The term ‘Nation Builders’ brings to mind our Founding Fathers who dreamt of an independent Democratic Republic of India that holds its head high among the nations of the world. We think of politicians, statesmen, architects, engineers and scientists, but seldom do we think of artists. However, artists play an important role in building national identity.

It was with this idea that Jawaharlal Nehru called upon Nandalal Bose, one of the greats of Indian art, who was then the principal of Shantiniketan’s premier art school, Kala Bhavan, to decorate the Constitution in gold-leaf drawing. Bose and his team from Shantiniketan dedicated themselves to the task of presenting the civilisational turn of India’s culture – from Mohenjodaro to present day.

What remains lesser known to this day is the involvement of women artists in this task, five of whom belonged to the master artist’s family spanning three generations. All were students of Kala Bhavan, Shantiniketan. Two of the artists were Bose’s daughters who had joined the art institute on the personal recommendation of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.   

Gauri Bhanja, eldest daughter of Nandalal Bose had joined the Kala Bhavan in Shantiniketan only because of the personal recommendation of Tagore, despite her father being the principal of the institute. She had graduated with a diploma in painting at age 19.

The youngest daughter of Bose, Jamuna Sen, joined Kala Bhavan like her elder sister in the early 1930s and learned the art of making frescos and linocut print making. Her landscape paintings were influenced by the work of Abanindranath Tagore and her father, Nandalal Bose. Her depiction of Lord Mahavira finds pride of place in the pages of the Constitution.

Nibedita Bose grew up in Shantiniketan as her father, Tanayendranath Ghosh, was a teacher and hostel warden there. Nibedita’s mother had passed away young and she was brought up by her father. She later married illustrator Biswarup Bose, Nandalal’s son.

Amala Sarkar had studied at Patha Bhavan, Sangeet Bhavan and Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan. She went on to teach at Patha Bhavan and Kala Bhavan after her time illustrating the Constitution. She was a well-known singer of Shantiniketan who was also heard over the airwaves as she sang Bengali songs for AIR Calcutta.

Sarkar was also a part of the dance drama troupe that toured with Rabindranath Tagore and Shantidev Ghosh. The troupe was instrumental in raising funds for Tagore’s university, Visvabharati. Amala, who also cut records with HMV, married Kanailal Sarkar of the Ananda Bazar Patrika.

The youngest illustrator to work on decorating the Constitution was twenty-one-year-old Bani Patel, the granddaughter of Nandalal Bose, and daughter of Gauri Bhanja. She illustrated a few pages of the Constitution under Bose’s supervision. Patel, along with her grandfather, made the illustration of Lord Krishna preaching the Bhagwad Gita to rouse a dejected Arjuna – the painting adorns the Part IV of the Constitution pertaining to the Directive Principles.

The sixth woman artist in the group was Sumitra Narayan from Secunderabad who trained under Gauri Bhanja at Kala Bhavan. A native Konkani speaker, Narayan learned Bangla and went on to become an art and craft teacher at Kolkata’s famed Patha Bhavan School.