It is said that art and illustrations speak louder than words. The book, “Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability”, published by Navayana, does just that. Not that the words in the book have a lesser impact, but it is for the first time that the life story of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, philosopher and the first law minister of independent India, has been told using the traditional Gond art.
The Gonds are India’s largest tribal community and art is an expression of their everyday life. Their art pertains to birds, bees, trees, animals, deities and folk tales.
“The idea for this book was in my head since 2004, when we launched Navayana,” S. Anand, publisher of “Bhimayana”, told Weekend Review. “It was in 2006-07 that the seeds were sown, but the germination began in 2008.”
Anand had already worked with Bhopal-based Gond artist Durgabai Vyam, who had put her skills to use on several books, mainly for children. Her husband, Subhash Vyam, is an accomplished sculptor-turned-artist, who has, of late, taken to painting on paper and canvas.
Though the couple, like other Gond artists, had never explored sequential art, they took up the challenging project when the opportunity arose.
The result: “Bhimayana” has been published in six Indian languages — English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Marathi — and three foreign languages — French, Korean and Spanish. This is a first for an Indian graphic book.
“I am more than surprised with the worldwide success of the book. That is because when we were at it, people were making fun: Gond art and Ambedkar? But I was bent on making it happen, and through the book I have aimed to raise awareness about the system of caste and untouchability,” Anand says.
He went ahead with the book, realising that most people in India and abroad knew little about Ambedkar, his ideas and his personal experiences of untouchability — a scourge, which even today continues to haunt most dalits (considered untouchables) in India.
Born in 1891 in Madhya Pradesh into a Mahar (an untouchable caste) family, Ambedkar suffered humiliation of all kinds while still in school. He was not allowed to sit inside the class and was required to carry a gunnysack from home to sit on. Then, at the end of the day, he had to take it back home. If Ambedkar wanted to drink water, a peon would pour it from a vessel. And if the peon was not available, Ambedkar would remain thirsty.
Overcoming numerous social and financial obstacles, Ambedkar educated himself, going on to study at the Columbia University and the London School of Economics. But as “Bhimayana” relates, Ambedkar learnt that despite studying in the world’s best universities, even a Hindu tongawallah (horse cart driver), looked down upon by caste Hindus, would refuse to let him sit in the cart. Using these anecdotes, the book lays bare many facts, some of which may be known, yet, sadly, seldom highlighted.
“For most upper-class Indians, Ambedkar was at best a statue, an icon only of dalits and someone who created the system of reservations, which they hate,” Anand says.
The book is a tribute to the man and the publisher’s way of helping bridge this divide and address this ingrained ignorance.
“In textbooks I grew up on, one willy-nilly had to know about Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu and other nationalist figures. But one hardly even knew where Ambedkar was born,” Anand says. “So, this book has been written with a purpose to reach out to a cross-section of society and to make non-dalits realise that embracing Ambedkar means to embrace an anti-caste vision. It turns the spotlight on some ugly aspects such as caste with the help of powerful and beautiful art.”
Incidentally, while working on the book, Durgabai once told Anand that it was like the Hindu epic Ramayana. “No, this is Bhimayana!” Anand said. And that is how they hit upon the title.
Durgabai makes a candid observation: “Just as we were unfamiliar with contemporary graphic books, we were also unaware of Ambedkar. Our young daughter Roshni, who is an emerging artist and has done the fish-style font and the numbers used for chapter headings in the book, though knew the basic facts about Ambedkar. She told us about the man in the statue in Bhopal’s New Market area.”
The couple had passed the statue umpteen times, but as several others, never gave a thought whose statue it was. But once they became aware of Ambedkar’s works, everything changed.
Subhash says, “The more we became aware of the man, our respect for him grew. We made the Ambedkar story our own. The humiliations he faced and the sufferings he went through affected us deeply.”
The couple went a step ahead and began cutting press reports of atrocities against dalits and the clippings they have included in the book read “Dalit killed for digging own well”, “Water wars, dalit woman torched”, “Dalit siblings thrashed by landlord”, and “Thrown out of hospital, two dalit women die”.
During the early stages of discussion, the couple was very clear about one facet. They were not willing to force their characters into boxes, which they considered suffocating for the characters, even though that meant defying the conventional grammar of graphic books.
As Subhash puts it, “the project gave us a lot of scope to experiment with. ‘Bhimayana’ uses digna, the traditional design patterns applied to walls and floors in Gond homes. We used it artfully, as a way of dividing up a page.”
Anand says, “Gond art is such that even when dealing with the urban subjects we see free-falling animals, birds and trees in landscapes without a horizon. For instance, the train becomes a snake and the intimidating fort a lion. Similarly, in the book, the happiness of the people who come to receive Ambedkar in their town is not conveyed through smiling faces, but a dancing peacock.”
Over several sessions, Anand narrated the storyline to the Vyams and improvisations continued.
“He had left a handwritten Hindi version with us, which our daughter would read aloud and explain,” Durgabai says. “But the brief also said that the text was only a guide to give us a sense of direction and that we were free to make additions and changes.
“We feel honoured to have taken up this project, which has not only given us recognition, but also the knowledge about our own country.”
Anand contrasts Ambedkar with Gandhi: “While touchable Gandhi who succeeded in furthering the cause of racial segregation in South Africa came to be recognised as a global anti-imperialism icon, the untouchable Ambedkar who could not drink water in his local school and went on to lead the satyagraha in 1927 has been neglected by history.”
One of the first public battles Ambedkar waged was the satyagraha at Malad in Maharashtra. He led 3,000 dalits to assert their right to access a water tank. While even animals were allowed to use the water from the tank, dalits were not! The Hindus responded with more violence against them.
Ambedkar’s battle was for freedom. Alas, even after 65 years of India’s independence from the British, the plight of the dalits has not changed.
Anand sums up, “Bhimayana is a small effort to address this anomaly and make Ambedkar’s story universal. We hope to publish the book in at least five more Indian languages and as many foreign languages in the next year.”
Nilima Pathak is a journalist based in New Delhi.
