Lalit Gupta
By public art is meant the built environment of the city: memorials, monuments, architecture and sculpture—which give a sense about preceding generations and extent of their involvement in architecture and design. It also includes statues, street furniture and fountains. It is the cultural expression of a city by its residents and artists to promote and build an identity around them.
City of Jammu, the regional metropolis and the socio-cultural as well as political centre of the region since centuries, like many other ancient urban inhabitations, also bears in its built environment traces of contemporary ideologies, trends and fashions that its elite and residents chose and are choosing to surround themselves in material form of public art.
In this context, old Jammu city exhibits a grand tradition of architecture in shape of palace complex of Mubarak Mandi, Amar Palace and large numbers of temples which are the standing examples of the official public art of the Dogra kings. These often encompass an amalgam of painting and sculpture in exterior as well as interior design of the structures.
Contemporary to the Dogra palaces, the large havelies and houses of courtiers, relatives, officers and other important personalities including ‘golis’ and other important staff members of maharaj’s ‘private department’ in Mohalla Slathia, Darbar Garh, Panjthirthi, Dhouthali and Pacci Dhakki, Mast Garh, also reflected the use of similar elements in many cases.
The fountain and group of sculptures put in the front lawn of Amar Palace or fountain with cherub children in Mubarak Mandi central courtyard, the jhrokhas for Sehnai players on top of its western ‘deodi’, partly make the grade as public art. Since these complexes were open to public on special occasions.
Built at end of 19th century and beginning of 20th century, the Presbyterian Church complex at
Residency Road, Jammu Railway Station, Pacca Danga Old Post Office, (both now demolished) Prince of Wales College, Sri Ranbir High School, Alexander Memorial School were other major public buildings followed by SMGS hospital.
These large edifices, the visible architectural landmarks mostly in colonial style were more or less a plain affair with emphasis upon the practical rather than the aesthetic function.
None the less these big buildings ushered a fresh sensibility in citizens towards new designs and materials. The Dewan Badri Nath Villa, near Circuit House, Gole Ghar in Hajuri Bagh, , villas of Diwans at Canal, Poonch House, fall under the above category.
Public buildings constructed in post Independence period in Jammu, like civil secretariat were again plain in outlook. But the Gandhi Bhavan standing adjacent to its very front gate had a fountain and also a bust of Mahatma Gandhi set in a niche on top of its entrance.
Under State’s reconstruction programme, the city started expanding towards south, new colonies like Gandhi Nagar was followed with Shashtri Nagar, Trikuta Nagar, Sainak Colony and others residential localities came up. From 1960s to 1990s, the city’s new physical spaces landscape carried imprints of State’s political atmosphere. Naming bridges and buildings after ruling political elite, prime ministers, chief ministers, commemorating national and state personalities, mythological characters symbolizing Jammu’s history, local heroes, and warriors —in shape of statues installed at city squares, traffic islands and parks, emerged as major expression of public art.
Such a decoration of physical spaces in Jammu with monuments and civic statuary is perhaps the oldest and most obvious form of officially sanctioned public art in urban centers. These statues vary from the shoddily made Subahsh Chander Bose’s standing at ingress of Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) building, to busts and more than life size statues of General Vikram Singh, General Zorawar Singh, Jambu Lochan, Pandit Prem Nath Dogra, Baba Sahib Ambedkar, Swami Daya Nand, Mahatram Gandhi, Mian Dido, Pandit Prem Nath Dogra, Brig Rajendra Singh and others.
Under the state sponsored enthusiasm ostensibly for beautifying public spaces, during the late 1970s and early 80s, unexpectedly city’s major traffic island and parks were adorned with globe like steel fountains that were lit during evenings. Decided by some art minded minister and equally art minded team of bureaucrats and engineers, such projects were implemented without any public participation and consensus.
The martial character of Dogras and their natural inclination for Indian military service saw many young Dogra officers and other ranks getting martyred during Kargil conflict. Their supreme sacrifices were commemorated by Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) and civil society organizations by naming many roads and gates on names of fallen heroes.
As city’s municipal authority or elected Carporators and community leaders are either hardly aware of presence of large constituency of local fine- artists in the city or have no concern for the way physical spaces of their city are being given shape, the aesthetic consideration of public art, which has emerged as major tourist attraction in other cities, almost been missing in Jammu and only a few such art works adorn civic spaces.
With the result, other than statues which one is surely to encounter at almost every city square, very few creative sculptures, commissioned by JDA, have been either executed as an official requirement or when the bureaucrat at helm of affair was artistically inclined.
Such examples are the realistic relief panels depicting slices of life from times of Dogra Rajas, thst have put at Jambu Lochan memorial at Shalimar, and at entrance gate of Bahu-Plaza complex. In the ‘art category’ are the other abstract sculptures located at inner courtyard of Bahu Plaza, on traffic island at the city end of Gujjar Nagar Tawi bridge and one which stands at front lawn of Dhanvanrtri Library, Jammu University.
The murals on city walls, which have emerged as USP of many big cities, their metro, railway, bus stations and airports, also be seen in Jammu in examples at the Brahman Sabha Hall, Parade, façade of Directorate of Schools building, Mutthi, DOEACC, Centre, Jammu University, in Pragrati Bhavan and few others. These are narrative panels showing Ram-Sita marriage, basic elements of education like scripts, books, industrial tools, evolution of technology and panoramic landscape of Jammu city respectively.
Due to its location, the mural at facade of Directorate of Schools building, Mutthi, can only be seen by the passersby but the rest are an indoor affair.
One other major project under taken by JMC was the paintings the road sides with help of fine arts students of Institute of Music and Fine Arts. The dull and washed out road-side walls just before Hotel Asia were transformed by budding artists with large paintings showing cultural diversity of J&K. Called as Heritage Point, today these paintings due to bad condition of upkeep look more as eye sores rather than a site of beauty.
The police martyr memorial in front of railway station near Vaishnavi Dham, and the war memorial at the beginning by the road connection Bagh-e-Bahu with bypass-highway are monument that commissioned by central ministries of home and defense, and most likely designed by architects, are also an addition to city’s physical landscape.
It is high time that we take public art of our city seriously and seek citizen’s share in deciding future projects and bring some creative elements instead of fixated official art, state mythology and monuments.
It is time to slowly transform the concept of public art in Jammu to make it a tourist attraction which will certain give the city a different identity. There is an urgent need to go beyond beautification and to give a visual character to spaces which have a cultural significance. Contemporary public art needs to define the space and lend it a character.
Apart from enriching a city both aesthetically and culturally, art placed in public places can have great power as it is the first visual reflection of city’s culture, thought, evolution and history.
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