[Reader-list] Husain Exhibition Attacked in Delhi
Prabhakar Singh
prabhakardelhi at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 28 16:23:10 IST 2008
Very rightly said ! Hinduism is not a religion.It is a way of life.If Hinduism is a book all religions on earth are its chapters.It is a great sin to abuse it without properly understanding it. We should first take trouble to understand its philosophy as little surface knowledge may prove to be dangerous.
Prabhakar
----- Original Message ----
From: chanchal malviya <chanchal_malviya at yahoo.com>
To: A Khanna <A.Khanna at sms.ed.ac.uk>; Prabhakar Singh <prabhakardelhi at yahoo.com>
Cc: inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com>; reader-list at sarai.net
Sent: Wednesday, 27 August, 2008 9:33:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Husain Exhibition Attacked in Delhi
Dear Khanna,
1. There are people in this world who are not ready to take the positive side of their own identity. There are people who would love to rape their own mother and motherland. And there are some people who even protect their intention as personal attitude. Great. Not to say anything to them.
2. You telling that motherland is a metaphor and nothing else explains in itself what you feel about India. I am sure such person also feel the same for their own mother and sister. And I have written earlier that such person would not come to protect their mother also, what to say about the broader concept of motherland.
3. As far as Hinduism is concerned, it has to be recognized through the text only. It cannot be recognized at least now by actions of people. Because India is more Islamic and Christianized than a Hindu country. Of course, people like you are a part of it. Hinduism is a mere subject of attack in India. What I told about Hinduism is exactly what is HInduism. And why Hinduism, this word came into existence only when other Religions forced it upon the people of Sanatan Dharma.
I know you will not be able to understand the difference between Dharma and Religion. For you and Gandhiji both are same. But Dharma means Righteous duty and Religion is what you all are talking about. Hinduism is science and teaches righteous duty in scientific manner. World outside India is recognizing this, but our Indians will understand it only when a 'Gora' will come and say and that also when he is ruling us. Sorry.
Sex is a power of nature that is to be won by human through various methodologies described in Hindu text. And that is an important step towards Self-Realization. Attempt is that only. Women taking bath nude didn't cover their body when Sukdeva (son of Veda Vyas) crossed them, because they knew that he is a child in his nature on this matter. But they immediately took cover when Veda Vyas crossed.
There are many stories where Saints are being enticed by Apsaras for sex. And the theme of all story is same - sex is a very powerful natural factor. And winning over it is the biggest win in life.
If sex would have been so prominent in Hindus, we would have found Hindu society also marrying multitude of women.
Please do not try to put Hinduism under charge, for this.
I have already told you the meaning of Deities, and yet you do not understand and ask me stupid questions.
Unlike Islam, where one is allowed to marry as many as they like as per their capacity and in addition keep as many women as their right hand posses (Hindu women) for sex. It is unlike Christian where sex and love are the same thing.
M.F.Hussain is a gift of Islam. So, he will see even his motherland only with his Madhuri attitude. No, he is seeing India nude with his Islamic attitude. He has seen Madhuri also with his Islamic attitude, though film stars have a different life style and we may not be protective of them in this matter.
It is so simple, if M.F.Hussain is so clean, let him paint his mother. Or if you or the protector of M.F.Hussain has so large heart, please send a photograph of your mother to him and ask him to paint her nude. Let me see, how many of you are not of double standard.
Either you all are in favor of Darul-Islam, or you are abusing your own motherland by supporting bloody Hussain.
----- Original Message ----
From: A Khanna <A.Khanna at sms.ed.ac.uk>
To: Prabhakar Singh <prabhakardelhi at yahoo.com>
Cc: chanchal malviya <chanchal_malviya at yahoo.com>; inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com>; reader-list at sarai.net
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 3:36:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Husain Exhibition Attacked in Delhi
chanchal, prabhakar, Everyone Else,
there are three issues i'd like to reflect on in light of your rather
rabid postings on the issues of the attack on M.F. Husain's
exhibition. Apologies for the rather long posting, i do hope some of
you will find it interesting.
First, a rather obvious contestation relating to Chanchal's gratuitous
offer to speak the 'truth' of 'Hinudism', and more broadly, the
aggressive claim of Hindutva forces of a monopoly of what the terms
'Hindu' and 'Hinduism' may mean. More particularly, this is a
contestation of the place of sexualness and eroticism in them. What
makes it possible for the claim to be made that 'sex is not erotic in
hinduism' on the one hand, and the demeaning of artists who brought
out erotics in sex as 'failed' Hindus? What exactly is the fear of the
erotic? Why are these strange people trying to cleave eroticism away
from the lives of 'Hindus'??
Surely you are aware that there is a diversity of practices,
festivals, mythologies, political economies, cosmologies if you like,
in different parts of the country and in different communities in the
same regions, that may lay claim to the name 'Hindu'. This is even in
the face of colonial, and more recent hindu fundamentalist, attempts
to reduce this diversity into a rather boring, often textual,
normative frame. Chanchal offers, in other words, one peculiar vision
of some 'pure' or 'original' 'Hinduism' as though it exists in texts
(particular ones that by perhaps little more than historical
serendipity, and sex anxious coloniality, came to be seen as
containing the 'truth' of 'Hindu culture'), rather than in the
embodiment and practices of people. chanchal's vision, of a “faith
(not religion) that talks about winning over the senses (particularly
sex)” is one that, for the large part, stands miles away from various
realities, practices and beliefs of those who consider themselves
'Hindu'.
In my travels around India researching sexualness and eroticism I
encountered a confounding multiplicity of festivals, rituals,
identities and idioms in which eroticism, desire and sexualness are
central. Way too many of these take place in temples, way too many of
these are central to local religious practices, and the logics and
experiences of faith, way too many of these lay claim to being
'Hindu', for me to accept chanchal's description of Hinduism as an
achievement over sex. Or of the Lingam as light. (is it just me or
does this sounds closer to a Victorian Christianity? – a reading of
colonial anxieties around sex race and gender into the truth of the
self?) So chanchal, unfortunately yours is one peculiar vision of
'hindu', and a pathetically unimaginative one at that. It sounds to me
like the collective voice of a masculinist upper caste that is yet to
come to terms with (or even recognise) the damage done to it through
the colonial experience and one which clings to rather fragile stories
of the self. And it is unfortunate that the political economy of
Hindutva allows such a vision so much importance today. (Let me
clarify that i am not particularly invested or interested in
reclaiming Hindu from the bare teeth of the aggressive masculinist
claimants. But i do want to point to the right of others to do so.)
The second interesting point in the postings is the tension around
nudity. Nakedness. Such a beautiful experience. Do you not love the
human body? Do you not love your own selves? Is it a fear or disgust
with the self or some other trauma that brings about such anxiety
around nakedness? But ofcourse this is not just the representation of
the naked human body that seems to have caused this anxiety – it seems
to be, more precisely, that you necessarily see sexualness and
eroticism in the naked human body. But hold on, it is not just
sexualness and eroticism of the naked human body that has caused this
anxiety, it is a very particular nakedness – the nakedness of
'Motherland India'. Because, the problem with 'perverted Husain' is
that to him “Mother Indian and Madhuri are the same” – therefore,
actually its alright for him to paint Madhuri, in fact you probably
sat at the edge of your seat, enthralled as many of us were, as
Madhuri oh so sensuously thrust her beautiful breasts forward,
inviting you to a world of phantasmic pleasure, nevermind the
performance of outrage at the LYRICS of Choli Ke Peechhe (and i'm not
talking merely of pleasure for the male gaze of Masculine Men. I for
one, wanted to be Madhuri). Its the nakedness of Mother India, or
Motherland India that caused anxiety. So lets face this ponderous
image of a naked, sexualised Mother India head on. There are two
things that i find fascinating here.
First, the Motherland is a metaphor. A very powerful metaphor
admittedly. But a metaphor nonetheless. India is experienced as many
things, and through many metaphors – a place, sometimes a 'people', a
postcolonial nation state, a geographical entity with multiple and
complex cartographic existences, a cricket team, a zone of intense
gastronomic density, a colonising force, an a series of competing and
collaborating political economies...But India is not simply a woman.
And Kashmir is not the head of this woman (as we were unfortunately
taught in school in the 80s). The power of this metaphor is truly
fascinating.
But how does one strip a metaphor?? This must be one hell of a
brilliant painting! (on which note, are there any weblinks to images
of this painting? If someone knows a link i implore you, please share
it on this list). If it is true that this painting has managed to
actually bring this metaphor into an embodiment, and then brought out
an eroticism in it (rather than what it seems like, the attackers not
having even really seen and experienced the the painting) then what it
has done is expose Mother India as a metaphor, and weakened the power
that 'she' wields. Brilliant. The second thing is of course that once
we see Mother India as a metaphor into which we are constantly
investing a sense of reality, the metaphor becomes a contested space.
And perhaps this is what is creating anxiety for the likes of
prabhakar and chanchal?
So lets look at what it is about the stripping of this metaphor that
has gotten them, and the attackers of the exhibition so aggressive?
What is the power of this metaphor? One of prabhakar's email hits the
nail on the head. “If some artist in the name of art paints your
mother nude and displays it in art galleries and exhibitions to public
how would you feel and how would you react?”, s/he asks. A similar
point is made by chanchal when s/he says “I am sure, a person who
paints his motherland nude, must have done much more nonesense (sic)
to his mother and sister”. This leads me to understand that the
anxiety over the depiction of Mother India in such a way that she may
be seen to be sexualised, as erotic, is actually an anxiety around the
possibility that heris mother is sexual, or has an erotic side to her.
Is it scary, prabhakar, chanchal, for you to imagine that your mother
may be a sexual being with erotic desires, and with a body that is her
own, and which can be naked? Is it a fear of this possibility that
evokes in you, such strong emotions when you see (or perhaps hear of)
what some artist has done on a piece of canvas with paint? Is it this
fear that you will allow to dominate your very imagination of the
Nation of India? Freudian psychobabble, in other words, offers itself
up tantalisingly here. Is their Hindu nation structured around an
Oedipal anxiety over desire for the mother? (ugh!)
The troubling effect of this is of course the denial in nationalist
discourse of sexualness or rather the right to sexualness of women, as
after all, the big obligation on the good woman is to become the
mother of (male) children. This justifies mechanisms of regulation
over women's sexualness, and the meting out of punishment and
exclusion to those who fail to live within these boundaries, or
transgress them at will. The protests against the film Fire being a
case in point. But how does a woman become a mother (over and over
again, atleast until she begets a Son), when she is bereft of
sexualness? Is this an imagination of immaculate conception, or, a
belief that the only form of legitimate sex is heterosexual rape? The
point here is that if the metaphor of the Motherland and the lives of
women must feed into each other, the demand for the recognition of
sexualness and women's right to sexuality must also address the
sexualness of the metaphor of Mother India.
This brings me to my last point. I was brought up with a sense of
patriotism, stories of the freedom struggle, stories of the success of
Big Nehruvian development and images of Mother India. In fact i
sometimes still experience a sense of nostalgia for that heady emotion
of being part of that particular 'something bigger'. (yes, i cried
when i watched Rang De Basanti). I have, in other words, experienced
the power of Mother India, and surely all that investment by the state
into making sure that this experience marks my psyche forever entails
me to owning the metaphor. I claim the right, in other words to invest
this metaphor with things. If i bring my travels around India to bear
on this, i'd say 'Mother India', to me, is one hell of beautiful,
sensual, sexual, erotic figure, a polymorphous queer body, who laughs,
flirts, makes love, has soul-baring intense sex. Oh, and, sigh, S/he
also makes steel.
Love,
akshay
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