B.C. Sanyal and the Mayo School of Arts, Lahore: A Historical link in partitioned sub-indian Continent
As India was struggling for its independence from the British Raj and later redefining itself post independence, Prof. B.C. Sanyal and Mayo School of Arts, Lahore was doing their bit in forming what could be called a parallel art movement. Prof. Nuzhat Kazmi elaborates.
The Father of Indian Modern Art, as many of his students and friends would like to address him, Professor B.C. Sanyal, was visited by students and friends associated with the Mayo School of Arts long after he left Lahore in 1947, as the result of partition of India. He had come to the city of Lahore at the age of twenty five to make the sculpture portrait of the nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai in 1926. This was the period when the Indian Nationalist movement was gathering force and the British Raj was facing opposition on many fronts. This was the time when the Nazi Germany was threatening world peace and Japan was a growing imperial power. The Ottoman Empire had strategically aligned itself with these two growing powers of early twentieth century. They came together to set in another powerful political equation, designed to sideline the long established European Colonial Imperialism for their own territorial gain. What would be important to note here, is the fact, that it had come to be taken as a gospel truth by many in the world that the ‘Sun never sets on the British Empire’. The First World War had concluded with treaties that had seeds of the Second World War. The World War II was indeed, around the corner, which started in 1945 and concluded, technically, with the bombardment of Hiroshima by the Americans who had joined the World War late, on the side of Allies that is the British and the French. In India, the resistance to colonial rule succeeded in 1947, the British were compelled to ‘Quit India’, but not before they had drawn the line of partition, creating Pakistan as a new nation state within the Indian sub-continent, on 14th August. A day after, on 15th August, India was declared Independent of the British Raj.