Exhibition examines impact of political upheaval on Indian art 

In 1975, faced with major strikes, mass protests and a court ruling that threatened to remove her from office, India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi, suspended the nation's constitution and declared a state of emergency. The memory of the period "can still make people shudder today", said Cleo Roberts-Komireddi in The Guardian.

Censorship and mass jailings followed, while Gandhi's son Sanjay, obsessed with curbing the country's population and beautifying its cities, had slums cleared by violence, and embarked on a programme of forced sterilisation of millions. This exhibition at the Barbican is a survey of the art produced in India between the declaration of the emergency and its last major nuclear test in 1998 – an era of "political tumult", violence, and rapid, destabilising change.

Bringing together 150 exhibits by 30 artists working in a variety of media, many of whom will be unfamiliar to Western visitors, it shows how the upheavals of the era stimulated Indian art, as its practitioners embraced activism and "reckoned with the reality of the terms of their nationhood". The show brings to life "India's extraordinary metamorphosis" during this period, as it urbanised, liberalised and emerged as a great power. It reminds us "that the struggle for human dignity is in fact a never-ending battle".

The complex political history of the period is brought to life by the "vibrant artworks" on show, said Katrina Mirpuri in London's The Standard. Paintings that initially seem "soft and inviting" take on new resonance once you understand the context: a "striking" canvas by Gulammohammed Sheikh, for example, depicts animals inhabiting abandoned buildings. It was painted during the emergency and is entitled "Speechless City": the absence of humans points to the "severity" of the political situation, with its censorship and Hindu-Muslim riots. 

The photojournalist Pablo Bartholomew chronicles the aftermath of the Bhopal gas catastrophe in 1984 – still the world's worst industrial disaster – with pictures of "hazardous wasteland, corpses and dead livestock". Another photojournalist, Sheba Chhachhi, captures the "sturdy" faces of women fighting against "dowry-related violence".

There's humour here, too, said Maya Jaggi in the Financial Times. We see how some artists turned to "satire and caricature": Vivan Sundaram's 1976 drawing "The Pair", for instance, depicts Gandhi and her son Sanjay as "grotesque gangsters", while a "brilliantly economical oil" by Rameshwar Broota sees an "arrogantly enthroned" general intimidate his "faceless minions".

Others, such as Sunil Gupta, were drawn to marginalised communities: his photo series "Exiles" (1987) sees gay men standing, sometimes embracing each other, in front of public monuments at a time when homosexuality was criminalised. The show culminates with a section on the 1998 Pokhran nuclear test, an event met with "pride and protests". Nalini Malani conjures it with a video installation splicing footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with film documenting the effects of Partition. It's a climactic end to "a compelling" show that is full of artistic "inventiveness".

Barbican Art Gallery, London EC2. Until 5 January 

by Craig Brown   

The latest work of "scattergun" biography by the satirist Craig Brown – who has penned similar recent books about Princess Margaret and The Beatles – offers a portrait of the late Queen. Based on Brown's copious reading of newspapers, memoirs and royal biographies, the book unfolds in 112 short chapters, each focused on a different aspect of its subject: one is about Elizabeth II's love of horse racing; another about her strategies for ending conversations. Critics marvelled at the way that Brown, for all his apparent lightheartedness, says profound things about both the monarchy and Britain. 

Lay preacher who lent his name to a haulage giant

Edward Stobart was the antithesis of the brash, Yorkie-eating lorry driver. He was – as The Guardian noted following his death in 2011 – a neat, self-effacing man who had had a vision for an ultra-organised haulage business, with well-disciplined drivers working to tight margins. He built up a fleet of some 2,000 trucks, with shiny green and red livery and drivers in shirts and ties. The lorries were so distinctive (many of them had their own names) that spotting them became a craze, and Eddie Stobart became a "superbrand", said The Daily Telegraph, with a fan club and its own line of merchandise. But the business had not been founded by Edward Stobart. The man whose name was emblazoned across all those trucks was his father, Eddie, who died last month aged 95. A Cumbrian farmer and lay preacher, he started selling agricultural supplies in the 1950s, and planted the seed of the giant haulage firm when he bought a truck in which to deliver fertiliser.

Edward Pears Stobart (always known as Eddie, and sometimes as "Steady Eddie") was born in 1929 to devout Methodist parents. He grew up on their 32-acre smallholding south of Carlisle, and left school at 14 to help his father on the farm. He was blessed, however, with an entrepreneurial spirit, and having bought a horse for 33 guineas, he trained it to pull farm machinery and sold it for twice that. He invested that money in hens, and in the 1950s he and his father and brother joined forces to run an agricultural contracting and supplies business. He bought his first truck in 1960, and had his name painted on it; he built up a fleet of eight, but he never thought of going into haulage. That was Edward's plan – and in the 1970s, he took ownership of that side of the business and moved it to Carlisle. Eddie Stobart Ltd grew to be worth £100 million; Stobart, who was content to keep running his supply business and a farm shop, said he might not have named the firm after him had he known how big it would become. However, the haulage business suffered in the 2000s, and Edward was eventually bought out by a partnership led by his brother. His parents were also saddened by the breakdown of his first marriage. "Edward's got everything money can buy," Stobart observed, "but he lacks what money can't buy." He was reported to be bankrupt when he died of heart problems, aged 56.

In retirement, Stobart and his wife Nora, whom he had married in 1951, settled in a bungalow outside Carlisle, where they were both very active in their local evangelical church. "I never aimed to devote my life to work," he once told his fellow Cumbrian Hunter Davies. "I am by nature fairly laid-back compared to Edward. I used to think to myself, what's the point of all his worry and rush? We are here to serve God, not Mammon…"