New Delhi, Feb. 2 -- In 1930, Nandalal Bose painted a mural of Rabindranath Tagore driving an ox and plough amidst a group of performers. Titled Halakarshana, it was created in Surul, a few kilometres from Santiniketan, at an experimental rural project called Sriniketan where Tagore brought together art and agriculture. It is nearly a century since Bose made the mural, and agrarian-themed art has finally come full circle in India.

From being done on modernist walls, it has moved back to the very fields it addresses, and is cultivated by artists from historically disenfranchised communities. This turn, perhaps, has to do with the current sociopolitical environment where scenes of farmers taking to the streets in protest have become part o...