Untitled

Volunteering for the Communist Party of India’s relief efforts, the prominent left-wing artist Chittaprosad extensively toured rural Bengal to document the devastation wreaked by the man-made Famine of 1943. This lino print depicts a group of emaciated people huddling around a fishnet, while some children stand examining a freshly captured crab. Chittaprosad’s rough black strokes convey the rhythm of labour—the motion, sweat and grind of people hauling the fishnet.