Are we so bankrupt in imagination and inspiration that we are unable to create our own art forms giving expression to our modern way of life with that freedom which is still before us – the freedom which a wise use of the machine as a new and wondrous tool can bestow on us?
– ‘Architecture and You’, Marg, October, 1946
The inaugural edition of Marg magazine, published in October 1946 opened with ‘Architecture and You’– a ten-page-long charter boasting of a sui generis format comprising illustrations, floor plans and line drawings interspersed with quotations from Vitruvius and Plato to Frank Lloyd Wright and Francis Yorke.1
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Dwindling architecture coverage?
While Marg was ardent about the larger space of art and culture since its beginnings, its coverage of architecture – one of the foundational buttresses of the publication – had evidently dwindled from the late 1950s. The remarkable heyday when architecture held substantial space in its pages had begun to slowly fade. “Mulk was quite self-reflexive; by academic training he was a philosopher – and that might have helped him gain a distance and reflect on what was ailing Marg,” says Yohannan. In an editorial for the magazine’s December 1963 edition, Anand expressed how it had failed to generate the movement it had wished for:
The reason for this has partly been the disintegration of the original Marg group and a lack of consistency in the pursuit of the discussion of the various problems of architecture in India today. Partly, our lapses have been due to the fact that our intelligentsia did not respond very eagerly to our initiatives in stimulating thought about architectural problems…Of course, we resisted the temptation to be fashionable and launched on a series of issues dedicated to the rediscovery of ancient and medieval Indian architecture and the several allied arts.
Apart from the lack of fervour among readers for architecture-centric issues, the newly emerging architects in the 1960s focused more on practice than engaging in architectural writing or discourse. This is also perhaps palpable from an abrupt decline in the quality of writing in journals such as Design, The Indian Builder (both founded by political commentator and publisher Patwant Singh) and Journal of the Indian Institute of Architects in the course of the coming years.
Marg’s coverage of projects concerning housing for the urban middle class had also become less robust. In a paper titled Marg Magazine: A Tryst with Architectural Modernity the authors Kathleen James-Chakraborty and Rachel Lee highlight:
While several early issues feature articles on rural settlements and low-cost housing, the magazine did not touch the ordinary modernism inhabited by urban middle-class Indians, who by 1963 often lived in streamlined villas or high-rise apartment blocks, and worked in concrete-framed office buildings. Had it done so, the prominence of modern architecture would have been far greater than their narrow focus on “high” architecture, designed by avant-garde architects.
Furthermore, the initial sanguinity of the new nation state, especially seen through the lens of its architecture, had begun to abate. The rise of Floor Space Index (FSI) rather than local planning by-laws had thwarted the fabric of many urban precincts that were the hallmark of architecture from the 1930s to the 1950s. The Nehru-Mahalanobis strategy built on a model developed by Russian economist G A Feldman was not without its flaws. India had lost a war to China; the country had lost its longest-serving prime minister by 1964.
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Conspicuous omissions?
The imposition of the Emergency on 25 June 1975 saw an outpouring of resistance from artists, authors and cultural practitioners across the country. They participated in movements against the Emergency, leading to their imminent detention and arrest. Channelling discontent, poets and writers discreetly brought out pamphlets and newsletters against the government, later distributed by student volunteers.2
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- 1. Unbridled in its tone, the manifesto probed into the vacuous sentiment of nationalism in India as a form of “retrogression”, an “escape in the absence of our ability to create a national character expressive of ourselves today, in the 20th century.” Apportioning an almost cautionary warning against the adoption of an “Indian style of architecture” or “Indian traditional architecture”, it described the regular Indian street’s medley of hybrid building styles as “spurious antiquity” and “vulgar modernity”. Case in point – an illustration of a Taj Mahal-like structure accompanied by a caption scoffingly states, “railway station or Mogul palace”? Invoking rationalism, social justice, and social engineering, the manifesto espoused the notion of architecture as a synthesis of “a structural science and an exact analysis of social needs”, vouching for an international modernism as the way forward. Its no-holds-barred approach suggested that our modern way of living has absolutely no relation to the amalgam of architectural styles.
- 2. While street theatre came to be used as a tool for dissent and open rebellion, the Delhi-based Jana Natya Manch (popularly known as Janam) led by playwright and activist Safdar Hashmi – founded in 1973 – was silenced. Documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, who was then filming the rising support for Jayprakash Narayan across the country, went underground. Films were censored and the media was muzzled. While several artists, activists and intellectuals condemned the Emergency and the punitive restrictions that curtailed freedom of expression, Marg conceivably failed to highlight the zeitgeist of this turbulent moment in history in the immediate wake of its occurrence. The magazine seems to have shied away from re-emphasising the value of democracy, or highlighting the significance of dissent in the arts. Freedom First, in fact, shut for six months during 1975-76 instead of submitting to pre-censorship. Filing a petition with the Bombay High Court, it successfully challenged the censorship order [Binod Rao Vs M R Masani, 78 (1975) Bom LR 125].