Khovar Painting is a folk/tribal painting tradition that is mostly done in the villages of Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh district. The Khovar art illustrates the socio-religious custom of preparing a wedding room. Traditionally, women of the home paint on the mud walls of houses during weddings to greet and bless the wedded couple.

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The paintings are part of a matriarchal tradition in which mothers pass down the art form to their daughters as a legacy. The most common motifs include fertility and fecundity symbols, as well as designs influenced by the environment.

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Natural earth colours (white and black) were used in this painting, which were obtained either by foraging in the wild or by purchasing from local stores. Colors are applied with fabric rags on the walls, and motifs are scratched with comb pieces.

Shri Bulu Imam discovered a rock art site in ISCO village of Barkagaon block of Hazaribagh district in 1991 and brought it to light. The rock arts, according to ASI, date from 3000-7000 BC and are from the Paleolithic age. A large number of stone tools have been discovered in close proximity to the rock art site.

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Following the discovery of Isco rock arts, a strange resemblance was discovered between the motifs of rock arts and the paintings painted on the walls of local people’s dwellings. They created the paintings on two occasions: one after the rainy season and before the harvest season, and the other during weddings.

The majority of motifs in Khovar paintings imply auspiciousness, matriarchy, and fertility. Flowers, fish, animals, birds, and abstract symbols associated to marriage, such as Chouk, are the most common motifs in bridal chambers.

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The most intriguing part of the Hazaribagh animal and bird forms, as well as the most remarkable quality they exhibit, is the relationships between the forms themselves, as well as the links between the birds and animals and their young, a trait shared by the Indus painted forms. This is a totally matriarchal connection, as evidenced by deer and goats milk-feeding their young or birds feeding their chicks with fishes and insects. A peacock or mongoose fighting with a snake, or snakes fighting amongst themselves, or a mother peacock carrying a small chick on her back, peacocks fighting, or a peahen cracking an egg are all examples of intriguing animal partnerships.

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When we descend down into the Barkagaon valley, the village women create much more prosaic, stylised, flowery, and less colourful animal and bird forms, but the art of the hill villages exhibits an exact observation of the wild animals and birds in the heavily forested hill ranges in natural forms.

Current scenario of Khovar art and artisans

Even though these artworks are so important, few people are aware of their existence. These paintings gained international acclaim as a result of Shri Bulu Imam’s international exhibitions, yet they remained unknown in their own country.

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Mr. Munna Singh, a CRPF personnel stationed in Hazaribagh, began the paint my city initiative, which helped them gain local popularity. Later, the district government adopted this approach, and these art forms began to be painted on city walls.

When Our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi visited Hazaribagh to inaugurate the newly built railway station, they gained much-needed national attention. He noticed these murals on the city walls and in the train station. In his weekly radio show, Mann Ki Baat, he discussed these paintings. Since then, these works have gained national notice, with a few practising artists being invited to participate in several art camps.

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With this, the paint my city campaign expanded to other cities across the state, and every district was so eager to get Sohrai on their walls that its individuality was lost. Non-traditional Sohrai artists twisted the patterns and colour combinations in most of the areas, according to their understanding, space, time, and most crucially, the money they had.