1. 
   A CURATORIAL PROJECT
   
   Bhumika
   Whatever is here is a collective discourse emerged out from last two year’s engagement with the critical space of Art history and Aesthetics department of present day (before the expulsion of Prof.Shivji Panikkar, in the controversial “Obscene Art” issue) M S University, Baroda.
   During my stay and study at Santiniketan, Kalabhavan I met several Chitrakars/ Patuas from different parts of W Bengal as they come to visit the campus as well as to participate in the Melas of Santiniketan and Sriniketan. Most if not all of the cases, if not all, they were from Medinipur and predominantly from Naya village of Paschim Medinipur. My engagement with them started with Rahim Chitrakar, elder son of Patua Guru Dukhushyam Chitrakar, as he used to stay with us in the hostel whenever he would visit Santiniketan.
   This relationship developed into an interactive friendship as we slowly became aware about the cotemporary conditions of our practices, life and struggles. These persist and continue their becoming.
   This becoming seems to point to an interactive communication between two communities, one of the students of Kalabhavan and the other of the Patuas. However as these two communities grew together these seeming divisions, which persist, moved into a symbiosis and a partial merging of the two cultures developed into a shared understanding of our becoming.
   The vigorous and graceful performances and discussions of Dukhushyamda at Santiniketan enlightened us about the potency and practice of narrative story singing of the Scrolls. For us they were not the glories of past but a potent present, as they would surprise us with their critical but humorous commentary about the contemporary facts or issues, such as demolition of Babri Masjid or HIV or Tsunami.
   So patas and Patuas were not ‘the other’ to us as we find them in the written discourses and the studies of folk/tribal practices. This condition helped us to understand their world not of something different or ahistorical but as synchronous to ours, equally contemporary and conditioned by the historical forces of the time. This led me to further quarry to this contemporanity of the Patua practices and their contribution to the field of art as a whole.
   This critical space of this department of Art History & Aesthetics, M S University of Baroda, prepared the ground and produced a flow of continuous critical motivation behind the conception and completion of this project. This space is invigorated by the wake of New-Art History and its multiple openings towards interdisciplinary studies. It is a space committed to the project of decentreing the discourse of Art history as a majoritarian practice.
   Biswajit Patua, my classmate and roommate at Kalabhavan, with whom I never felt the communitarian other but in the same time who was never the same like us (who do not have any traditional backdrop) in the Institutional premise. Biswajit’s changing identity and his becoming remained the undercurrent behind this project, which produces the possibility to trace the post modernity in the neo- traditional practice of the narrative scroll painters of Bengal.
   
   Chitrakars from Naya, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal: Changing Paradigms of the ‘Folk’
   
   My basic concern for this project is to understand and trace the contemporariness, which is always in a dynamism of subaltern consciousness of so-called "folk genre;" here for the present project, scroll painting tradition of West Bengal. Without intervening into the modernist discourse that construct the category "folk" as it's other and reconstituted the category "folk" as an ahistorical timeless anonymous practice, it wouldn’t make any sense to understand the contemporariness of such kind of community practices. In this context I would like to remember Jyotindra
   Jain's curatorial project "Kalam Patua: from the interstices of the city" where he in association with the earlier project "Other Masters" places Kalam Patua in the 'newly emergent liminal space' of modernist paradigm where: "a few individual folk and tribal artists walked a different path evolving new symbolic strategies and tactically re-interpreting cultural traits from their own past to emulate in their work their contemporary personal and social predicament."[i]
   Invoking James Clifford’s critique on the irony of antithetical discourse of modernist paradigm where Jain observes: The entire Western academic debate on folk and tribal art of non-western societies, as it took place in anthropology and art-history in the whole of the twentieth century, centered around the polemic notions of the protection and preservation of their cultural identity, uncontaminated by outside influences and those of progress and assimilation through exposure to modern industrial culture, especially pertaining to the notion of fine art, marked by the concepts of purity of form, cultural evolution, individuality and endeavor towards 'overcoming our ordinary relations to the world'. Jain quotes Cliford: "The concrete inventive existence of tribal cultures and artists is suppressed in the process of either constituting authentic traditional worlds or appreciating their product in the timeless category of art". Jain continues "in the process of constituting authentic the authentic traditional worlds of tribal art, the anonymity of the artist became the chief criterion for artistic merit-'If the artist isn't anonymous, then the art is not primitive'. In this 'Salvage paradigm' the identity of the 'Other' had to be kept intact not only due to the concern for preserving traditional cultures but also because the 'oppositional concept of primitive was essential to the construction of modern art's progressive rhetoric'. On the other hand the protagonists of the theories of cultural change and assimilation put a premium on individual creativity and innovation both within the inherited artistic norms and in response to the cultural changes that had occurred in non-Western societies under the impact of colonial interaction and post-colonial, capitalist economy-based developments. Though under the parameters of this discourse the art world may have discovered and celebrated the emergence of individual artistic expressions coming out of non-Western cultures, they were valorized for their formal qualities within the frame of the universal modernist aesthetic. As observed by Clifford, 'an ignorance of cultural context seems almost a precondition for artistic appreciation. In this object system a tribal piece is detached from one milieu in order to circulate freely in another, a world of art -of museums, market, and connoisseurship.'
   To continue the argument: One can notice the major epistemic violence of modernist discourse to situate 'folk and tribal' practices into the timeless, ahistorical, anonymous category and then compare them with the highly specific context of modernism in art historical/cultural discourse. Unproblematic modernist methodology of interpretation is applied to re contextualize and appropriate productivity of various specific community practices under this category made it available/amenable to Commodification and it functions through over-engagement with the formal aspect overlooking deliberately the context/content.
   As 'subaltern cannot speak' the speech-act is highly territorialized by and for the privileged class/cast; so happens the natural ghetoization of subaltern communities in the discourse of the major. This has remained the obvious characteristic of the genealogy of knowledge production from major discourse.
   In the absence of "speaking subaltern" or subaltern intelligentsia a consciousness of "becoming minor" could become the only activism and potency of humanities as discourse of the major. In this context one can look into the emergence of dalit literature as a crucial 'space clearing gesture' of minoritarian consciousness in the cultural premise of postcolonial India.
   But to understand the phenomenon in its nuanced politics of play and appropriation and re-appropriation by majoritarian discourse I would look through Santhosh. S's article 'SPECTRES OF THE 'RADICALS' OR WHERE HAVE ALL THE "RADICALS" GONE?' Tracing the genealogy of modernist cultural practices he locates the various methods of appropriation and re-appropriation of subalterns by upper class/cast intelligentsia.
   “General tendencies in contemporary cultural practices are indicative of the ways in which upper cast/ class intelligentsia tries to dislocate the subaltern's constitutive role from history of modernism. This move is symptomatic in the sense that it establishes and re-inscribes the upper caste/class (male) as the primary proprietors of modernity and modernism.
   Such moves can be tracked in the art critical/ historical practices as well. Art History/ Criticism as a discipline in India, from its inception onwards has been marked by its elite orientation and essentialist cultural nationalism. Clearly, there has been a troubling persistence of an essentialist nation-centeredness even in the work of many progressive thinkers in the general field of studies on art and culture. Certainly there is a noticeable difference between earlier modes of cultural nationalism (that of the kind of Coomaraswamy etc.) and the progressives. My argument in relation to the progressive (left-wing) intellectuals is that one cannot go on forever with a persistent attack on globalization alone and evade crucial questions related to the dominance of the neo-colonialist, upper caste intelligentsia in the sphere of culture in general. In fact, our 'progressive thinkers' seem to align themselves with the upper caste national bourgeois in the name of national identity, authenticity and sovereignty. The strategy of progressive intellectuals that is set against the backdrop of the nationstate and of nationalism enables them to define modernity in India as the achievement of upper caste and class elites. In this framework, the existence of lower castes exists only in a relation of inessentiality to it. The other strategy widely used by progressives in India with their "excessive' democratic impulse is of the appearance of some exceptional figures into the 'narrative of nation' as the token representatives of the subalterns and dalits.”
   The modernity hunts of the majoritarian intelligentsia in the minor practices attribute exceptional characteristics in the chosen subalterns and include them into the narrative of the major (nation). Project of "Other Masters" as could not come out of this progressive trope; and it equally effected the identification of Kalam Patua in similar manner. It is not to say that Kalam's works are less or more modern but to point out the very limitations of modernist epistemology, which colonizes "other" practices through politics of inclusion and exclusion.
   
   Now, going back to Santhosh's intervention to understand the critical conditions created through majoritarian betrayal of minor practices. He writes: “In Indian context, our experiences of modernity tend to be theorized under the rubric of the elite practitioners' angst in relation to hegemony of Western dominance. Due to this, the fight of the subalterns in India to register their presence in mainstream cultural practices faces multiple hazards. Even after attaining a political identity such as dalit and their assertion of a presence in the realm of political power, their struggles to participate in cultural practices have not even been addressed adequately and still their cultures more or less remain as something that has been accused of 'contamination' and regulated by the upper-caste [class] intelligentsia. Most of the attempts made by the subaltern art practitioners to engage with the larger cultural field are accused of as pop cultural betrayal through the regulation /attribution of their practices as authentic folk/tribal culture. The subalterns in India have a double challenge: the hegemonic and overarching discourse of upper-caste national bourgeois intelligentsia on one hand and the global imperialism on the other, even though their identities are often interchanged.”
   One needs to locate emergence and engagement of Kalam Patua with/in the larger cultural field in this context. The various methodologies of attribution/ appropriation underfuntions with transcendental of Hegelian notion to trace the exceptional/genius in the artist it interprets. It could not go beyond the fallacy/politics of inclusion and exclusion of liberal Marxist paradigm which is unable to destabilize the operation of binarism, because of its fundamental connectional problematic created by it’s dependence on binaries for the very constitution of it. So, Kalam
   Patua becomes one amongst 'The Other Masters'; as he becomes the exception in the backdrop of his community (Patua community) which has been homogeneously constructed undermining the differences of various natures, all through the modernist art historiography as an ahistorical category. In this context it would be worthwhile for the discourse to remember Foucault: 'Discipline constitutes itself only through limiting the field and it functions through politics of inclusion and exclusion.'
   
   Religious/Social status of the Patua/Chitrakar community:
   
   Are the Patuas Hindu or Muslim? Prior to the partition of Bengal by British, there did not seem to be any strict sectarian demarcation, yet as religious communalism became a mounting problem, the lines of identity and practice were gradually drawn. Shortly after the independence of India, the Hindu Mahasabha (a Hindu nationalist organization) made a concentrated effort to reconvert Muslim Patuas to Hinduism with the suddhi (purification) rite, especially in urban areas such as Kolkata. Later on, the Bangiya Chitrakar Unnayan Samiti (Bengali Chitrakar Progress Society) was founded to get the newly reconverted community on the “scheduled caste” register. The struggle is not completely over, however, for official organizations such as these have led to stronger division between Hindu and Muslim Patuas in urban areas.
   Many rural Patuas who still remain do not emphasize such distinctions, and they even attempt to alleviate Hindu/Muslim communal tension through their artistic compositions.
   In times fundamentalist religious leaders from both side (Hindu and Islam) attempted to convert and re-convert the Patua communities, which resulted into very complex conditions in different places with regard to diversified local majority. Some Patuas are executing fundamentalist Hindu tendency (specially who are living in a Hindu majority area), other are more prone to Islam and its Shariat. But majority of them, at the end, continue to reside in the middle path. Basically this part of the Patua communities, is still continuing the profession of pata painting, where as the Patua communities beholding distinct Hindu or Muslim identities mostly have shifted from the painting-tradition.
   
   Kalam Patua and his community:
   
   Kalam Patua; born in 1962, Jhilli, Murshidabad district of West Bengal learnt to paint scrolls from his uncle Baidyanath Patua who was one amongst the few artist in their community. Baidhyanath was an image maker and tried different professions, among which he would paint patas for his fellow community people who were poor and had, only option to play patas. They would show patas and sing songs in near and distant villages and in return get rice or little money for their survival. This profession was there as an alternative to many others like preparing sana for the weavers and particularly as an less dangerous but more respectful profession to snake-charmer's one. As past records show that Patuas of Birbhum and Murshidabad had a very different background and history to those of Medinipur. Patuas of Medinipur predominantly use the title Chitrakar for their last name, where as we hardly get the surname Chitrakar in Murshidabad and Birbhum. Taking into account the census records of both pre colonial and postcolonial period, it is evident that Patuas of Murshidabad and Birbhum belongs to the scheduled tribe community namely Bedias[ii] who had migrated from tribal areas of Chotanagpur to the fertile lands of these districts. Bedias are popularly known as Bede who catch snakes, play snakes (saap khelano), sell tribal medicines and till recent past considered as untouchables by the upper casts. After migrating to lower lands they slowly changed to different professions, one amongst which happened to be pat khelano (pata performance).
   “It should be mentioned here that surname Potua should not be the only criterion for fixing one’s community identification. Potua seems to be an occupational group. Therefore, all Potuas may not be Bedias.” This has been the proposal from Cultural Research Institute, Scheduled Castes and Tribes Welfare Department, Government of West Bengal, in responding to the issue subjected as ‘status of the persons using their surname as Potuas and claiming themselves as Bedias’, [Ref: His D.O.No. 29/TW dt. 22.7.88 on the above subject], in a circular passed to the Special Officer, of the department at Behrampore, Murshidabad. [Copy forwarded to the Sub-Divisional Officer, Sadar/Lalbagh/Jangipore/Kandi for information and necessary action]. It is clearly mentioned here about the community in investigation that: “from their occupational pursuits, social structures documentary evidences and other circumstantial evidences it appears that the subject group belong to Bedia.”
   Here the point I have tried to bring into notice is that although the community discussed above is identifiable as one amongst Patuas but they have a distinctive tribal past and belongs to Schedule caste by the constitution of India, unlike the Chitrakars of Medinipur.
   
   Identity of becoming Patua in the case of Biswajit Patua:
   
   The presence of a student from Patua community in an art-institution (Biswajit Patua in Santiniketan) would pose fundamental challenges to the categorization of folk from major/great/high practice. Here the questions lie.
   Is the language of that particular is folk or modern or contemporary folk or folk in academia or just contemporary art practice?
   My basic concern is with the question of subjectivity of a folk artist against a so-called modern high artist, and the given space within the existing institutional (in its larger sense) domain.
   Discipline of the major can only allow a minor to attain the liner goal, majority of nobody. It is always in contestation to becoming minor; as Deleuze says “There is a majoritarian “fact”, but it is the analytic fact of nobody, as opposed to the becoming minoritarian of everybody.” He further proceeds, “that is why we must distinguish between the: majoritarian as a constant and a homogeneous system; minorities as subsystems; and the minoritarian as a potential, creative and created, becoming. The problem is never to acquire the majority, even in order to install a new constant. There
   is no becoming-majoritarian; majority is never becoming. All becoming is minoritarian”.[iii]
   Biswajit Patua from Zhilli village of Murshidabad district after completing his secondary education got admission to the B. F.A course (2000), in Kala Bhavan, Viswa Bharati. He is now in the final year Post –diploma at there. Before coming to Kalabhavan he worked with (as a student/ apprentice) with eminent Baidyanath Patua of Zhilli, Murshidabad, who was primarily an image maker. And since his childhood he has close association with Kalam Patua, a young contemporary painter (Chitrakar/Patua) from his village Zhilli, now stays and in postal service since 1983 at Chandpara, Birbhum. He also after completing his secondary education (1979) thought to get admission to Kala Bhavan, but couldn’t do so due to economic hinderances.
   Kalam Patua learnt pata painting from his uncle Baidyanath Patua, and carries lineage of Banku Patua [according to his own acclaim]. At present Kalam’s works are exhibited in the curated shows with major practitioners (like Jogen Choudhury, Lalu Prasad Shaw), and also got solo shows at Delhi and Kolkata. To my knowledge Biswajit is the sole representative from the community in an art institution, and he would be the only one from his village (after Kalam Patua) to continue pata painting (if it can be called a continuity). Most of the young generation are educated and settled in state services and other utilitarian modern professions.
   All these biographical details are to indicate Biswajit Patua’s coming to Kalabhavan as a ‘modernist’ (and according to my proposal post modernist, in his becomingness of Deleuzeian discourse of ‘becoming- minoritarian’) intervention into the paradigm of majoritarian practice. The very presence and practice of Biswajit ‘deterritorializes’ the major. Through analyzing the continuous changes of his pictorial practice one can understand his ‘becoming –minoritarian as the universal figure of consciousness’.
   
   
   
   
   Dukhushyam Chitrakar and his community:
   The Patuapara of NAYA; its social-cultural-religious location:
   
   The Patuapara inhabits a unique place in the village, in that it straddles a predominantly Hindu population residing on one side of the main road and a predominantly Muslim population on the other. As such, it is neither fully integrated into the Muslim nor Hindu sectors of the village. In a sense, it inhabits a point in-between, allowing its residents fluid access to both communities, since the Patuas seek patronage from both Hindus and
   Muslims. But like their mixed identities, which have to be constantly negotiated in the course of social interaction, their lived spaces also need to be negotiated. Although in terms of caste status, they remain marginal; their physical presence is actually at the center, where Muslim and Hindu culture flows freely back and forth to influence their ideas about the world as well as the content of their painting and singing compositions.
   Tarapada Santra examines how the history of some communities among many possesses some indigenous characteristics in West Bengal. In the rise and fall of different kingdom at different historical juncture (Yugasandhi: transition of an age) these communities, marginalized by the new society converted their religiosity for the sake of survival. But they continued their own rituals, community faiths and professions. At the present era, their social history is getting more and more importance in the study of humanities. Chitrakara/Patua community of west Bengal is one of those.
   Although their profession is to paint Patas on religious myths of Gods and Goddesses and show them with songs, making dolls and preparing idols for worshipping and playing Hapu songs; in their religious status they are marginal to both of the dominant religion of the continent: Hinduism and Islam.[iv]
   But both of the ‘religions’ are incorporated into their living practice; or, we can attribute it as: being subverted by their subalternity. Scholars understand this sense of practice as ‘living traditions’. This understanding diverts a researcher channeling his/her consciousness through the big ‘manhole’ to heaven. Heaven in the sense utopia of hierarchy where every aspect of hierarchy will be omnipotent but everyone even the subalterns would be happy forever. It is a fall but falling upwards, i.e. towards ‘high’.
   Researcher or folklorist from his/her high cultural subjective position cannot cope up with this everyday ever reconstructing “physics’ of folk culture. The ideology, which offers him/her the subjective authority, gets constant challenges and threats from the living practices of folk discourse. The situation becomes like as if one jump into it and doesn’t know how to come out without ideological transformations. Or in other words, to lose one’s singular subjectivity to the plural-shared and always manipulating subjectivity of folk/monoritarian consciousness. It manipulates in the sense it subverts, if not the dominant ideology but also its own consciousness. It reminds us of Gramsci: Opposing Raffaele Corso’s attribution of the folklore as “contemporary pre-history” Gramsci writes: “the minor arts have always been tied to the major arts and had been dependent upon them thus folklore has always been tied to the culture of the dominant class and, in its own way, has drawn from it the motives which have then become inserted into combinations with the previous traditions. Besides, there is nothing more contradictory and fragmentary than folklore.”
   
   
   But in the field of minor practices (in this project; practices of chitrakaras of Naya village) it is always working in a dynamics. It shows the functioning of continuous variables. Here in my analysis works of Dukhushyam Chitrakar most eminent from that village with all the disjuncture of formal as well as contextual concerns enlivens his practice to always in a position of “becoming”. All through his practice he varied his subject and making of narration addressing different social, political and environmental issues.
   Although most of the narratives are derived from the convention (like the mythological ones) and other cultural agencies of majoritarian concerns (like the HIV pata), some of them (i.e. Congress Biplabi: split of Congress, Jibankahini: autobiography) are self-generated and shows all the marks of individual subjective agency. These variables are not some kind of fixed categories; rather function in continuous overlaps and in contestations and put the question of subjectivity in complex. In my understanding he remained the most influential agency (as an example as well as a teacher) to contemporarize the present practice of his community.
   Probably this contemporariness of their minoritarian consciousness is most important factor behind the continuous engagement from majoritarian cultural agencies into the exceptional growth of the community as practicing chitrakaras.
   In other words we need to notice their incredible ability to adopt their life as well as practice to the changing conditions continuously. What is striking about the Patuas/Chitrakaras is their incredible resilient, their ability to adapt their art form to modern exigencies by addressing issues of current interest. It is no wonder, then, that they have survived to some degree, even though many Patuas have been forced into other occupations. Many urban Patuas sing no more, but they do continue to work with their hands as wall painters, image -makers, signboard painters, and so on (Siddiqui1982). Those who continue to perform the hereditary occupation of the caste, [recorded as OBC] as many in Naya indeed do, find themselves sitting on the concrete sidewalks of Kolkata, in lobbies of five-star hotels, and at crafts fairs all around India and even abroad selling scrolls rather than singing about them. In other words, as traditional patronage has declined, Patuas have had to explore new venues and entice new audiences. To be successful at this, they also continue to compose about new themes.
   
   
   Modern Life and Changes:
   
   In his book VILLAGE OF PAINTERS: Narrative Scrolls from West Bengal, which came out as a product of five year long whole hearted research and fieldwork living with the Patuas of Naya village, Frank J. Korom gives an appropriate picture of the changes in the practice and the community as well:
   It is no understatement to say that modernity has resulted in a substantial loss of traditional patronage from rural audiences, which means that the Patuas must now seek out new ways to market their craft (Hauser 1994, 2002). The most noticeable change is that instead of using the scrolls as a prop for the performance of the tune, Patuas are now selling the scrolls. In other words, no longer are the song performances central to the economic dimension of the tradition, and some painters does not even bother new songs, just new scrolls. One Patua in Naya said, "Foreigners don't understand
   Bengali anyway, so why bother. They just want the pat." Patuas with this short of attitude are now mass-producing scrolls for popular consumption.
   Some, such as Gurupada, Manu, Svarna, and Rani do continue to innovate and compose. Gurupada and Manu even keep notebooks in which they compose their songs. After completing the verses, they paint the accompanying scroll. Svarna and Rani, in contrast, being virtually illiterate, compose in their heads, or have a literate male relative write it down. But since they cannot read, it does them little good to have a new song on paper.
   In all of the cases, whether oral or written, a narrative is first constructed, after which it is committed to canvas. Many Bengali intellectuals believe that the tradition is waning as a result and will not survive another generation (e.g., McCutchion 1989). But is this really the case? I do not believe that it is.
   Comparing with the conditions of Orissa patachitra Korom evaluates the future of this genre from West Bengal.
   Much recent ethnographic literature on material culture has focused on the effect that globalization and transnationalism (Appadurai 1996) have had on the production and consumption of traditional arts (e.g., Marcus and Myers 1195; Steiner 1994). By and large, these studies indicate that traditional art forms are subject to mass production and commodification when they are excised from local contexts for the purpose of international trade and display. The result of such “traffic in culture” varies from place to place, but one thing generally found to be true by the investigators is that the local production of art becomes competitive and contested when it enters the international arena. In the Indian context, Helle Bundaawrd's (1996, 1998) studies of Orissa's patta citra (leaf picture) tradition provide useful insights into the arenas within which meanings and values are constructed. She moves beyond the local and regional dimensions of the tradition to discuss elite discourses that have occurred on national and international levels ever since official awards were initiated to recognize the aesthetic value and artistic merit of the genre. Such a global scenario of competition stimulated by artistic fame and economic potential has led both cooperation and conflict in Orissa, Which has further resulted in ongoing formation of what she refers to as contested art worlds. I see the same kind of thing happening in Naya, where, due to stiff competition, all sorts of conflicts arise within the Patua community over issues of patronage, jealousy, innovation, and even ownership, ever since intellectual property rights became an issue in India
   (Korom: 2006).
   The traffic in Indian art is by no means new (Davis 1907), but it has increased considerably in modern times since the Festival of India toured the United States in 1985-1986 (Kurin 1988). Since then, Indian festivals have occurred in many nations of European Union, as well as in Australia and New Zealand, which has exposed numerous local artists to potentially new audiences and markets. These brief visits in turn have conditioned the way that local artists now cope with modernity in India (e.g., targeting tourists as potential patrons). The Patuas of Naya with whom I have worked are a good case in point because a small number of them have been abroad. Gurupada has visited the United States, Spain, and Italy. Dukhushyam has been to Australia, while Svarna and her brother Manu visited Sweden (Haglund and Malmestrom 2003). Rani has been to Scotland. In each instance, they returned home a little wiser and a little wealthier. These trips have inspired them to continue experimenting with their tradition. But it has also inspired jealousy in those less fortunate Patuas who have not received international invitations. Moreover, an increasing number of what we might call "cultural brokers", such as members of the West Bengal Crafts Council and NGOs like Bangla Natak.com, are collaborating with Patuas to devise alternative materials on which to paint (e.g., T-shirts, lampshades) and to create new contexts for marketing their tradition (e.g., folk festivals, crafts fairs, and hotels). Inevitably, this has led to commodification, but also more diversity and a certain amount of economic empowerment that has allowed some of Naya's Patuas to renovate and live somehow better life.
   Nongovernmental organization (NGOs) have also collaborated with Patuas to compose songs on themes such as AIDS prevention, dowry deaths, the importance of literacy and education, rural hygiene, tsunami relief, and a variety of other pressing social issues. Yet outsiders are not responsible for initiating all of the new materials in Patua repertoire.
   
   Feminism in Patua Repertoire:
   
   The growing presence and emerging renounce of women artists in the Patua community is internally revolutionizing the field as observed by some recent scholars of the practice such as Frank J. Korom. Observing the subversive interpretation of some poignant verses where the wayfaring wife disillusioned by modernity is shown punished by the Yama, which clearly shows moralistic orthodoxy of the male biases of the Patua repertoire, by women Patuas of Naya, he writes: “Perhaps female empowerment is still only a desire for Patua women, since there are many paradoxes in Patua theory and practice…. Nonetheless, the very fact that women explained the narrative to me in a subversive way suggests that they are already walking down the road of liberation.”(Korom: 2006, p-77).
   
   Frame and aim of the present curatorial project:
   
   Twelve Chitrakars from Naya are selected as representative of the community for the workshop and exhibition. The group consists of almost equal numbers of women and men practitioner of well renounce. The workshop would be attended by invited eminent and young artists of Baroda to make the project interactive with the art practices of Baroda. Every day evening there would be performances of Patas, group and individual both the modes of performance would be interpreted or translated by competent persons with a sound knowledge of Patua repertoire. Two or three narratives would be dealt with every day, completing almost all the major narratives in practice. At least two variations would be performed to manifest the changes happens in each performances. Along with the scrolls there would be subsequent numbers of square Patas in display that would be framed properly and would serve the usual gallery orientation.
   Some of the lost narrative such as once very popular story of Monohar Fansira would be recollected with reference to two variations of the same subject documented from Gurusaday Museum, Kolkata in the ten day long workshop. Some of the new themes like stories of Baroda could also be invoked depending upon the interest of the participating Chitrakaras.
   In a sense this would be an attempt to revitalize the Patua practice faced by the new challenges at the gallery conditions of Baroda and its majoritarian field. In this consequence spectators would also get more interactive opportunity to understand the nuances of the practice and its performative possibilities.
   Through this project the rising gap between major and minor practices of this kind, could be transgressed to understand and to become conscious about the contemporary developments as well as the post modernity of the Patua repertoire.
   [i] See the catalogue essay by Jyotindra Jain.
   [ii] (Bedias, the beneric name of a number of vagrant gypsy-like groups, of whom it is difficult to say whether they can properly be described as castes. The following groups are included under the name (1) Babajia, Lava, or Patwa, pedlars and mountebanks professing to be Mohomedans, but singing songs in praise of Rama and Lakshmana…,.(2) Bazigar…[acrobats], (3) Mal [a hillman or wrestler], (4) Mir-shikar [hunter], (5) Samperia [snake- charmers], (6) Shandars [most orderly and industrious of the Bediya division, makers of shana ,combs made of split bamboo and seasoned wood; {at present iron is also used, shana through which threads are arrenged, is the crucial component of handlooms}. Of late years they have all become converts to Islam, but Mohomedans do not admit them into their society, and refuse to intermarry, to eat, and to pray with them], (7) Rasia Bedias [maker of zinc ornaments, anklets, bracelets, and collars for neck (hansli).]. From A Servey Report by H.H. Resley; Govet. Of India ; 1892-1896.}
   
   [iii] Gilles Deleuze, ‘Language: Major and Minor’, Deleuze Reader
   [iv] see Tarapada Santra “Patua o Patachitra, Medinipur, Hawrah o Chchobbish Porgana”
   
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   Alliance Française (ed.) 1989. Patua Art: Development of the Scroll Paintings of Bengal Commemorating the Bicentenary of the French Revolution. Calcutta: Alliance Française of Calcutta and Crafts Council of West Bengal.
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