Asit Kumar Haldar painted The Procession around 1950 which is his largest known work, and It's about 1.3 metres tall and 3.3 metres wide. He made it in watercolour and gouache on paper, but its wide shape gives it the feeling of a wall painting. It shows a famous moment from the epic Ramayana.
After Rama is banished from Ayodhya, his brother Bharata declined to accept the kingship. He rather leads the people of Ayodhya to the forest at Chitrakoot to ask Rama to return home. But Rama says no. So Bharata returns carrying Rama’s sandals on his head and rules only in Rama’s name.
Haldar turns this long walk into a moving crowd. Because of the width of the painting, viewers eyes could easily travel from one group of people to another, like a story scroll. The figures do not shout for attention. This quiet way of arranging people comes from Haldar’s deep study of ancient Indian cave paintings.
Haldar spent years copying the murals at Ajanta. In 1921, he arrived the Bagh Caves and documented about them in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. That close contact with early Indian wall painting can be felt in The Procession.
The painting also has glowing surface because Haldar used the wash technique. In this method, an artist paints thin layers of colour and softens them with water. The colours seem to breathe rather than sit flat on the paper. This technique became important in the Bengal School, the group of artists around Abanindranath Tagore, Haldar’s teacher. Bengali artists learnt from Japanese painters and adapted Japanese methods to Indian subjects. In The Procession, the wash gives the epic scene a peaceful, dreamlike mood.
I personally read this as a lesson in duty, and Bharata is good example who is offered power, but he chooses love and loyalty.
When I look at The Procession, I see a story where Bharata chooses love over power. He could have kept the throne of Ayodhya, but he walks into the forest with the people to bring Rama home, and he returns carrying only Rama’s sandals, symbolic of his detachment from material power and wealth. What moves me is how quiet the painting though it is a scene that depicts movement, returning of Bharata after meeting Rama, and the soft, glowing colours make the long walk feel peaceful and almost like a dream. To me, it says that real leadership means serving others and keeping your promises, free from authority.
