Politics of Representation: Verse, Visual and Interpretation of Allama Iqbal in the Works of Chughtai and Sadequain

Abstract

Within International Relations and political science studies the relationship between visual representation and political meaning have become increasingly significant in contemporary times. Recent scholarship on visual international relations also highlight the importance of objects being an active participant in the production of identities and understanding of the societal world (Williams 2018). Dr. Allama Muhammed Iqbal is a celebrated personality among modern South Asian literary circles. Likewise, Abdur Rehamn Chughtai and Syed Sadequain Naqvi occupy significant positions in Pakistani visual art Scene. Both artists in their artistic journey at one point in time got inspired by Iqbal’s philosophical and political ideas resulting in a fascinatingly new body of works. There is a wealth of scholarship on both the painters in relation to the poet however there is a dearth of analysis in the context of visual politics and role of aesthetics in International Relations. Approaching those works as agents of cultural and intellectual representation the current study brings art-historical analysis into dialogue with the said field. Another practical implication of the current study is the three tier framework that is devised to analyse the visuals in relation to their corresponding verses. The paper argues that the interaction between verse and visual creates an extended field of meaning in which the verse informs the visual while the visual offers new possibilities of confronting and comprehension of the verse.