Political

Bikash Bhattacharjee lived through turbulent times, when the streets of Calcutta were especially affected by pre- and post-Independence violence; he came of age as a painter, again, in equally troubled times when political apathy resulted in the Naxal movement. These events found reflection in his art, not directly as a lament of the dispossessed but as a critique by a sensitive, thinking individual. The image of this smartly-dressed man, blindfolded and bullet-riddled—yet alive—being exhorted to speak his mind on a microphone is a distressing comment on the fate of the powerless.