Marching through Gandhi's vision

The bronze murals of Mahatma Gandhi and his marchers

The terrace of IIT-Bombay's Industrial Design Centre (IDC), also known as the IDC School of Design, was only recently reimagined in the Gandhian spirit. Two life-sized clay murals that depict the marchers who participated in the historic 24-day Salt March from Sabarmati to Dandi in 1930, and which were made during a workshop in 2013, rest here, under the shade of an overgrown tree.

A few metres ahead is a weaving centre, set up two years ago. Inside, table and frame handlooms occupy much of the space. A first-timer would mistake this for the home of the Mahatma. It's no surprise that the seeds of the ambitious National Salt Satyagrah Memorial, inaugurated at Navsari, Gujarat, in January this year, were first sown at this centre.

Prof Raja Mohanty at the weaving centre at the IDC School of Design, which he was inspired to start due to his involvement with the Dandi Memorial Project. Pic/Sameer Markande

The Dandi Memorial, in fact, has led to new and unusual collaborations at IIT-B, Powai. First mooted in 2005, under the leadership of then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, the project saw the elite institution join the fray five years later, with faculty and students of over five departments, from engineering to the arts, working together. "It wasn't easy to get everybody on the same page, but it has been cited as one of the most wonderful collaborations at the IIT-B," says Raja Mohanty, professor at IDC, who saw the execution of the memorial through. Mohanty will be speaking about the project at today's Mumbai Local session at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum.

Designed and conceptualised by retired IDC professor Kirti Trivedi, the much-delayed memorial, a homage to Gandhi's epic march to challenge the Salt Law during the British rule, ran into several hurdles, since it was planned. But the pan-India project finally came into its own this year. Built on 15 acres of land, the memorial boasts of 81 bronze sculptures - made at IIT-B and cast at a studio in Jaipur - depicting Gandhi and his young marchers, and another monument, with a 40m-tall statue of the Mahatma and a 2.5 tonne weighing glass crystal placed at the top, symbolic of a pair of hands, holding salt.

Additionally, 24 narrative murals, which trace Gandhi's visits to villages and towns, where he interacted with locals during the course of the march, decorate the premises. An artificial lake that symbolises the path from Sabarmati to Dandi, and solar trees, are other ingenious efforts of the IIT-B civil engineering team, which reflect the Gandhian ethos.

"The reason we were successful is because of Prof Trivedi's commitment to this memorial," says Mohanty. "To him, this was just not any other project. He was fussy and almost devoted to it. His father was a Gandhian, and he was brought up with those ideals. This eventually manifested into the work he was doing here."

Though Trivedi was creative head, he took a step back after retiring in 2014; Mohanty took over in the final year of its execution in 2017. But it wasn't easy to get work on it going, and it took several years to realise. "The initial delay was sometime between 2012 and 2015. That was possibly the time when the funding was getting approved - there is a long-process, where the financial advisor has to sanction the money. After that, there were delays at the tendering stage, because the committee had to identify the right people for the job. These delays have been trying. Sometimes work was sanctioned, but due to government procedures, the money wouldn't come until two months."

Getting the civil engineering, environment, earth science and metallurgy departments at the IIT-B to work alongside the arts and design team was another challenge. "People are known to give too much importance to science and technology than the arts." There were difficulties convincing the engineering department about certain ideas the IDC had in mind, but the project fell into place seamlessly in the end. The memorial, today, sees footfalls of 25,000 people over the weekends.

Work, however, is far from complete. "It was only 95 per cent ready when we inaugurated it. We were aware that some things would need attention. For instance, the murals would need to be lit up, if and when it is open for night-viewing." They are also looking for a local weaver to hold workshops at the facility, where a loom has been set up. Trivedi, on the other hand, is "both happy and deeply sad" about how the memorial has come together.

"The marchers, lake and solar trees have turned out as I visualised it. But, the construction quality of the 24 murals and the pyramid is shabby and not up to the mark. I think everyone was in a hurry to inaugurate the project. This was meant to be a national monument created in Gandhian simplicity, and designed with a life of at least 500 years in mind. It seems to be broken before it is built. The are too many flaws, which I hope get corrected soon. Yet, people seem to have liked it, and I'm glad it is being appreciated," says Trivedi.

For Mohanty, who wouldn't call himself a Gandhian, the project has helped him see his own work in new light. While working on the memorial, he became interested in making cloth, even though he is a potter by profession. "I am not an ideologically-driven person, but I like the Gandhian idea of simplicity and sustainability. My involvement with weaving coincided with this [work on the project]. I didn't want it to be a dead memorial. I wanted to do something that would connect and resonate with what we were doing at Navsari. Spinning and weaving became one way to engage the students here." The memorial, he admits, was the starting point for this conversation.

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