MUMBAI, March 9 -- There are moments in history when art steps quietly out of the studio and into the making of a nation. In 1938, in the village of Haripura in Gujarat, such a moment unfolded when Mahatma Gandhi invited artist Nandalal Bose to visually shape the environment of the Indian National Congress session. The result was the now iconic Haripura Panels - luminous images of farmers, potters, musicians, craftsmen and women at work. They were not portraits of heroes in marble but of ordinary people whose labour, dignity and rhythm of life seemed to embody the moral centre of the freedom movement. Nearly nine decades later, the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Mumbai returns to this moment with a major exhibition, 'Colours of Swades: From Haripura to the Constitution'. The show revisits Bose not merely as a master of form but a cultural visionary whose brush helped shape the imagination of a nation still in the making. For IAS officer Nidhi Choudhari, who heads the Mumbai chapter of the museum, the exhibition revisits a time when art was not an ornament to politics but an active participant in it. "In that moment art became an active participant in the making of the nation rather than merely an aesthetic pursuit," said Choudhari. The Haripura works, created at Gandhi's invitation, captured the life of the village that hosted the historic Congress session. Instead of heroic symbolism, Bose turned to scenes of rural vitality - the farmer with his plough, the artisan bent over craft, the musician immersed in sound. The images were simple, almost folk-like in their economy of line, yet they carried a quiet moral force. "In revisiting these works we are reminded that the idea of India was shaped not only through political discourse but also through powerful cultural expression," Choudhari added. In doing so, Bose articulated a vision of India rooted in its people and traditions - a country whose identity was not abstract but lived through everyday labour and cultural practice. Behind the Haripura Panels lay the intellectual influence of Gandhi's philosophy of swadeshi, self-reliance and village-centred life. Through his association with Gandhi, Bose began to reconnect with indigenous artistic traditions and the rhythms of rural communities. The result is an aesthetic that quietly echoes Gandhian ideals - simplicity, dignity and harmony between labour and life. For Bose, the village was not merely a theme but a moral landscape. The exhibition also draws a thoughtful line between two defining chapters in Bose's life: the Haripura Panels and the visual design of the original manuscript of the Constitution of India. As curator Shruti Das explained, bringing these works together allows visitors to trace the arc of Bose's artistic imagination. "The Haripura Panels celebrate the living culture of India, while the Constitution illustrations expand that vision into a broader narrative of India's civilisational journey," said Das. At Haripura, Bose celebrated the rhythms of the village. In the Constitution project a decade later, he and his students from Santiniketan, West Bengal, created illustrations that travelled across nearly five thousand years of Indian history - from the Indus Valley civilisation to mythological narratives and the freedom movement. In effect, the Constitution became not only a legal document but also a visual chronicle of India's "civilisational imagination." "These illustrations were not merely decorative. They formed part of the symbolic visual identity of the newly independent nation," she said. One of the exhibition's most intriguing features is the integration of digital interpretation alongside the historical works. "Museums must increasingly speak across generations," Choudhari observed, while emphatically underlining how technology can never replace art. "It is only being used to enrich the narrative and allow younger audiences to engage with historical art in ways that feel immediate and immersive." Working with filmmaker Ebyug Akhil, the curatorial team developed subtle animations that bring Bose's imagery gently to life - a peacock unfurling its feathers, a musician's moving in rhythm, a lion shifting its stance. The aim, Das emphasised, was never to alter Bose's vision but to extend it respectfully. "Each movement was carefully designed so that the spirit of Bose's time and vision remained central to the interpretation," she explained, adding, "Technology here acts not as spectacle but as bridge."...