ABSTRACT
Though the scholarship of recent decades has offered a vast array of new and theoretically informed interpretations of the life, work and thought of Mohandas Gandhi, our understanding of how ideas of the “Mahatma” circulated in public spheres, and with what effect, remains inadequate. In particular, not enough attention has been paid thus far, even as scholars are increasingly partaking of the so-called visual turn, to the place of the vast visual representational apparatus in the work of nationalism. This chapter explores nationalist prints of Gandhi produced primarily in Kanpur and, more particularly, in the workshop of Shyam Sundar Lal. Printmakers evinced a considerable familiarity with Gandhi’s life. Some are little more than portraits; many others depict scenes from his life; and yet others offer an extraordinary demonstration of the playfulness and ease with which printmakers worked Indian mythic material into the nationalist narrative, weaving the story of Krishna into the narrative of a modern-day vanquisher of evil. Though these prints may be dismissed by some as gutter art, amateurish, indeed as ephemera and akin to a minor literature, they offer a unique perspective on the place of Gandhi in the nationalist imaginary.
