This article from August 24th, 1972 by Antonio da Cruz was also reprinted in “Goa: Men and Matters” with numerous edits and some additions.
“India’s liberation story through an Artist’s brush
Many a one has written the story of India’s liberation in historical treatises or with pen pictures of its most important episodes. Other have captured some of the episodes with brush or chisel. But no one has narrated its complete story on canvas, as has done Mr. Antonio Piedade da Cruz, of Bombay.
Mr. Antonio Piedade da Cruz, better known as Piedade de Cruz or A. P. D’Cruz is an artist of eminence. He attained international fame and was counted among the leading European style painters quite early in life when he was being trained in Berlin under world famous masters. After his success in Berlin where he held various exhibitions, he was invited by the Portuguese Republic to hold an exhibition in Lisbon, and was feasted there as “an honour of the nation”. He hails from Velim, of Salcete, Goa.
Mr. da Cruz is also a well known sculptor. His more important works are the statue of Dudwalla erected at the Aarey Milk Colony, of Bombay; The Rhythm, a life size statue of a beautiful Venus in a typical flute player’s pose, which a visiting delegation of Russian artists offered to exhibit in Russia; the statue of the Indian National Emblem which adorns the entrance to the Indian High Commission at Nairobi; and more at home the two statues of Menezes Braganza erected in the Municipal Gardens of Panjim and Margao.
Amongst the varied works of Mr. A. P. D’Cruz, the paintings on India’s modern history, which has had a world wide repercussion, occupy a unique place. Some of them have been described by K. M. Panikkar as representation of “historical episodes in the life of Mahatma Gandhi”. There is no doubt that in a sense they do represent events in the life of Gandhi. But in their concept and in the manner they have been made to focus Gandhi’s epic fight for political, economic and social liberation they truly transcend the limits of space and time that circumscribed the Mahatma’s lifework.
In his story of India’s liberation, Mr. Da Cruz has with an uncanny insight not only dwelt on the “noise of the battle”, although rather superficially, but on the timeless and spaceless spirit moving the various episodes as also on what in common parlance is called “the inside story” of the movement for liberation. For instance, in his picture of Gandhi’s assassination, Nehru is seen surrounded by a group of mourners while other leaders like Vallabai Patel and other surrounded by others. That is “the great split” in the Congress ranks foreseen by the artist soon after Mahatma’s assassination. Nehru, who was to write a preface to this pictorial story, on seeing the paintings expressed surprise at the artist’s reading of the events.
Mr. Da Cruz has been able to so look deep under the skin obviously because of his association with the foremost leaders of the movement, after his return from Europe as well as in Europe in his young days when he was directly in touch with them in France.
[Line missing] the Police in India and carrying a prize on his head, like Adhikari (“the Guv’nor”) took shelter under his palette during the non-cooperation and Quit India days. He was privy to secret discussions held underground on the conduct of the movement.
When Lord Mountbatten the last Viceroy of India hosted the artist in his residential palace and gave him sittings of long duration for his portrait, Jawaharlal Nehru invariably dropped in and discussed candidly with the Viceroy, then Governor General of divided India, the affairs of the State in the presence of the artist. This is how Mr. Da Cruz was able to have a close look at India’s modern history.
The story of India’s liberation with its message to the wide world is told by Mr. Da Cruz on the canvass in 24 pictures of very large size. Roughly, they fall into three groups of three historical periods.
The first eight plates present the conditions obtaining in South Africa and India, which incited Gandhi to rebel against the exploitation of man by man. These are: the ‘Homeless Mother’ (Sans Hope, Sans Faith, Sans Honour) squatting with her naked and starving children against the exterior city wall, as if shut off from charity; ‘Man that Toils’ (The African Prelude) employing all the strength of his sinewy muscles to extract from the soil his last hope; ‘Labourer’ rending the virgin soil with his plough, as [indented] labourer slaving in eastern plantations; ‘Capital Builders’ (Toil. Sweat. Tears) helping others to build their capital and the imperial Capital at New Delhi of yore which bled them white; ‘Give us our Daily Bread’ (Disgrace Abounding) in which the mute, naked and dejected workers slouch distressingly under an oil lamp, the waning hope; ‘Poverty’(Blessing of exploitation of garbage), the traditional and irremediable grinding poverty of the colonized who lived feeding themselves together with pariah dogs, their only companions in life, on the city’s garbage dumped in the dustbins; ‘Bondage’ (We were born free but live in chains); and ‘Deadlock’ (The Cry Inarticulate) which is represented by the anguished souls leaning without hope against the barred door of the dungeon.
The second group of plates begins with the picture of the ever famous Dandi March, with which was sounded the Freedom’s First Trumpet. In this group which is an attempt to portray the basic principles and the ‘platform’ of our freedom fight – a message going out to the world and transcending time and space – are other plates like “With My Geeta and Harijans”, a picture of Gandhi characteristically squatting and delivering his message to the people with his hands resting on Geeta.
Then comes ‘Zindabad’ the (The Flag is raised – The Truth Proclaimed) which also symbolized the slaughter of satyagrahis in cold blood at the hands of the Portuguese at the Goa border and of which a plaster dummy for a statue has since been made to perpetuate the memory of Goan freedom fighters fallen in the battle field; ‘Temple Entry’ (Touch the Untouchable) in which Gandhi is found breaking the padlock to allow temple entry to the Harijans waiting forlorn outside with the necessary offerings for a puja, or forcefully telling us that our own house must be put in order first, namely that we must first learn that all privilege is to be abolished and that in India everyone is equal.
These are followed by the plate ‘I See No Light’ (Let no Man put Asunder), which totally rejects the idea of partition which was to Gandhi a solution that was no solution; and ‘After the 15th August’ (The Wound, the Tears, the Blood), which has proved the truth of Gandhi’s conviction, since after the partition fratricidal war raged over the length and breadth of the country, despite the fail mother’s efforts to separate and shame to two brothers knifing each other.
The last group which begins with plate 15 portrays the aftermath of the liberation and the tremendous problems facing the country. In ‘Struggle for Existence’, which is also the subject of a life size statue, the newly born babe is desperately seeking to suckle the breasts of his young mother lying dead, thus presenting the problem of economic rehabilitation facing the country after the liberation. Then comes the ‘Naokhali March’ with Gandhi’s Healing Touch followed by his own tragic ‘Assassination’ (Ram: Ram🙂 about more has been said earlier and ‘Death is our Own’ (Nought but Dust) which is the famous Gandhian saying to assert the truth that earthly possessions, pride of pomp and peace we shed them all in the end and only death becomes our own.
Plate 19 is a portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru as ‘The First Prime Minister’ but ‘With My last File’. In this portrait Nehru is shown holding the wand (of power) in his right hand and a file (the last one) in his left hand, while he himself is stepping out of the red carpet over which he was to walk, symbolizing his coming end. But soon after in the next plate Nehru is seen walking behind Gandhi by the side of an Asoka pillar as the appointed political heir of Mahatma Gandhi, and thus both of them following in the footsteps of their predecessors Buddha and Asoka. That is the legacy inherited by modern India from time immemorial.
These are followed by “Capitalists Burning the Capital”, ‘Victory’ and ‘Jealousy tears the wound’. The last one is ‘United’ which sums up pithily the Master’s message: “Ye are brothers! Unite!”
The ‘United’ very clearly tells us that liberty cannot be achieved nor is it worth the taking, if we flout the principle of brotherhood, the tie of blood and common origin, and as such it has a relevance right to the present day events culminating into the Simla accord, of which Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter is the architect.
The last picture was painted about 14 years ago, but it is very significant that the garland of unity is being placed with Jawans as witnesses over the sub-continent by India’s woman, thereby symbolising Indira Gandhi’s able stewardship of the country’s affairs in tune with the principles laid down by her eminent father, that is Indira Gandhi’s following in the footsteps of her predecessors Buddha, Ashoka, Gandhi and Nehru.
Mr. Da Cruz has really shown a great breadth of vision in his paintings, which are moreover a moving account of India’s freedom struggle. He has portrayed what is seen, and as well as what is not seen by the naked eye, but what’s more how India’s spiritual heritage is running through ages to this day despite all political vicissitudes or how India has been choosing her leaders who will faithfully realize the tradition coming down from Buddha.
Mr. Da Cruz is today an octogenarian, but he still paints with a steady hand. The aforementioned epitomic legends describing the portraits; which with their graptue [sic] expression reveal a mastery of the subjects studied, are the work of his friend, the late Prof. Edward Mendoza, a talented Goan poet and writer. The story of India’s liberation, whose 25th anniversary we have celebrated this month, has thus been very aptly and movingly told to the posterity by an eminent artist and a poet of no mean repute, and I am proud that they are both Goans, for the contribution of Goans to the cause of India’s independence has comparatively been very great, if not greater than that of the brothers across the border.”
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