letting herself perform influenced by the west. As mentioned by Rosie doubting Thomas, baron in the new society is generated by control of both oppression is ousted and the hazards of nature overcome with modern technology, but the purity of traditional values symbolized by female chastity must still bless, and at last legitimize, technological advance. And Mother India did open the dam. As depicted by the RSS poster, India transitioned from a traditional Mother to that of a symbol of womans strength.The final painting that I will attempt to analyze is M.F. Hussains Bharat Mata. A nude woman, depicted in red, spread over the soil of this country with a man observing her and the various city names strewn in the background. irrelevant the previous two paintings, which depict pacification and empowerment, this depicts oppression. And probably, the one painting that captures the essence of being a woman in India male dominance in a society where a woman has no voice, this is what the painting speaks to me. Taking references from the film Mother India, at the beginning of the film she is forced into marriage without voicing her own opinion. Her head is cover by a shroud, eyes looking down a sad and easygoing figure. She listens to her Mother-in-law without a peep, submits to her husband. When there are references to Radha and her husband being pare nts of sons, she just smiles.And even after the loss of her youngest child, a daughter, hardly any emphasis is given on the emotions of the situation. The woman is also viewed as an object of inner desire, apparent when Sukhilal makes sexual advances towards her. This shifts our focus to the objectification of a woman in Indian Society. Objectification is cognize to be those portrayals of women in ways and contexts which send word that women are objects to be looked at, ogled, even touched, or used. From ancient scriptures, a revolted Sita (from the epic Ramayana) to a modern day Delhi gang corrupt victim, there are countless examples of how women are commoditized. Even in Bollywood, nowadays or else than celebrating a womens sensuality, they are depicted as an object or a toy of the Heros antics or to celebrate his success or his dreams. Or as a product that has been marketed by the catchy medium called media. Taking instances from the Hindu epics, in the story of Parashuram, his mother, Renuka, experiences a brief desire for some other man. For this crime of plan, her own son beheads her on the orders of her husband, Jamadagni. She eventually comes to be associated with the goddess Yellamma, who is associated with prostitution. In the story of Ram, Sitas abduction by Ravan so taints her reputation, and makes her the subject of such gossip, that Ram eventually abandons her. In neither story is the woman actually assaulted. It does not matter. In Devdutt Pattanaiks words, the idea of being violated is terrible enough. The idea that what is yours has claimed another in thought (Renukas story) or has been claimed by another in thought (Sitas story) is enough to deflate honor. The prosopopoeia of the Nation and the Indian Woman represented in Abanindranath Tagore, the RSS poster and M.F. Hussains paintings gives us a single window of cleverness of the various perceptions of the same. Sacredness, empowerment and oppression iii concepts depicted by t hree crotchety paintings representing the same ideology. And as it is often quoted, A picture is worth a gibibyte words. 1 . The Goddess and the Nation, mapping Mother India Sumathi Ramaswamy 2 . Many Avatars of Bharat Mata BN Goswamy, The Tribune 3 . Mythology of Mother India Rosie Thomas 4 . The Life and Times of Bharat Mata Sadan Jha, Manushi abbreviate 142 5 . Mythology of Mother India Rosie Thomas 6 . Essay, A Womans physical structure Devdutt Pattanaik