ABSTRACT

The article focuses on the Indian state’s relationship with art, and art institutions to gain insights into approaches to nation/state formation and administration. It asks two questions: How was art administered in India between 1947 and 1953, the period after India’s independence but before formal institutions for it came up? And what were the implications of decisions taken during this period on subsequent institutional choices? I argue that matters of art were addressed here–in the “interim”–not merely in a formal manner through political and administrative procedures, but as the very question of political and administrative matters, intricately intertwined with appeals of taste, rule, disinterest, gains, penny pinching, but most of all, of problem solving. From the commitment to solve problems were at hand, in a country ravaged by Partition, unemployment, and a poor economy, what emerges is not a pious approach to tradition; nor do decisions affecting art practice follow some predetermined path to modernity. Neither does the state’s approach simply correspond to the view generally taken in existing literature where the starting point tends to be the framework of secular nationalism. Rather, by being attentive to everyday problem-solving and decision-making processes of statesmen who led the project of institution-building–Nehru, Azad, Patel among others–we discover the priority they gave to building state capacity; everything else, including nation-building followed from this. In this regard, even though there was no specific programme yet in place for looking into the arts, the arts got looked after in almost all matters concerning politics.

摘要

本文重点关注印度国家与艺术和艺术机构的关系，以深入了解国家/国家的形成和管理方法。它提出了两个问题：1947 年至 1953 年间，印度是如何管理艺术的，那是印度独立之后但正式机构出现之前的时期？在此期间做出的决定对随后的制度选择有何影响？我认为艺术问题在这里——在“过渡期”——不仅以正式的方式通过政治和行政程序得到解决，而且作为政治和行政事务的问题，错综复杂地与品味、规则、冷漠、收益、节俭的诉求交织在一起，但最重要的是，解决问题的诉求。在一个饱受分裂、失业和经济不景气蹂躏的国家，从解决问题的承诺中，出现的不是对传统的虔诚态度；影响艺术实践的决定也不遵循某种预定的现代性路径。国家的方法也不简单地对应于现有文献中普遍采用的观点，在现有文献中，出发点往往是世俗民族主义的框架。相反，通过关注领导机构建设项目的政治家——尼赫鲁、阿扎德、帕特尔等人——的日常问题解决和决策过程，我们发现他们将国家能力建设放在首位；其他一切，包括国家建设，都源于此。在这方面，尽管还没有具体的计划来研究艺术，但几乎所有涉及政治的问题都涉及到艺术。