South Asia (Page 5)

A recent exhibition in Delhi that features rare works by German artists provides insight into how the British ruled the nation.

Called Destination India: Foreign Artists in India, 1857-1947, the exhibit focuses on artists who travelled to imperial India from around the globe.

In an entry to the present, Indian MP and artist Shashi Tharoor says that the picture of India through the German and British artists has “long been a subject of intrigue and exploration.”

” The fascination with India’s unique scenery, magnificent statues, attractive practices and rich history has drawn many to its shores, seeking to capture the essence of this multifaceted state”.

Mr Tharoor notes that the present is “refreshing and important” as it explores the less-explored, but a powerful phase of the late 19th and early 20th generations, rather than just the first pioneers.

The museum showcases sculptures, including from American actor William Carpenter, that give flashes into not only the royal authorities, but also daily lifestyle in the Empire.

Carpenter usually did watercolour, but this 1857 artwork, pictured above, is wood engraving on paper that depicts the busy back streets of Delhi’s Jama Masjid ( mosque ).

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, countless well-known artists from Europe and England came to India. They were primarily traditional artists producing works of art in various print media, including oil and paint.

” They were attracted to the people, and not just to the grandees, but to ordinary people in the streets. If there was still a sense of the picturesque, Ashish Anand, managing director of DAG, a renowned craft company that produced the present, says it was a more personal and active variation of that aesthetic.

” In their functions, if we can put it this way, we find an India that we can hear and smell as well,” they say.

William Simpson painted another colour of the Jama Masjid in 1864, the same as the one above.

Simpson, who was primarily a war artist, was sent to India in 1859 by a publishing firm to depict the repercussions of the harsh rebellion two years prior. American warriors, known as colonists, had in 1857 set off a revolt against the English law, often referred to as the initial war of independence.

Simpson’s job halted when the printing company went bankrupt. He referred to it as the “biggest hazard of my living.” However, he continued travelling and sketching his excursions across the sub-continent.

This is a 1900 beige portrait of old Indians by Olinto Ghilardi, an European designer.

A major German musician, Ghilardi shaped contemporary Indian art in the first 20th Century.

He oversaw the development of the Bengal School of Art, which is the ancestor of contemporary American painting, Abanindranath Tagore, brother of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Ghilardi encouraged him to experiment with watercolours, acrylic, and hues, which he thoroughly used afterward in his job.

Ghilardi also held the position of vice principal at the Government School of Art in Calcutta ( now Kolkata ).

This 1896 mural of a young American girl was even made by Ghilardi.

Before he arrived in Kolkata, there was not much information about the European painter’s career. His connection with Tagore indicates his understanding as a performer among Kolkata’s wealthy Bengalis.

Many later, in 1911, Ghilardi became a popular part of an avant-garde group of European designers.

Unofficial colour painting of an Indian city landscape by American artist Carlton Alfred Smith.

Smith lived in India between 1916 and 1923. He frequently combined portraiture with surroundings to create portraits of people.

Smith, a intensive who emigrated from Camden Town in London to paint in the late Victorian period, first pursuing a career as a lithographer. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Art and is renowned for his drawings of the designs of houses and the British countryside.

This is a 1894 colour decoration of Kashmir’s Wular Lake by George Strahan, a European military expert and designer.

Strahan, a talented scholar from Surrey, enlisted in the army and left for India in 1860, working in Roorkee and Haridwar.

He began mapping northern India, Rajasthan, and the Himalayas two years later when he joined the Topographical Survey of India.

In 1888, he became supervisor of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, which mapped the Indian continent.

At the Survey, Strahan drew comfort maps before color producing was introduced.

After retirement, he lived in the highlands of Dehradun and travelled to Kashmir every summers.

This colour of Hyderabad in southeastern India was created in 1887 by European designer Woldemar Friedrich.

A traditional painter and designer, Friedrich spent much of his profession teaching at renowned German artwork academies. In the late 1880s, he travelled to India and created a series of landscapes and images, published in the 1893 text” Six Month in India”.

Carpenter’s 1857 wood carving on paper painting on Benaras ( above ) shows Varanasi- one of the nation’s oldest towns and and India’s religious capital- teeming with life.

Carpenter studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London before establishing himself as a well-known portrait and landscape artist in the 19th century.

Arriving in India in 1850, he travelled extensively, painting rulers, street scenes, landscapes, and locals across Bombay ( now Mumbai ), Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab, Kashmir, Lahore, Ceylon ( Sri Lanka ), and Afghanistan.

This is British designer Charles William Bartlett’s 1919 woodcut printing on paper version of Punjab’s Golden Temple, a spiritual shrine for Sikhs.

Dover-born Bartlett was one of the world’s leading Chinese block painting, and afterward switched to fine arts.

In 1913, he travelled to India, Indonesia and China. From 1916 to 1925, he produced 38 woodblock designs for his Chinese publication, many of which feature views from his walks in South Asia.

British musician Edwin Lord Weeks painted this bright oil on canvas of a bullock-cart in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in 1882.

Weeks was one of the first British artists to travel to India, having been born in Boston to a powerful family. His company family supported his creative endeavours.

Weeks second travelled to India between 1882 and 1883, painting places largely in Rajasthan. He returned in 1886, when he visited at least seven places. Weeks also wrote a travelogue account of his travels through Persia ( present-day Iran ) and India in 1896. He is renowned for his realist style and attention to detail.

Bangladesh is in tumult.

This West Asian country of 170 million people has not always experienced street protests, but recent rallies have been characterized as the worst in living memory.

For weeks, thousands of college students have voiced their opposition to a limit method for government jobs.

Veterans of the nation’s 1971 liberation struggle are the subjects of a third of the open sector’s jobs.

The kids are arguing that the system is unfair, and are asking for selection based on merit.

What started as peaceful protests on college campuses has now turned into turmoil across the country.

Protest organizers claim that police and the student organization of the ruling Awami League, also known as the Bangladesh Chhatra League, have been brutally beating quiet demonstrators, causing widespread outcry.

The federal denies these claims.

Since next Monday, there have been altercations. The most fatal morning of crime since protests started this month on Thursday was when at least 25 people were killed.

At least 32 people have died in full.

Unheard of internet access has been blocked and phone services are revoked by the state.

” It’s not individuals nowadays, it seems that people from all walks of life have joined the opposition motion”, Dr Samina Luthfa, associate professor of sociology in the University of Dhaka, tells the BBC.

The rallies have taken a long time to start. Although Bangladesh has one of the world’s fastest-growing economy, experts contend that college graduates ‘ employment has not increased as a result.

Around 18 million fresh Bangladeshis are looking for employment, according to projections. Higher levels of unemployment are experienced by school alumni compared to their less educated peers.

Bangladesh has become a superpower of ready-to-wear clothes exports. The nation exports clothing worth about$ 40 billion to the world market.

The industry employs more than four million people, many of them women. However, the younger generation’s desire to succeed is never enough.

Under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year law, Bangladesh has transformed itself by building new bridges, roads, businesses and perhaps a rail road in the investment Dhaka.

Its per-capita income has increased by three to ten dollars per year, and according to the World Bank, more than 25 million individuals have been rescued from hunger in the past 20 years.

However, many claim that some of this growth is just enhancing those who are close to Ms. Hasina’s Awami League.

Dr Luthfa says:” We are witnessing but little problem. particularly those who are close to the ruling group. Fraud has been persisted for a long time without being punished.

New conversations about corruption allegations against some of Ms. Hasina’s former top officials, including a former army captain, former police chief, senior revenue officers, and express selection officers, have been the focus of social media in Bangladesh.

Ms Hasina last week said she was taking action against corruption, and that it was a long-standing problem.

She claimed at the same press conference in Dhaka that she had taken legal action against a household assistant ( or peon ) after he allegedly amassed$ 34 million.

” He ca n’t move without a helicopter. How does he make so much money? I immediately took action as soon as I became aware of this”.

She did not identify the individual.

The Bangladeshi media reported that this much money could only have been obtained by lobbying for government contracts, corruption, or bribery.

Former police chief Benazir Ahmed, who was once seen as a close ally of Ms. Hasina, has been the subject of an investigation by the anti-corruption commission in Bangladesh after allegedly amassing millions of dollars through illegal means. He denies the allegations.

The country’s typical citizens who are struggling with the rising cost of living did n’t escape this news.

Many rights activists point out that over the past 15 years, there have n’t been as many opportunities for democratic activity as there are for corruption allegations.

” For three consecutive elections, there has been no credible free and fair polling process”, Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told the BBC.

Ms. Ganguly said,” [Ms. Hasina ] has perhaps underestimated the level of dissatisfaction people had with being denied the most fundamental democratic right to choose their own leader.”

The main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP ), staged elections in 2014 and 2024, protesting the results of their election boycotts, claiming that free and fair elections were impossible under Ms. Hasina and that they wanted the elections to be conducted under a neutral caretaker administration.

This demand has always been rejected by Ms. Hasina.

Rights groups also say more than 80 people, many of them government critics, have disappeared in the past 15 years, and that their families have no information on them.

In light of concerns that Sheikh Hasina has become more autocratic over the years, the government is accused of stifling dissent and the media. But ministers deny the charges.

According to Dr. Luthfa,” the anger against the government and the ruling party has been accumulating for a long time.”

” People are now expressing their anger. People use protest if they have no other options left.

Ms. Hasina’s ministers claim that despite what they perceive as provocative actions by protesters, the government has shown extreme restraint.

They claim that Islamist parties, who they claim sparked the violence, have infiltrated demonstrations and that their political opposition has led to the violence.

Anisul Huq, the government’s attorney, stated that the government was ready to discuss the issues.

The government has been contacting student protesters, the statement read. When there is a reasonable argument, we are willing to listen”, Mr Huq told the BBC earlier this week.

The student protests are probably Ms. Hasina’s biggest challenge since January 2009.

How they are resolved will depend on how she handles the unrest and, most importantly, how she addresses the public’s growing anger.