Westernization in India
MFA DISSERTATION
Western Impact on Indian Culture and Art
From Colonial, through Modern and Contemporary Times
Vishan Darren Seenath 2/2/2012
In the past decade contemporary art of the Indian sub-continent has received increasing attention, perhaps on the merit of the artists, but most likely due to the increasingly strong Indian economy and the money that is being made through foreign investments. There is a glaring observation to be made, and that is interest in India by the West seems closely tied to economic profit. Britain realized it when they took India from the East India Company and today the United States and European powers are taking advantage of a large and cheap labor force and emerging middle class. Indian artists are benefitting especially from this economic boom as the middle class and wealthy in India are their main supporters. The strife of the lower class seems to be one of the main themes used by artists and it plays well to Westerners, concerned with the struggles of the Third World. Throughout modern art history, Indian artists have responded to the changes to their country and attempted to find their identities in a struggle with modernism and prejudices of the West after independence. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the impact the West has had on the cultural and artistic legacy that continues today with Indian and Pakistani artists. I will start with the colonial period under the British Raj and the major cultural changes it caused through the example of the forming of ‘Hinduism’. I will then discuss the modernist period and move on to India’s current situation, discussing the status of being a contemporary artist of South Asian origins.
In 1850 the British Raj was established in India and their goal was to form India in their own image. All scholarship was Western based, which included archeology, anthropology, linguistics and other areas which came to be known as indology, the study of India’s history, people, and
Western Impact on Indian Culture and Art
From Colonial, through Modern and Contemporary Times
Vishan Darren Seenath 2/2/2012
In the past decade contemporary art of the Indian sub-continent has received increasing attention, perhaps on the merit of the artists, but most likely due to the increasingly strong Indian economy and the money that is being made through foreign investments. There is a glaring observation to be made, and that is interest in India by the West seems closely tied to economic profit. Britain realized it when they took India from the East India Company and today the United States and European powers are taking advantage of a large and cheap labor force and emerging middle class. Indian artists are benefitting especially from this economic boom as the middle class and wealthy in India are their main supporters. The strife of the lower class seems to be one of the main themes used by artists and it plays well to Westerners, concerned with the struggles of the Third World. Throughout modern art history, Indian artists have responded to the changes to their country and attempted to find their identities in a struggle with modernism and prejudices of the West after independence. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the impact the West has had on the cultural and artistic legacy that continues today with Indian and Pakistani artists. I will start with the colonial period under the British Raj and the major cultural changes it caused through the example of the forming of ‘Hinduism’. I will then discuss the modernist period and move on to India’s current situation, discussing the status of being a contemporary artist of South Asian origins.
In 1850 the British Raj was established in India and their goal was to form India in their own image. All scholarship was Western based, which included archeology, anthropology, linguistics and other areas which came to be known as indology, the study of India’s history, people, and
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