What was the choice of subject matter in modern Indian art with the artists' perception of real India in the 1940s and 50s?

Artists associated real India with villages.

Answer: Artists associated real India with villages.
It was felt that real India lives in villages, indicating that artists associated real India with rural areas.

An interesting fact to note about modern Indian art is that the subject matter in painting and sculpture was largely drawn from rural India. This is the case even with the Bombay Progressives and the Calcutta group during 1940s and 1950s. City and urban life rarely appeared in works of Indian artists. Perhaps, it was felt that real India lives in villages. The Indian artists of the 1940s and 1950s rarely looked at their immediate cultural milieu.