Born On A Cusp

Events of the last week have been cause for outrage among India’s art community; and it’s not that they are reacting too quickly. In what would be the straw to break the camel’s back, a group of activists barged into, and vandalised, an exhibition of work by visual arts students at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in the northern state of Gujarat. The activists, members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad party, then manhandled 23-year-old student Chandra Mohan whose paintings of nude religious figures they particularly disliked.

The policemen present at the scene acted after the vandalism and arrested — not the VHP activists who created the ruckus — but the artist Mohan. The student spent five days in jail, obtaining temporary liberty after posting bail; he faces several years in prison if found guilty of obscenity. The Dean of Fine Arts refused to close down the exhibition on orders by the University’s vice-chancellor and was suspended. He has gone into hiding for fear of his safety.

The episode has prompted protests from artists in many parts of the country; the newspapers and broadcast news are filled with angry comments. At a rally outside the biggest art gallery in Bombay, film director Saeed Mirza was quoted to have said, “Something has gone wrong, so we stand up and protest.”

Why all the concern? Because in a country where freedoms of expression and speech are among the most tightly guarded constitutional rights, the Gujarat episode only served to reinforce what many observe is a rising intolerance over how artists express issues related to religion and sex.

An Indian sociologist interviewed by BBC News theorises that this divide may be attributed to the “internal dynamics” of the country’s progress: while one section of the country has moved ahead, another is lagging behind.

Long before the Gujarat incident, there have been pockets of protests against other works of art, books, and even Bollywood movies which might have dwelled on themes or provided images that were “offensive to Indian culture” — leaving in their wake workers of art who are left with no other choice but to obey. Perhaps the most missed is renowned Indian artist MF Husain, living in self-exile in London after he was accused of obscenity in various court cases and faced threats to his life. The 91-year-old painter’s sin? Depicting a nude woman in the shape of India.

To a foreigner like me, it is sad. Because you witness these things side-by-side with signs of progress, and it boggles the mind the way archaic thinking can still ram its way through.

And if there is anything that the Hindus that I know will always be proud of, it is that they are tolerant. And eroticism has always been a vital element of Hindu art. So why Husain, Gujarat, and the rest of it? As in many other things in this country, I am only beginning to work on an understanding.