Beohar Rammanohar Sinha and the Preamble
The creator of illustrations in the original final manuscript of the Constitution of India including the complete Preamble page, Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, was born on 15 June 1929. He played a major role in spreading Indian art in the Far East and brought Oriental Art to India.
Beohar Rammanohar Sinha: Early Life
Born in the largest and most important city of British India’s Central Provinces, Jubbulpore (now Jabalpur), he was the youngest son of Beohar Rajendra Sinha who was a prominent journalist and a politician and spent numerous terms as a political prisoner during the freedom movement of India. Being the son of a politician and freedom fighter, the seeds of nationalism were imbibed in him since his childhood.
Freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and Vinoba Bhave were frequent visitors to his house. Sinha pursued his graduation in fine arts in Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University, Shantiniketan from 1946 to 1950 and during his postgraduation he gained expertise in Fresco-secco; he gained specialization in Zen painting under Yu Wan-shan.
Illustrating the Constitution
To represent Indian art in its purest form in the Indian Constitution, Beohar Rammanohar Sinha made trips to places such as Ajanta, Ellora, Bagh, Badami, Sarnath, and Mahabalipuram. He included Vrishabha, a symbol of the Indus Valley Civilization, and then made drawings linking Babylon, the port of the Sumerian civilization with Lothal (Gujarat), the port of the Indus Valley Civilization. The Swastika found in Persia was also shown in the constitution. It states that the civilization of India was spread to Persia.
The Natarajas of the Shaivite sect, the Konark Sun Temple of the Kalinga Kingdom of Orissa, the seals of Nalanda University, coins from the Golden Age Gupta period as well as landscape paintings depicting the diversity of India’s natural wealth were prepared for individual pages of the Constitution. Rammanohar Sinha initially refused to sign the paintings but signed some pages after being insisted on by Nandalal Bose.
Beohar Rammanohar Sinha’s Artworks
Artist Beohar Rammanohar Sinha’s frescoes also adorn the walls and the dome of ‘Shaheed Smarak’ (Martyrs Memorial Concert Hall) in Jabalpur. It depicts various episodes and landmarks in India’s struggle for independence starting from 1654 and ending with the unfurling of the Indian tricolour on Independence Day in 1947. Paintings depicting the Quit India Movement and of Rani Durgavi preparing for a war against Akbar’s army are some among many paintings in the Shaheed Smarak.
Kala Shri Award in 2001; and the Veteran Artist Award by AIFACS in 1993 are some of the awards that artist Beohar Rammanohar Sinha received for his contribution to fields of fine arts. His works are housed in numerous prestigious public and private collections throughout the world and his paintings have been auctioned alongside those of Hebbar, Husain, Raza, Souza, Pyne and others in New York and London by Sotheby’s. He died on 25 October 2007.
Image Courtesy – Bhaskar
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