Pantone and its esteemed colour experts have, for 19 years now, worked tirelessly to capture the mood and spirit of each year in one carefully picked out colour. On December 6 2018, this colour standards corporation named “Living Coral” as the 2019 Pantone Color of the Year. This shade of orange with peach and golden undertones is directed towards highlighting the importance of preservation of the environment.
As fashion magazines started pushing out shopping lists inspired by the colour palette and Instagram feeds got flooded with all-things-coral, Indian transdisciplinary artist Mrinalini Singha’s take on the colour of the year is what stood out for us.
Singha took it upon herself to name (rather fittingly at that) ‘Patanjal’ as India’s colour of the year. “While Pantone predicts colour trends for the future, the Hindutva prefers the Orwellian approach of recolouring history instead- safronising everything from cities to textbooks. After the communist red this may be the most politically charged palette preference, at least in the Indian conscience. Even the US Republicans seem to be donning its orange cousin,” reads the caption that accompanied the young artist’s post, who popularly goes by her Instagram handle @mrinskine. “Will 2019 see Liberal India taking back this beautiful colour? Or will those who control the past end up controlling the future? Only time will tell.”
What is ironic is that this coincides with the announcement of the latest Assembly election results where Congress has managed to win a majority in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan — both of which were previously BJP strongholds — while outperforming the BJP in Mizoram and Telangana, where neither of them won a majority.
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