Of art, liberty and how they carry history

“When we suppress art, we suppress progress,” Supreme Court Judge Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said here on Saturday.

“The art of today may be a window into our future tomorrow,” he said speaking at the Constitution Day celebration on the theme “Visualising the Constitution through artistic prisms - stories of aspiration and emancipation” organised by Kalakshetra.

“While forms of art contain their own aesthetic beauty, they carry within them the history of our lives and communities. As such, the art being created within our nation often stores within itself the salient features of the Constitution,” he said. He noted how art, politics and the law share a symbiotic relationship in any meaningful society that prides on individual freedom and dignity.

He elaborately spoke of how cinema serves as a medium through which stories of marginalisation and oppression come to the forefront. Citing Tamil film Asuran directed by Vetrimaaran, Justice Chandrachud said how it dealt with the story of a Dalit family facing oppression from the upper caste landlord who seeks to take away their land. “Art can be used to acknowledge the history of oppression, often as a reminder of what has happened and why it must not be repeated in India. It forces us as a nation and as a community to not only acknowledge the horrors of what has come before but also to develop empathy for those who have suffered,” he added.