Introduction

India is a country of strong and brilliant art traditions. From folk art to modern era paintings, innumerable artists have created magic on the walls of the caves in the bygone era. In modern times, it adorns the walls of hotel lobbies, conference halls and the museums of folk arts. The list is ever-increasing. The latest addition is the walls of railway stations, airports and the open space available alongside the main roads of the cities. This, indeed, is a rejuvenating phenomenon to go through a powerful streak of Indian style paintings showcasing the rich art traditions of India. In this context, it would be interesting to explore the status of such beautiful graffiti art on the blank-looking walls of India's railway stations first:

The process of painting the empty walls of railway stations got a shot in the arm when renowned conservationist and author, Valmik Thapar shared this idea with the then Railway Minister, Suresh Prabhu. He wanted the Sawai Madhopur railway station of Rajasthan to look like a place that leads to a tiger habitat of national repute, Ranthambore. Similarly, Bharatpur railway station should present a look and feel, that screams birds to a large number of tourists coming to see the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. The idea was duly implemented by the railway minister who marshalled the resources of the Railways which teamed up with Valmik Thapar to arrange local tiger painters around Ranthambore National Park. They found the duo of Narayan Singh and Gajanand Singh, who specialised in painting tigers and other wildlife. They soon started working on the project and took eight months to paint the entire Sawai Madhopur railway station which stood out as a unique initiative of the Indian Railways. Soon, Bharatpur grabbed the initiative which caught the attention of the then Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje Sindhiya. She came forward to sponsor the work at Bharatpur and other stations such as Jaipur, Kota, Jodhpur and Udaipur. All these stations were painted in the traditional Bikaneri style.[2]

In a short while, this exercise was converted into a pan-India project as the ministry encouraged its 68 divisions across the country to paint their stations. At present, more than a hundred railway stations across the country stand covered in an ever-increasing list. In December 2017, the ministry organized a competition of its painted stations to encourage the process. Sixty-two stations from 11 zonal railways participated and were judged by a group of two Executive Directors of the ministry, a departmental head from South Central Railway and an official from Northeast Frontier Railway. Ballarshah and Chandrapur stations of Central Railway stood first, Bihar's Madhubani station under the East Central Zone, and Madurai of Southern Railway came jointly second while Kota station of West Central Railway, Western Railway’s Gandhigram and Secunderabad of South Central Railway bagged the third prize.[2]

Although the Indian Railways’ association with public art has been very rare, its latest initiative serves two purposes-first, it has proved to be a major step by the Indian Railways to showcase local art forms and culture, and secondly, the stations also got beautified in the process.[3]

Global Position

Globally, public art and transport have joined hands with ease. Several European metro and railway operators follow an “art ratio policy” which mandates 0.5 to 1 per cent of the station's development budget to be fixed for art. At the time of renewing the Paris Metro, public art was also taken into account. Renowned Polish architect of urban transport systems, Ewa Maria Kido wrote in the Japan Railway and Transport Review that public art can play an important role in “improving the image of a railway.”[4]

1. Madhubani railway station, Bihar

At Madhubani railway station, almost every inch of available space has been painted narrating the stories of the Ram-Sita swayamvar, Lord Krishna's exploits, the Ashok Vatika, the resting place of Sita in Ravana's Lanka. Besides that, there are depictions of scenes from everyday's life. To the left of the main entrance, there lies a 50-metres stretch of painting depicting the journey of a farmer. It spans his life in a thatched hut to moving to a pucca house, owning a bike, tractor and finally a car. On the right side of the gate, there are more traditional paintings such as images of kohvarv (the bridal chamber) and doli kahar (bride in a palanquin), dholiya-bajania (music band) etc. As a contemporary theme, prohibition is taken up in a set of paintings ending with a woman beating her drunk husband with a broom. Traditionally, in the Madhubani paintings, the use of acrylic and natural colours on paper or cloth is common. But on the station walls, enamel has been used for lasting effect. These paintings were done by Veena Devi, a Madhubani artist in the town, led by a team of 200-odd artists, including her son Vivek, for beautification on such a massive scale.[5]

2. Kota (Rajasthan)

At Kota railway station, paintings were done between 2015 and 2017. It represents a unique mix of the Kota-Bundi style of painting and art from Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan. The paintings on the station walls are images of the royal hunting party of the former Marwar ruler Umed Singh and wildlife from Sawai Madhopur, the district where the Ranthambore National Park is situated. Ravikumar Surpur, former district collector of Kota, during whose tenure the project was taken up, said that-"We thought the paintings should reflect the culture of the state and Hadoti region (of which Kota is a part) in particular. We selected the tiger as a theme and used the Bundi school of painting since the Mukundara tiger reserve is situated in this region.” In this regard, the 60-year old fifth-generation artist of the Kota-Bundi style, Sheikh Mohammad Lukman, said that the Kota-Bundi style of art is known for its bright colours and anecdotes from the history of the region. It took several months to complete each painting. To complete this project, funds were mobilised by the district collector through the Urban Improvement Trust, Kota. The Chief Minister of Rajasthan started an aggressive tourism campaign. She directed the Collectors to beautify railway stations, especially in the divisional headquarters.[6]

4. Gandhidham (Gujarat)

The railway station at Gandhidham is located near Kandla, Mundra and Tuna ports. The concourse hall of the railway station has twenty images of some of the most famous attractions in the Kutch district. Besides that, on the walls, there are giant paintings of flamingos and wild asses from the Wild Ass Sanctuary of the Little Rann of Kutch. There are also paintings of the Harappan site at Dholavira and the famous White Desert in Kutch. These paintings were done by the Ahmedabad-based painters Vimal Patel, Kalpesh Shah and Hansraj Sagathiya, who own a studio in Ahmedabad. The artists used spray guns to ensure that the paintings had “sharp finishing". Apart from culture and history, paintings cover wildlife, industries, coastline, tourist attractions and the border that Kutch shares with Pakistan.[7]

5. Secunderabad (Telangana)

The railway station was built in 1874 by the Nizam of Hyderabad. It was later taken over by the Indian Railways in 1951. The bright red of Telangana's Cheriyal scroll paintings can be seen covering half-a-dozen places at the station. A 50-ft-long mural is also done in the sprawling waiting hall. Traditionally done on a khadi canvas, the art is characterized by panels displaying scenes from everyday life which includes Telangana's famous Bathukamma festival, rural wedding rituals and the local Gangireddulu bulls-set against a bright red background. Nagila Ganesh and his team of eight artists from Cheriyal, a village in Telangana's Siddipet district, did the job. According to him many decades ago, our ancestors used to paint entire episodes of the Ramayana on scrolls, which they carried from village to village for burra kadha (an oral storytelling tradition in rural Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for which the Cheriyal paintings would serve as a prop). Red colour is very easy to make. For big paintings at Secunderabad railway station, they used acrylic colours and painting brushes. For smaller ones, they used natural colours.8 According to South Central Railway authorities, the decision to get artists from Cheriyal was aimed at reviving this languishing centuries-old art form.[9]

6. Chandrapur & Balharshah (Maharashtra)

Wildlife is the prominent theme of wall paintings at these two railway stations, separated by 20 km. This is because of the fact that the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve is 25 km away from Chandrapur and 40 km from Ballarshah, which houses a 160-sq-foot tiger mural made of fibreglass and painted golden stands at the entrance. The staircase of the footover bridge contains paintings of chitals and leopards. Paintings of tigers exist at watering holes near the water kiosk. The facade of the station at Chandrapur is a mosaic mural made of broken pieces of coloured tiles, besides vinyl paintings displaying Chandrapur's wildlife and habitat. Moreover, the ceiling and pillars of the booking office have scenes depicting Chandrapur tribal as well as wildlife. There are more paintings that adorn the walls and ceilings of almost every room, including the waiting hall for passengers and the station master's chamber. A team of about 60 students and 10 teachers from Nagpur's Chitrakala Mahavidyalaya were part of the project. [10]

7. Kolkata Metro

Kolkata Metro, also run by Railways, took up the beautification job in the 1980s. Works of famous sculptors such as Alo Dutta adorn its underground stations: pattachitra paintings cover the walls of the Kalighat station in South Kolkata. Rabindra Sadan station has murals of the poet's manuscripts and so on. [11]

8. Mumbai Suburban Network

Spanning the whole network, 36 stations were painted in October 2016 as part of the Dana Utsav. Later, this initiative was dovetailed with the Centre's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Through all this, Railways perfected crowdsourcing, as a new model for a job. Two NGOs, Mumbai First and Making a Difference, pooled 25,000 volunteers and artists from art schools and colleges to paint round the clock for seven days to transform Mumbai suburban stations. Paint companies sponsored the paints as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. [12]

Airports

Recently, the newly built terminal of the Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport at Lucknow displayed beautiful wall paintings depicting indigenous art traditions. This trend is visible at Hyderabad and few other Airports in India.

Indian Cities

The above trend of painting walls can also be seen in some of the Indian cities. Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh is such an example where along the main road, beautiful paintings have been done by the local art forms including the folk art as well as the contemporary topics including images of freedom fighters. This tradition is slowly catching up in many other urban habitats of different parts of India.

The Flip Side

Though the idea of painting the walls of public spaces is laudatory as it helps in bringing to the fore the forgotten art forms of India for the new generation, there are some grey areas attached to it:

First and foremost is the fund crunch for their upkeep. There is no sustained inflow of money to maintain them.

The gradually declining interest of the authorities in such projects is always a cause of concern.

Many passengers or daily commuters on roads regularly attempt to defile or deface these works of art. They even don't hesitate to remove or dismantle the security covers in the form of steel pillars and protective sheets. In such cases, it is not possible to take timely action and most of the cases go unattended.

After some time, the upper layers of colours get peeled off or the colour fades. In such cases, corrective measures are urgently needed. But this seems to be a far cry in the present circumstances.

What is needed is standard operating practices (SOPs) for the maintenance and sustenance of such artistic treasures.

There is a strong need to install CCTV cameras near these artworks as far as possible to nab the perpetrators of crimes regarding their defacement and other acts of vandalism.

Conclusion

The very concept of adorning the empty walls of the railway stations, airports, metros and the main thoroughfares of cities is praiseworthy in the sense of making the present generation about our own grand heritage, especially the enchanting and captivating art forms. This work should be extended to every possible public space in the near future. For this purpose, financial aid can be sought from the people and the corporate sector without any hesitation. This endeavour will certainly give a boost to the tourism sector in different parts of the country. However, at the same time, this must not be a one-time activity. Necessary infrastructure, consistent financial support and security mechanisms should be enforced without any further delay. Preserving and encouraging our old value system and culture is a venerable job and it needs to be done in the same spirit. The induction of newer subjects in the artworks would certainly attract the youth of this country. Strict penal actions are necessary in the case of vagabonds who spit or defile these paintings and other artworks. Lastly, such works of art will surely rekindle the fastly depleting aesthetic sense into the people at large. 

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