[Reader-list] Husain Exhibition Attacked in Delhi

[S. Jabbar]

People have become rather emotional and touchy of late.  Everyone seems to
have become hypersensitive and quick to take offense-- of course it helps if
there are TV cameras to record one's display of piety.

Is one's faith so fragile that a drawing or a piece of poetry or writing and
can shake it?  Evidently so and mores the pity.  Why tear down works of art
when it is faith that is crumbling?  My prescription is twenty years of
solitary meditation in a cave in the Himalayas.

Do you know the story of Swami Vivekanand who stood in front of the goddess
at Khir Bhavani? Look it up.  It's instructive.  And humbling.


On 8/25/08 7:52 PM, "Prabhakar Singh" <prabhakardelhi at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Artists should be careful about the cultural or religious sensitivities of the
> people.Art can flourish even without delving on such sensitive and touchy
> issues which may have emotional importance for some
> people.
Prabhakar




----- Original Message ----
From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> <shuddha at sarai.net>
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Monday, 25
> August, 2008 6:30:19 PM
Subject: [Reader-list] Husain Exhibition Attacked in
> Delhi

Dear all,

Once again, with depressing, monotonous and disgusting 
>
predictability, a group of hooligans affiliated to the Hindutva 
(Hindu
> Fundamentalist) agenda who call themselves the 'Shri Ram Sena' 
have attacked
> and ransacked a small exhibition in Delhi of images by 
and about the
> nonegarian painter M. F. Husain, The exhibition was 
held on the premises of
> the office of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial 
Trust (SAHMAT) in Delhi, to protest
> against the decision by the 
orgnaizers of an Art Summit in Delhi to exclude
> work by Husain citing 
reasons of security. This incident demonstrates, yet
> again, how 
inimical the forces of Hindutva are to an open society and to
> the 
freedom of expression.

See - 
> http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Husain-photo-
>
exhibition-vandalised-yet-again/352835/ for a report in the Indian 
Express
> that carries details of the incident.

This list has discussed such attacks on
> freedom of expression before, 
and just as we have had forthright criticism
> of Muslim 
fundamentalists attacking Taslima Nasrin, and the CPI (M) led
> West 
Bengal government making it impossible for her to stay in Kolkata, so 
>
too, we must take into account this latest assault on cultural 
liberty.  I
> appeal to all to condemn this attack on the freedom of 
>
expression.

regards

Shuddha





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