New Delhi: Agricultural union leader and art critic Suneet Chopra died at the age of 81 on Tuesday, April 4, 2023.
“His demise is a big loss, not only to the communist movement, but the entire democratic and progressive movement in India. The AIAWU dips its red flag in the memory of Comrade Suneet Chopra,” said the All-India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) in a release.
A fine art critic for many years, he straddled his many worlds with ease and aplomb. Chopra died at the age of 81 while at the Sikanderpur metro station in Gurgaon. He was on his way to meet friends and fellow travellers who had come to Delhi for the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh rally due to be held in Ramlila Maidan on Wednesday. But others say he was actually on his way to an opening of an art show at Shridharani Gallery in Triveni. Incidentally, a show curated by him, titled ‘The Melody of Life’, gets underway in Delhi on Thursday. He was probably heading to a train, to be able to go to both places. Those who saw and interacted with him say that he was frail but still full of life. His passion for keeping both his interests alive and going stayed with him till his last breath.
The Melody of Life. Photo: By arrangement
It was in his time as a student in School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) in London that he got initiated into both art, as an artist, and in the communist movement. After his degree in African studies, he joined the liberation movement in Palestine. Following that, back in India at the Centre for Studies in Regional Development in Jawaharlal Nehru University, he got involved in student politics, and was one of the persons who drafted the JNU Students’ Union constitution, according to the AIAWU release.
Chopra was elected as the founding treasurer of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in 1980. He was also elected to the Central Committee of Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1995 and stayed on as member until 2015.
His writing on the work of designer J.J. Valaya’s photographs in 2011 for Frontline offers a sample of how he drew his many worlds on one canvas. He wrote of his photographs:
“with its focus on the people on the street, and not the mock-models of the 21st century, is what gives this form of art its strength and its authenticity in history. It also reminds us that it was the people of Delhi and the villages around it, often brought in as slaves and bonded craftsmen, and now, migrants from all over the country, who are the lifeblood of the city and its future. They may appear only in the background of these photographs as farmers, tribal people and ordinary citizens appear in Mughal miniatures, but they will come centre stage as they did in our modern art from the hands of artists such as Jamini Roy, Ram Kinkar Baij, Nandalal Bose, Somenath Hore, Chittaprasad, F.N. Souza and M.F. Husain, to name only a few.”
Originally from undivided Punjab, his family crossed over to India during the Partition of the sub-continent. Having grown up in the shadow of the communal divisions around him, the lesson he drew from it was to ensure that people stay away from the hate brought by religious politics. His life, with both art and a determined struggle for an egalitarian world, was a tribute to that sentiment.
