whether its the statue at a busy street crossing or the dodiya on your wall representations of the mahatma abound even in death gandhi fascinated artists the world over ahead of martyrs day sunday times takes a look there is but no question that mohandas gandhi remains more than six decades after his assassination the most iconic figure of modern india he was one of the most widely photographed men of his time an entire industry of nationalist prints extolled his life and his statues abound throughout india and increasingly the rest of the world gandhi has been a blessing to cartoonists ever since he signalled his arrival on the political scene in south africa and most indian artists of consequence over the course of the last halfcentury from m f husain and ramkinkar baij to ghulam muhammad sheikh and atul dodiya have engaged with gandhi in their work what is equally striking is that this immensely rich visual archive which encompasses such unusual items as caricatures of gandhi in fascist publications antigandhi soviet propaganda posters and lewd comics of gandhi from tijuana mexico has altogether escaped critical scrutiny barring some recent scholarly work on nationalist prints and an occasional article on gandhi and photography a distinct iconography began to develop around gandhis figure in his own lifetime indeed it would be no exaggeration to say that deities the great bhaktas and the founders of religion such as the buddha aside there is no figure in the history of india who could be so readily signified whether by gandhis trademark spectacles his walking stick the sandals he himself made or the timepiece tucked into a corner of his dhoti cartoonists delighted in those large ears that prompted sarojini naidu to dub him mickey mouse and some of the most striking photographs are those where in the midst of men dressed in overcoats silk suits or other formal wear gandhi appears singular in the shining armour of his nakedness one cartoonist had the good sense to represent the battle between gandhi and the forces of violence as the struggle between the shirtless and the shirted however the various representations of gandhi cannot be interpreted as offering a seamless narrative on his unique place in the national imaginary or as a figure of global protest what we do not see is just as important as what we do see printmakers photographers painters and sculptors are alert to different considerations the photographers of gandhi for instance were naturally sensitive to the play of light and shadows while printmakers drew on mythic material that they construed as the grounding of indian civilization the interpretation of public statuary leads us to a different set of questions where are statues of gandhi placed with what effect and consequences and to what end the vast archive can also be viewed in the light of other interpretive strategies we can speak for example of the seated gandhi the walking gandhi