Bhagat Singh Picture Concept

Bhagat Singh's picture concept

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The Immortal' is a multi-level painting by Bhagat Singh made by Indian origin artist Kanwal Dhaliwal from London, United Kingdom. He is connected to the London branch of Progressive Writers Association (PWA). This organization includes Indian and Pakistani origin people.

Dhaliwal has composed something in this 'The Immortal' which was not seen before. Hundreds of artists have been imagining Bhagat Singh in their own way for decades. However, at times the concept of Bhagat Singh, one of the most famous heroes of the Indian freedom struggle has been a very unrefined.

Bhagat Singh has been introduced as a ghise-pite in many artworks. When Bhagat Singh was alive and in jail, his pictures started being made. Back then, the only real picture of the emerging hero was accessible among people and people imagined it. That picture of him was from April 1929, taken by Ramnath, a photographer of Delhi's Kashmiri Gate. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt both visited the photographer's shop on 3rd April, 1929 to use this photo for publicity after bomb throwing at the Central Assembly in Delhi. Actually Bhagat Singh and Dutt had not seen that picture until the picture was printed in an Urdu daily Bande Mataram published in Lahore on 12 April and then on 18 April, 1929.

Bhagat Singh's colleagues had received that picture and that picture negative from photography studio and handed it to media. Artists had started drawing pictures of these heroes during the hunger strike of Singh and his colleagues. However, the day they were hanged, it was very fast to make their pictures after 23 March 1931.

In these pictures, Bhagat Singh offering his head to Mother India, or three martyrs, i.e. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev flying towards heaven and many more such ideas were made. Most of these pictures were printed as posters from Kanpur and Lahore and were immediately banned. Yet, many magazines printed these, and in many homes they were being used as a calendar or poster on the wall. Even match boxes had these paintings printed. Most of these were in black and white. Colorful printing and poster/calendar tradition was able to start after independence. By that time, hypocrisy had occupied aesthetics! Moustache in these pictures, Bhagat Singh holding a gun looked like that terrorist, as the British used to call them. In many places, the tradition of making their idols also became common. This was also because most of these artists had not read Bhagat Singh's writings and thoughts regarding his life and society.

Attached here are some more known photos of these paintings to understand how Bhagat Singh's concept is not only Indian, but international artists. There is a painting made by Amar Singh, which is used by the Chief Minister of Punjab in his office. This painting was made by then Chief Minister of Punjab Gyani Jail Singh. Another painting is of Australian painter Daniel Connell, identified by London-based Punjabi poet Amarjit Chandan and has used it without mentioning the artist's name in his story. Here are two more different moods created by unknown painters. In one painting Bhagat Singh is shown with a gun, while in another painting he is shown with a book. Thus, artists see and understand reality through their own perspective; according to Maxime Gorky's thoughts, a realistic artist is closer to reality through his art. However, in the tradition of "Just Art for Art", this reality can take any shape in an artist's imagination and especially in visual art such as painting.

This situation has changed a bit after getting glimpses of Bhagat Singh's writing and thoughts in some poems, dramas and fiction literature and ideological/educational debates. Some artists took a formula from this ideology-based image of Bhagat Singh and started painting on his original face again.

Only four pictures of Bhagat Singh are real. The first picture was taken at 11 years old, the second at 17, the third at 20 years old, and the last picture was about 22. The first two pictures are white turban, the third picture is with no turban open long hair and beard, in police custody. The last picture of him is the most famous picture of him wearing a hat and this is the same picture that Ramnath took. Bhagat Singh has never worn a yellow or saffron turban, as hundreds of pictures made by sabotaging, trying to convince us. Photographer Ramnath as witnesses of the prosecution party in the Delhi Assembly bomb case to confirm that he had taken pictures of Bhagat Singh and Dutt.

Bhagat Singh's face is very soft and impressive in all his actual pictures, perhaps some perseverance is also being expressed. But, to that extent of imagination their face can never be presented as the face of a gunman terrorist. Some painters holding their imagination book, re-did as a young man with white turban, who is an intellectual or an activist!

However, Kanwal Dhaliwal's concept of them is multi-level. Their focus is far more on what was on the lion's mind, his thinking or understanding, and how his thoughts are still affecting society! He is based on the lion's sharp and intelligent mind as well as his analytical thinking and discretion. Through his creatively imagined painting, all aspects of Bhagat Singh and his relationship with his people unfolds brilliantly. The lion's face is of a 17-year-old college-old teenager with a white turban on his head - this is a layer of that picture. But, looking closely shows that the farmers and labourers' red hat with tools are on their turban heads. This picture gives a glimpse into the ideological development of this revolutionary. He had started embracing nationalist thoughts as a young man from the days of National College of Lahore. However, in security, they went to the Kashmiri Gate wearing a cap to get their own photos taken, so that they could hide their identity from British police who were ambushed to hunt the revolutionaries. By this time they had changed. However, the shift that was coming within their minds was also revolutionary. This is why imagined his hat has a red mark with hammer and laughter, which means he had transformed into a committed socialist revolutionary by the time she was photographed.

Bhagat Singh and Dutt's statement given before the session court was also published in all major newspapers of India and some foreign newspapers. That statement was a revolutionary call for laborers and farmers. Now around their picture student workers, farmers workers from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu to Punjab are locked up. Their views have access to internationally, even Pakistani women are demanding their picture taken Shadman Chowk name Bhagat Singh Chowk. The red hat outline resembles Karl Marx's book Das Capital, which Bhagat Singh used to give his peers to read, and on the other hand, the book of Krupskaya - Remnisence Lenin. Perhaps this was the same book which Bhagat Singh was reading just before getting hanged! Thus, this picture is one of the rare pictures that express the spirit of this hero who has become historic!

(Author Chaman Lal)