[Reader-list] A suggestion for Arka

[Logos Theatre]

>
> Dear Arundhati,

           Thank you for your retort, which proves that even the mighty IFA
(in the person of you, its deputy director), needs to bestir itself to quell
voices of dissent that challenge its monopoly as the high priest of high art
in this country. Interesting, how the high and mighty tend to be also
mightily thin - skinned. You also sent me the same mail to my private ID. I
have told you in my reply there that as far as TFA is concerned, you have
brought something intensely personal into a very public space, and I shall
not stoop to the bait of responding to that here. If that gives you a sense
of triumph, so be it. There are other parts of your mail which, however, I
will respond to. So here goes:


*Arka,
>
> I have been reading some of the stuff that you have been writing on the
> Sarai list - your opinions about the Tatas and IFA - which is supported in
> its various programmes by institutions like the Tata Trusts, the Ford
> Foundation and many other organisations and individuals who find IFA's work
> worth supporting.*


             You start off by being an apologist for the Tatas. Good! The
basic message of my tirade is not about the quality of IFA's work and
whether it's worth supporting - as I have said here on an earlier occasion,
that's worth another debate by itself. But while on  that, yes, I do think
IFA on the whole funds ivory tower art that has no locus of significance
outside its incestuous little circle of mutual back-patting. Further, it
renders a disservice to the cause of true artistic enquiry by imposing a
hierarchy of academic elitism, thereby snuffing out the voices of true
practitioners who are not interested in spewing academic gobbledygook. Which
is not to say that it has not funded genuninely invigorating artistic
endeavours - it has. About Ram by Katkatha immediately comes to mind. But
for the most part, it perpetuates dinosaurs and living fossils and turns a
deaf ear to younger, emergent voices, unless such voices have the
appropriate 'brand tags'. So yes, on the whole IFA promotes art that is
spurious and dishonest. And this is not my viewpoint alone, but something
shared by many, many practitioners who are in touch with the grassroots. As
examples of people who by dint of their work should, by any system of logic,
have got artistic funding; Parnab Mukherjee, Pritam Koilpillai and Abhishek
Majumdar spring readily to mind.
                 However, my basic point was that art cannot exist in a
moral vaccum. Art that is created with dirty money is, I'm sorry to say, not
art. If today you turn a blind eye to the Tatas' misdeeds (Ford of course is
no shining exemplar of ethics either), will you turn an equally blind eye to
Dow Chemicals if they offer you a juicy little dole tomorrow? Going by your
stance, I suppose the answer is quite evident. My respect for IFA would have
been immense if, in the wake of Singur, you guys had renounced their money.
But of course, what matter where my money comes from, as long as it does
come, right?

*You have suggested to artists not to accept funds from organisations that
> are supported with money 'tainted' because of its source ( which makes
> almost all money tainted if you really look hard and find the 'source' where
> it originally came from one way or the other).*



Once again, your capacity for deluding yourself is astounding. There are
always degrees of association, and while one might carp on the 'money is the
root of all evil' line, the fact is that a direct line of credit from an
unethical corporate entity is an altogether different matter from money
which, at some level, has passed through tainted hands. Once again, my
appeal was to fellow artists to reject money that directly comes from the
Tatas. And I might as well say, I did not make that appeal with any real
hope that people would respond to it. It was more to expose the abysmal
levels of hypocrisy and apathy the contemporary 'artiste' has sunk to,
content to sit in his/her guilded cage, as long as the grants, residencies
and funding keep coming. Of course, there are other artists, those without
the 'e' at the end, who are not written about, do not perform in glitzy
venues in European cities at sundry bienalles and festivals, but whose art
has not lost the smell of the soil. These do not depend on handouts from
morally bankrupt entities to create their art - their art comes from their
blood.





*I recall that you have received an award of Rs 25,000 (Rupees Twenty five
> Thousand) from Toto Funds the Arts (TFA), for creative writing in Feb 2008.
> TFA is an organisation that is mainly funded by individuals like me, Mr
> Suresh Kumar, and many others who believe that TFA is doing great work
> supporting young artists. Both Suresh and me work for IFA, an organisation
> supported by the Tata Trusts thus our source of money that we donate to TFA
> is tainted as well according to your logic. As a donor to TFA, I would
> suggest to you to return the award to TFA if you want to really walk your
> talk.*



This paragraph, really, is the Kafkaesque pinnacle of your missive. At one
level, I'm sure you know fully well the logical fallacy of comparing what
you do with your money as an individual, and institutional support from the
Tatas. The same applies to Mr Suresh Kumar, whoever that worthy is. This
also is the paragraph where, as I said in the beginning, you have brought
into the public space a very personal relationship that (I thought) I share
with the organization you have mentioned. I have responded to you in private
and will not repeat that here. Let me just say this - if you read through
what you yourself have written, without your IFA blinkers on, you'll
probably realize that it is more Orwellian than anything Orwell himself
could have ever written or said. So, according to you, ( and I will say
according to 'you' because I continue to have the deepest respect for the
person who runs TFA and the reason for its establishment and functioning),
the support of TFA amounts to this - that the young artist will be rewarded
for his work as long as he stays safely in line. The moment he criticizes
the mighty hand that feeds; and speaks uncomfortable truths, he is then one
of the damned and must return the award? So much for artistic freedom, so
much for the conviction of the artist, so much for freedom of speech. I
think the RSS would be queueing up to 'support' the IFA now, given the
apparent tenor of your ideologies. However, I shall not do what you have
commanded - I shall not renounce the award, because that would amount to
insulting the founder of the trust which, as I've said above, I'll never do;
 and more importantly, because then I'll have to return the money. I shall
not return the money. Instead, I am hereby making a very public declaration.
For the next five years, I shall give out Rs. 5,000/- (Rupees Five Thousand)
annually, to any individual or organization that is working to discredit the
Tatas in any way whatsoever, or to rehabilitate their victims, through art
or community work. If indeed the money came from the Tatas, I see no better
way to atone for it than to turn it against them. I know that compared to
the half-a-million grants that the IFA gives out, this amount is laughably
small, but that is about as much as a starving artist (without the 'e') can
do. So I hereby announce the formation of the Rat N. Tatta (please read the
word in Hindi) Foundation for the Promotion of Anarchic Arts and Fighting
Tata Terrorism. I hope other artists who still have a conscience left will
add to the corpus and turn it into something meaningful. Please write to
contact at logostheatreindia.org for more details. So well, I have put my money
where my mouth is - I am not sophisticated enough to walk the talk, as you
call it.


*While you may find it more convenient to sit in Bangalore and 'email'
> protest campaigns against the Tatas *



Well, one can at least do what is within one's abilities. One can take a
principled stand, and that is what I have done. For the record, my services
were recently used by one of the artists in residence at a residency
promoted by your organization in Bangalore recently, and I refused to take
any payment for it, asking her instead to give it to charity or to any cause
opposed to the Tatas. At least, I am not traipsing about Washington DC and
Krakow on Tata money while turning up fashionably attired in protest marches
for Nandigram, am I?

*and not really go down to Singur and Nandigram with hundreds of young
> people in Kolkata *

**
Nor am I appearing on page 3 of Bangalore Times, as you so regularly do. Oh,
and I forgot, you were a "Lead India" contestant - our great beacon of hope!


*are really trying to understand and engage with the issues there,*



Such shining bureaucrat/ academic speak - the chief minister of West Bengal
couldn't have done it better. There is only one issue understand and engage
with there - the Tatas are displacing people for a corporate project that is
entirely unethical, and the WB govt. is killing/ raping in order to remove
obstacles on their way. Again, remember Tapashi Malik and look into the
mirror.

* the least you can do is practice what you preach.*


I try to. At least I don't delude myself.

*Arundhati
> (works at IFA, supported by the Tata Trusts among many, donates to TFA)*


Arka
(work in theatre, is not supported by anyone, and does not publicly declaim
where he donates to)








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