Opinion Framing history

These were not innocuous photographs but documents of conquest,much like what one observed in Company School paintings executed by the likes of the Daniel brothers before the advent of photography. In the same manner that Raja Ravi Varma learnt oil painting from Theodore Jansen,Raja Deen Dayal became the first “native” photographer to learn the craft of making images in a “scientific” manner. However,like Ravi Varma,Deen Dayal followed many of the methods and trends practised by the British photographers.

In the postmodern context,artists like the Delhi-based Pushpamala N. have devoted their entire oeuvre to critiquing and masquerading around some of these colonial images. In her book Native Women of South India,Pushpamala presents us with a collection of images that document her enactments of the various tropes perpetuated by early painters and photographers following the Company School style. We see her posing as Ravi Varma’s muse,a damsel by the edge of a river,or as a Toda tribal woman,and as a divinity,Lakshmi,atop a lotus in a style reminiscent of the kitschy calendar art that Ravi Varma’s followers carried on. These images are playfully tongue-in-cheek,and bring home the stereotypes perpetuated by male artists working in pre-modern era.

While Pushpamala’s critical position is vital for understanding and repositioning one’s view of our past,the reacquisition,presentation and preservation of the original albums of the 1800s is also a vital act — a way of reclaiming the past for oneself and making peace with it. Vintage prints are also important because they document social and political life in the subcontinent,through the interdisciplinary fields of architecture,anthropology,topography and archaeology starting from the 1850s,and leading up to the rise of modern India and the independence movement.

For instance,the Waterhouse’s collection,part of Alkazi’s archive,contains rare portraits of Begum Sikandar and even rarer images of the four begums of Bhopal in one frame. The young army officer was also a photography enthusiast and spent months at the royal court of Bhopal. The civil surgeon John Nicholas Tressider’s album that is also part of the Alkazi Foundation uncovered some shocking and interesting facts. For instance,the works of the Italian Felice Beato (1834-c.1907),also known as the first “war photographer”,because of his images of the Crimean War,engages in India in a large venture to record all the significant sites affected by the ravages of the 1857 mutiny. The images were intended to illustrate the landscapes of a decaying dynasty,which were fading away under the onslaught of the British victory. Certain sites,therefore,achieved iconic status through repeated representations that drew on memories of siege: Kashmere Gate in Delhi,the Residency complex in Lucknow and the Sati Chowra Ghat in Kanpur.

One of the most controversial and noteworthy photographs taken by Beato is a large print of an array of skeletons scattered in front of a Grecian-looking building. This image was a reconstruction that Beato achieved by literally exhuming bodies from their graves and then scattering their bones around. By evoking these memories of past brutality,they recreated for the colonisers a moment of catastrophe,but a triumph nonetheless.

When we look at these images today,we realise that the line between documentary and fiction was blurred long before the advent of Photoshop. Sitters could be made to look better or more beautiful through clever positioning before the lens to exploit their best angle before camera. Histories could be re-enacted,backgrounds were painted in and montages were created through double exposure plates. Exhuming our past prompts the question: have we changed all that much?

georgina.maddox@expressindia.com