[Reader-list] and Gandhi dies again...

[sanjay ghosh]

Reading this mail, I couldn't stop myself from laughing. I had seen these 'objectionable' drawings at various stages of production, and if anything I thought they were innocuous little stylised postcards. For a brief second I even considered this whole situation to be some sort of a prank. Then again I've known Mr Ghosh for more than a decade now and he never showed any talent for practical jokes.

There can't be any logic to this because M.P.'s biggest tourist attraction is an ancient temple full of fornicating figurines. How can a clothed kissing couple be objectionable ? What next, are they going to bring down the Mahadeo temple in Khajuraho ? Whether it's pulling down Baba Allauddin Khan's name or burning works of art, Bhopal seems to be the happening place. Politicians across party lines are trying outdo each other in their fundamentalist frenzy. Why weep for the Bamiyan buddhas? Why cry foul at the taliban? Our home grown elements seem equally competent.

This tamasha, true as it seems to be, suggest just one thing - our political atmosphere has been deadened to the point where only scandal and arson can wake people from their stupor. The media laps up sensation and our politicians are providing the fodder. Coversely you can't blame the 'right wing' anymore. Everyone is scampering to be 'righter' before someone else captures the 'higher ground'. Political distinctions are approaching the colour of mud; electorates benumbed into ennui. This is not the end of history as famously stated, it's the end of the democratic experiment. You vote once in a while for sinisterly indistiguishable entities and life goes on as usual.  

This is a sad and alarming situation for artists and academics. It would remain so if tabloidization isn't checked. Everytime a politician raises a tantrum it's usually to hide the lack of governace related programmes. A program which may distiguish them from others in the field. There has to be a pro active rejection of sensational content in the press.


-sanjay ghosh

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 vishwajyoti  ghosh wrote :
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>“Democracy is an impossible thing until the power is shared by all, but let not democracy degenerate into mobocracy.”
>- Mahatma Gandhi
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>On the 22nd of February, 2005, a bunch of hooligans on the orders of two Congress ex MLAs, P.C.Sharma and Vibha Patel, also the ex mayor of Bhopal, stormed into the premises of Alliance Francaise de Bhopal and took off three drawings.
>The drawings, after being taken off, were burnt in public.
>These were a part of an ongoing show :-Paris: Mysteries, Mythologies and Memories, an exhibition of Drawings, postcards and comics created by the author of this mail, after a brief Artist in Residence fellowship, awarded by the French Govt. in 2003-2005.
>One of the drawings: Gandhi as a tourist in Gar-du-Nord, showed Gandhi as a modern day tourist wearing a sweater, trousers and a camera hung on his shoulders, standing outside the restaurant called Gandhi Fried Chicken. Gar-du-Nord is the north central station in Paris, and opposite lies the Indian Quarter of the city. There does exist a place called GFC. The drawing was a reflection of this point. As a matter of fact, there are innumerable Indian restaurants all over Europe by the name of Gandhi, which serve tandoori chicken and alcohol.
>However, little did either Mr. Sharma or Ms. Patel or the workers know that the Congress has had a history of a certain liberal attitude towards such humour, before the intolerant, ridiculous times we now live in. One of their party’s founding members, Ms. Sarojini Naidu once dearingly called Gandhi as the Mickey Mouse because of his big ears. In a caricature of Gandhi which appeared in the Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, on his 70th birthday, he is shown as Mickey Mouse because in a birthday broadcast over All India Radio Mrs. Sarojini Naidu referred to him as "this tiny creature whom once in a mood of loving irreverences. I called a Mickey Mouse of a man."
>Gandhi never put up any objections to that. No untoward incidents were reported. A congressman and the ‘Architect of modern India’, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru once told Shankar, the leading Indian cartoonist of his times-“Don’t spare me Shankar.” Those were the days when education and exposure made leaders unlike today where power, force and mobs make politicians.
>The second drawing was Radha and Krishna overarchingly superimposed on a metro station, in sync with the role of music and love that is ever present in the Metro subways of the city. Reportedly, Bajrang Dal had raised an objection to this drawing and before they could act, the abovementioned politicians decided to make an event out of it. Interestingly, the press and television channels were invited for this, and the local press of Bhopal mentioning the most inaccurate descriptions of the drawings. One report stated that there were 15 drawings on Gandhi, while there was only one, while another said that Gandhi was shown holding a liquor bottle. As we all know, a camera and a liquor bottle do look different. Coming back to the Bajrang Dal, they lauded the Congress for their act, but also stated that it was they who first brought up the objection.
>The third drawing was inspired by Auguste Rodin’s famous sculpture ‘The Kiss’. The drawing showed a couple locked in a kiss, on the same posture as the master’s sculpture, but here with clothes, as Rodin is an onlooker and a co-traveller in a metro. This according to them was obscene.
>The drawings, after being taken off, were burnt in public. The self styled custodians of God and Gandhi got what they wanted and were all over the Bhopal papers the next morning.
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>“As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side.”
>-Mahatma Gandhi
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>VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH,
>D-598/c,
>CHITTARANJAN PARK,
>NEW DELHI-11019,
>INDIA
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>CELL: 0091-9891238606
>STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319
>RES.: 0091-11-26270256
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