Celebrating 100 years of his participation and the leadership in burning the pass, which was a peaceful protest against South Africa’s discrimination and its apartheid policies, Gandhi still ‘lives’ in South Africa. Maybe not in flesh but definitely in spirit.

Known in India as the ‘Father of the Nation’ he left an indelible impact on world philosophy. Never has Gandhi been more relevant or important as in the present day terror infested world. The symbol of peaceful resistance on Gandhi’s greatest unspoken strength was made visible by him through Satyagraha.

Satyagraha was a philosophy based on truth, ‘pure’ truth and a clearly defined wrong. To get justice or resist any wrong for Gandhi, the weapon was without force and falsehood and the removal of the wrong was not an end in itself. Gandhi’s Satyagraha was based on moral power, on the power of non-violent protest a true expression of the common man.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi hailed from Porbandar in Gujarat and on 25th July, 2008 a series of bombs in Ahmedabad transformed Gandhi’s state of birth into a state of terror. One of the world’s greatest messenger of peace, Gandhi’s own land of origin way back in 2007 became a hub of inhuman crimes. Thus Gandhi’s methodology of non-violent resistance Satyagraha becomes increasingly relevant in today’s environment of unease.

Gandhi in his quest for freedom and the building of a modern independent Indian identity used indigenous practises to showcase India’s traditional wisdom through traditional philosophy and handicrafts such as the charkha and khadi. Khadi became the fabric of freedom.

Shantiniketan was founded by the noble laureate Rabrindranath Tagore as an alternate art-learning institute to the British system of art education. He took a leaf from the traditional Indian system of learning akin to that of a ‘gurukul’, where the teacher and the taught had a symbiotic relationship. He also brought in a visionary blend of Asian and western thoughts. Tagore and Gandhi had a fond affinity for one another despite their differences in matter of politics, nationalism, and social reform.

A product of Shantiniketan, Nandalal Bose had a spirit of nationalism and allegiance to Gandhi and to the Congress. It was best manifested in his posters for the Haripura Congress in 1937.

Satyagraha/Unspoken strength takes off from Gandhi’s personal inclination of the use of art to mobilise people. Fifteen contemporary Indian artists were invited to interrogate their own personal interpretation of the notion of Satyagraha.

With the opening of the markets in India and it becoming an increasingly significant player in the world, Indian art too has found a place in the scene. Till the turn of the century traditional Indian arts and crafts like sculpture, painting, textiles and handicrafts had a niche status bordering on the ‘exotic east’ as India started racing ahead in the twenty first century contemporary Indian art, along with Chinese Contemporary art entered the domain of contemporary global art practices.

From the ‘gesture of the divine’ where traditional Indian art was created for ritual practice and divine worship, the early modernists in post independent India started establishing their own independent voices. Beginning with Raja Ravi Varma, Amrita Shergil followed by the pioneers of individual language in contrast to the anonymous craftsmen of traditional India. Spearheaded by Francis Newton Souza, S. H. Raza, M.F. Husain, S. K. Bakre and Tyeb Mehta, the development of Indian art has continued with a steady evolution with an unbroken tradition with the past. In fact this unbroken tradition with the past is at once India’s strength and yet also provides great challenges because of fissures, fractures of modernity. India’s modernity has its own journey very affluent to the Western/occidental world since for more than 200 years India was a colony of the British Empire.

India is relatively a young independent country barely crossing sixty years of age but in the last 5 years has catapulted itself amongst the future notions of the world who will be shaping world business and politics internationally.

Nationally India inspite of its long developing notion status has stood the test of time due to its plural, liberal and multi-vocal character. The strong constitutional and institutional frameworks set up by the visionary leaders of independent India, the Fabian socialism adopted by our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is apparent in the strength of its democratic forces today.

With the progressive government policies of economic growth the rise of the great Indian middle class, both external and internal investments, the success of the IT sector and the burgeoning BPO sector India is now the most favoured destinations of the world. From spiritual tourism to urban luxury brands coming in, India ‘rocks.’

In such a climate, contemporary Indian art too has made its mark. Contemporary Indian artists are asserting their identities with buyers, collectors, hedge funds, museum and public collection. Contemporary Indian art has jumped from being predominantly an object of aesthetic pleasure to being part of the financial investment structure. Akin to holding on to blue chips stocks and shares contemporary India art is also being collected for its ‘financial/investment’ value.

The collector’s are not only rich Indians or the wealthy Non Residential Indians, the latter buying art for nostalgia for the homeland and an assertion of their identity.

This is boom time for contemporary Indian artists where the two posters boys leading the parade are the modernist, the feisty yet controversial MF Husain who is presently in Dubai working on massive project to create 99 paintings on Arab culture by the Qatar royal family, as well as a commission for Laxmi Mittal on ‘The History of Indian Civilization’. And then the enfant terrible of Indian art Subodh Gupta - known as New Delhi's Damien Hirst, who has moved into the record making million dollar bracket.

Indian art today is in its own way a ‘marker of Indian identity’ an identity, which is assured, confident and ready to take on anything hands own. There is an unspoken strength in the galloping prices of Indian contemporary art, which is gaining rapid grounds outside the auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christies.