C is for Composition Civilian Contribution

You may recall from previous posts on them that I have a bit of a soft-spot for these craft-oriented plaster (today's examples) or terracotta (previously seen) figures from India (which, after 43-years of 'Free Market' Tory policy which "will provide" has just overtaken us in the wealthy country register! Go Brwreakshit!), and these from Brian Berke are a particularly nice example.

I can't add much to the pictures, but they are all annotated on the base, probably by the owner rather than the maker, as they are a tad confusing, I will go through them, two at a time, as much for fun as anything else!

Starting from the left we have a chap described as a clerk, on the base he is further marked Momarir, which seems to have no meaning, Clerk is Kalaraka in Punjabi, Kērāni in Bangla, Kārakuna in Gujarati or Marathi, Klerk in Hindu or Lipikaru in Sinhalese, yet Google wouldn't suggest it as a personal name either? It (momarir) is however 'Architects' in Arabic?

The figure next to him is described as a water-carrier, with Pan-Harin or Pan-Harim in brackets, both of which claim to be Indonesian (under 'detect language') but with no further translation of meaning, pan-harim with an 'm' further claims Turkish as it's mother-tongue! However, water, oil or gee is clearly being carried!

The third from the left is described as a begger-woman (Binka-Rin?), but looks more like a musician or entertainer of some kind, she seems to be holding a form of drum or percussive instrument? Also while plainly-dressed,  her shawl is egde-decorated, qite colourfully ad her undershiry is a bright red, so hardly giving-off an aura of destitution?

The chap in scarlet is annotated as Peon (Chipras-si?), which comes up as a Marathi word, but again no translation and Google's desperate to make it Alexis Tsipras of the current Greek opposition party!

A peon is a lowly peasant in South America, but this guy is dressed as a minor prince from one of the semi-autonomous states, or a palace flunky / senior member of the native-recruited civil or military service in his Delhi Durbar finery - with all that scarlet and gold?

The last two are straightforward and make perfect sense; she is described as Queen (Rani) and a Queen is a Rani in Hindi, while the last chap is titled Washer Man (Dhobi), and you should all be familiar with dhobi wallahs being the laundry staff of the British in India (and elsewhere once the word was assimilated and carried throughout the Empire by the Army) via 1970's comedies, if nothing else, along with punka-wallahs who operated the big sheet-fans!

The fact that the last two are correctly titled/identified and the few other clues suggest to me they might be the cast-name characters in a post-colonial, Indian-written play of the 1950's or '60's which was popular enough at the time to produce a set or two of plaster figurines, but not lasting enough to leave a footprint on Google sixty or seventy years later?

Lovely figures, and from the bases (different design and plaster colour), two part sets? Scaler looks to be a Britains' hollow-cast from set 2095 French foreign Legion. Can anyone shed more light on the various names/titles? Many thanks to Brian - top feed for Small Scale World!

L is for Leader[s] of India

No branding on this as there often wasn't with these terracotta imports, but having only recently watched Gandhi for the umpteenth time it's amazing how easy it is to recognise some of the characters from these crude castings, although castings isn't really the right word, they are hand-sculpts, if placed side-by-side with a duplicate set you'd find each is slightly different, slightly unique.

Box is in the Britains or 'British' toy soldier style, red-paper, laminate/covering but with only small labels on the ends rather than the expansive full-lid labels of Britains and Britain's own!

The funny thing is the printers decorative blocks, which on the Sanskrit label are all neat with all the trefoils facing out; three at each end, but on the English language label, there are four at one end, pushing the long-line down the label and leaving a right buggers-muddle at the other end - an apprentice typesetters' Friday effort?!

The leaders, I suspect at least one is missing but I don't know which one; it's just that a nine-count is an odd number (obviously Hugh!)  and more so with the space still available in the box - you know what I mean.  The set is a mix of pre-Independence leaders 'of the people' (Indian National Congress, Muslim League and minority representatives) and post-Independence Prime Ministers.

The following list is not necessarily correct, nor accurate in name-spelling (or thumbnail-biog's!) and stands to be corrected, but it's the best I can come up with at short-notice, with help both from my mother - who was there (grandfather had a role to play) - and the few illustrations in Alex Von Tunzelmann's Indian Summer and Leonard Mosley's The Last Days of the British Raj.

1 - Indira Gandhi - 3rd Prime Minister of India, Nehru's daughter

2 - Liaquat Ali Khan - Muslim League

3 - Vallabhbhai Patel - Parsee Leader/Representative

4 - Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru (née Gandhi) - 1st Prime Minister [Rashtrapati] of India

5 - Mohandas Karamchand 'Mahatma' Gandhi

6 - Surup 'Nan' Nehru [née Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit], wife of Pandit Nehru, carrying a young Indira Gandhi

7 - Lala Lajpat Rai - Punjabi Author

8 - Abdur Rab Nishtar - Dallit Spokesman (Bengali?)

9 - [Mohammed] Ali 'Jin' Jinnah - Muslim League and First Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam or 'great leader'

Missing but possibly/likely candidates for one of the figurines [missing or] above are;

* - Lal Bahadur Shastri - 2nd Prime Minister of India

* - Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, Mountbatten's replacement as Governor General (Britain's representative) and a possible/likely for 3

* - Madeleine Slade (the Mahatma's English follower) could be a possibility for 6, but it seems her role was enhanced in the movie, over her importance to the historical narrative, especially in the context of an Indian made set of 'leader' figures, produced decades after the events depicted in the movie

* - K R Kripalani was involved in the talks with British Government at which most of the above were also present?

* - Baldev Singh - spokesman for the Sikh community, pencilled-in as an alternative for 7, he would have had a beard though

* - Sheikh Abdulla - Chief negotiator for the Kashmir and other possible for 7

Also I'm not happy about 2, the glasses are right, but I can't find a picture of him in that kind of costume?

2-7 in close-up, construction is similar to my charity-shop musicians (seen here a couple of years back) with a basic wire-armature holding the low-temperature fired, hand-made, clay model together, painting is mostly matt, either poster-paint or emulsion of some kind and the green bases are given a 'posh' glazed-plinth look with a dip in ink - which has also provided for the footwear!

I assume - due to the hand-made/hand-finished nature of these figures, that there would be a team working on them with each worker producing many like-examples of the figure they have practised-on or perfected? And . . . while they are crude and - it's fair to say - very stylised, they are nonetheless recognisable and that's a clever trick, that's actually art.

From left to right; 1, 8 and 9 similarly closed-up on, with a study of the base underside; there are no obvious markings on any base. Jinnah's height and mean-look has been captured very well, as has Indira's appearance and the angry flick of white through the black hair over her brow which I remember from childhood news footage.