GRAFFITI IN INDIA
Being able to summarise an emotion into a single word is a skill and picture that emotion into a drawing or art and splashing colors onto that emotion is a bigger skill.
This article is about people’s perspectives about graffiti and how we can use graffiti to bring the best out of the talent in the youth and the elderly.
Graffiti arts are writing made on walls or surfaces usually without the permission of any authority, in simple words denied within a public view, graffiti has been a very common practice since ancient times.
Getting to the reality of graffiti nowadays can be controversial especially in our country BUT it can be a medium of voice for social change, protest, and a simpler form of communal expression or willingness.
Germany, United States, Denmark, Switzerland, Taiwan, France, Prague, Australia graffiti art is legal practice and very common among teenagers and even kids, cause they consider it as an amenity for spreading the intention of Freedom of expression. The local government also provides free walls built across the cities which are around 200 meters wide and 60 feet tall. So that people come and express themselves use their skill of words and spray painting, do something creative and together make a beautiful piece of modern art.
But in India too you can find a lot of street art and graffiti, but you cannot see those artists doing it during the broad daylight cause, Indian youths like rebellious? NO, they are made rebellious, cause graffiti is denied in India and the society doesn’t accept this form of art, cause they find it immoral and anti societal and against their cultures. This is the reason why people sneak out of their houses, hide from society, and find a space to do it.
I had a read a few articles regarding peoples opinion about graffiti and street and people say “No No, why do people have to paint on walls, when they have canvas and paper”….” it makes the streets look shabby”…” spoils the culture of our nation”. But trust me these people don’t care about our culture at all. It’s just their personal opinion.
One more reason which I have heard is a little deeper one “such things tend to spread the idea of radicalism and violence”. I partially tend to agree with this point, cause, regarding the Kashmir issue, the streets and walls of that place are filled with anti-nationalistic writing and spraying but, repeating myself I think the same things are done in Facebook and Twitter as well, but due to the technological development many agencies to monitor their activities in a very non-disclosing way. So don’t you think if such a big social media platform with almost 2.6 billion people in it can be monitored, a small wall for some creativity cannot be monitored and controlled so that it’s used productively?
But taking this talk a little deeper I would say that people who are against the legalization of this activity are hypocritically doing the same work of spreading hatred, harmful ideologies through social media? but the only difference is they do it in the form of hashtags and WhatsApp forwards, they don’t even realize that they are committing the same sort of their so-called immoral activity of spreading hatred through their phones with a non-confidential identity with display pictures, trust me now a day’s fake news has more circulation than good morning pictures and memes and they forward it with ease like a hobby.
But people spraying it on public property is surely wrong and unacceptable and is not wrong to consider it as a criminal offense, because nobody has the right to tamper with the public property and the government makes a lot of investment to take care of it so as good citizens it’s our responsibility to preserve them.
But this chaos of the negative opinion the people have about graffiti looks like a never-ending one because yes graffiti did have some negative impact but, everything has its negatives and it’s inevitable.
So the solution to this problem according to me would be, like public parks, toilets and other basic amenities, just build a small wall or allot a small space for some art and fun or the areas of the city which has a lot of people moving around, for example, the walls outside the metro station and malls, shopping streets, food street, or even educational institutions where graffiti or wall painting can be a major resource for many activities happening inside the college.
I think before any organization or an individual uses the wall prior permission has to be taken from the nearest police station and the police can even monitor the wall being misused or used to spread a message which unethical. I believe this sort of permission will stop people from incorrectly doing this and it would bring the best of creativity which is hidden within them and also not misguide the youth in doing a wrong form of art in which can incorrectly influence the public.
For the people who don’t agree with me, I have noticed in my observation that many people do not agree to this is the cause of the lack of trust in the youngsters who are willing to make use of this privilege.
Imagine walking through the roads and on the walls, you see beautiful pieces of art each one of them trying to tell you a story or a special message and the colors which brighten the city.
To experience this bliss, all we need is a CHANCE.
