[Reader-list] An Artist in Exile Tests India’s Democratic Ideals

[Yousuf]

Dear Shivam
As you may have noticed, I also posted this news to the Jamia Millia alumni group (which has hundreds of current and ex-students of Jamia) for a specific reason. Since you have talked about Hussain offending both religions, I would like to mention an interesting (and also disturbing) debate we've been having here. For everyone's information, Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia (a central university) has recently inaugurated a brand new art gallery named after none other than Maqbool Fida Hussain, a very bold step not only in the current controversy of Hussain's nude deity pictures, but also in the context of Jamia's rather orthodox history. Curently the gallery is showing paintings of several well-known Indian artists including Satish Gujral, Hussain and others. The gallery was visited during the recently concluded Talimi mela (educational fair) by thousands of people including burqa-clad women and bearded clerics coming from Jamia's neighborhood.

The debate that has started recently in Jamia (especially on the alumni e-group) shows that a majority of Muslim students are unhappy on two accounts: (1) Hussain paints Hindu deities, which is un-Islamic any way, and (2) he hurts the sentiments of Hindus, which is indirectly a problem for "us". So why should we have a gallery named after him. It was interesting that a few extremist "Hindu" and "Muslim" students actually came down to agree entirely on this point, and both of them wrote against the lone pseudo-secularist. Each of them kept asking readers to "go and visit Hussain's hurtful paintings on the net to decide for yourself" - a large chunk of our youth getting educated entirely on the net has probably never visited a good arts gallery. 

I will try to forward you some of the discussions on the forum, in which we talked for example about nudity, stretching it all the way to Adam and Eve, and so on. But ultimately, it was decided that "whatever is bad for Muslims, is bad for all humanity" and that's the decision of the jury. 

Unfortunate times for the art. I am jittery about the future of this arts gallery - from both sides. See this:

http://www.hindujagruti.org/news/5690.html

Yousuf


--- On Mon, 11/10/08, Shivam V <lists at shivamvij.com> wrote:

> From: Shivam V <lists at shivamvij.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] An Artist in Exile Tests India’s Democratic Ideals
> To: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com
> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net, jamia_millia_alumni_directory at yahoogroups.com
> Date: Monday, November 10, 2008, 3:29 PM
> Dear Yousuf,
> 
> Many thanks for posting this. Naeem Mohaiemen had also
> posted a link
> to this story two days ago.
> 
> I find it very interesting that it is not just Hindu
> fanatics but
> Muslim ones too whom Husain has managed to
> 'offend'.
> 
> > But one of his paintings, showing a donkey — to the
> artist, a symbol of
> > nonviolence — at Mecca, created a ruckus among his
> fellow Muslims.
> 
> When both A and B hate C, it is the best possible evidence
> of C's
> non-partisanship. There could not be a better answer to the
> charge of
> Husain's 3 paintings being 'anti-Hindu'.
> 
> I also find it interesting that he was born in "a
> Shiite subsect that
> calls itself Suleimanis". That makes him part of a
> 'minority within a
> minority within a minority'. What an irony then, that
> he should be
> made out to be a Hindu-hating "Muslim"
> "fundamentalist".
> 
> best
> shivam
> 
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Yousuf
> <ysaeed7 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > An Artist in Exile Tests India's Democratic Ideals
> >
> > By SOMINI SENGUPTA
> > New York Times, November 8, 2008
> >
> > DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Maqbool Fida Husain,
> India's most famous painter, is afraid to go home.
> >
> > Mr. Husain is a Muslim who is fond of painting Hindu
> goddesses, sometimes portraying them nude. That obsession
> has earned him the ire of a small but organized cadre of
> Hindu nationalists. They have attacked galleries that
> exhibit his work, accused him in court of "promoting
> enmity" among faiths and, on one occasion, offered an
> $11 million reward for his head.
> >
> > In September, the country's highest court offered
> him an unexpected reprieve, dismissing one of the cases
> against him with the blunt reminder that Hindu iconography,
> including ancient temples, is replete with nudity. Still,
> the artist, 93 and increasingly frail, is not taking any
> chances. For two years, he has lived here in self-imposed
> exile, amid opulently sterile skyscrapers. He intends to
> remain, at least for now. "They can put me in a
> jungle," Mr. Husain said gamely. "Still, I can
> create."
> >
> > Freedom of expression has frequently, and by some
> accounts, increasingly, come under fire in India, as the
> country tries to balance the dictates of its secular
> democracy with the easily inflamed religious and ethnic
> passions of its multitudes.
> >
> > The result is a strange anomaly in a nation known for
> its vibrant, freewheeling political culture. The government
> is compelled to ensure respect for India's diversity and
> at the same time prevent one group from pouncing on another
> for a perceived offense. Ramachandra Guha, a historian,
> calls it "perhaps the fundamental challenge of
> governance in India."
> >
> > The rise of an intense brand of identity politics,
> with India's many communities mobilizing for political
> power, has intensified the problem. An accusation that a
> piece of art or writing is offensive is an easy way to whip
> up the sentiments of a particular caste, faith or tribe,
> Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an Indian political scientist, points
> out. He calls it "offense mongering."
> >
> > There have been isolated episodes of violence, and
> many more threats, often prompting the government to invoke
> British-era laws that allow it to ban works of art and
> literature. India was among the first countries to ban
> Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses."
> >
> > In March, Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi novelist
> living in exile in the Communist-controlled state of West
> Bengal, was forced to leave for several months after a
> Muslim political party objected to her work.
> >
> > Meanwhile, in the western state of Gujarat, controlled
> by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, a political
> psychologist, Ashis Nandy, was charged with "promoting
> enmity between different groups." His offense was to
> write an opinion article in The Times of India criticizing
> the victory of the Hindu nationalists in state elections;
> the case is pending.
> >
> > "That politics has gotten out of hand," Mr.
> Mehta, the political scientist, argued. "It puts
> liberal democracy at risk. If we want social stability we
> need a consensus on what our freedoms are."
> >
> > Even threats of violence from offended parties are a
> powerful deterrent. In Mumbai, formerly Bombay, where Mr.
> Husain lived for most of his life, a recent exhibition on
> Indian masters did not include his work. Nor did India's
> first modern art fair, held in New Delhi in August. The same
> week in the same city, a small show featuring reproductions
> of Mr. Husain's work was vandalized.
> >
> > Of Mr. Husain's exceptionally large body of work
> — at least 20,000 pieces, he guesses — there are three
> that have angered his foes. Two are highly stylized pencil
> drawings of Durga, the mother goddess, and Saraswati, the
> goddess of the arts, both faceless and nude. The third is a
> map of India rendered as a female nude, her head in the
> Himalayas, a breast jutting out into the Arabian Sea. Mr.
> Husain insists that nudity symbolizes purity. He has
> repeatedly said that he had not meant to offend any faith.
> But one of his paintings, showing a donkey — to the
> artist, a symbol of nonviolence — at Mecca, created a
> ruckus among his fellow Muslims.
> >
> > Harsh Goenka, a Mumbai-based industrialist and one of
> the country's most important collectors, has a similar
> Husain nude, an oil painting of the goddess Saraswati. As
> "an average normal Hindu," he says he is appalled
> that Mr. Husain is not safe in his country.
> >
> > "Keeping him away is, in a way, showing the
> weakness of the system, that we cannot protect the rights of
> the citizen," Mr. Goenka said. "If he has done a
> crime, punish him. If he hasn't, let him live here with
> dignity and peace of mind."
> >
> > Mr. Husain calls the current Congress Party-led
> government too weak-kneed to offer him protection from those
> who might harm him. Mostly, though, he cautions against
> making too much of his case. India, he insists, is
> fundamentally "tolerant."
> >
> > Not least, he said, he has always been a vagabond,
> sleeping on the Mumbai streets during his impoverished
> youth, wandering through Europe to study Rembrandt, or
> bouncing, as he does now, among several lavish apartments
> and villas here in Dubai — or rather, cruising among them,
> in one of his five costly thrill machines, including a
> lipstick-red Ferrari, his current favorite. Mr. Husain is
> India's best-paid artist. Last March, at a
> Christie's auction, his "Battle of Ganga and
> Jamuna," part of a 27-canvas series on the Mahabharata,
> the Hindu epic, fetched $1.6 million.
> >
> > "I am working, it's O.K.," he said.
> "If things get all right, I'll go. If they
> don't, so be it. What can I do?"
> >
> > And then he quoted the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a
> Pakistani who went into exile in the late 1970s during
> President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq's regime and who wrote
> about missing the animosity of his enemies as much as the
> affection of friends. "Of course," he conceded,
> "the heart is there."
> >
> > On the morning of Id al-Fitr, Islam's holiest day,
> Mr. Husain sat in the back seat of his Bentley as it whizzed
> past a row of construction sites, taking calls from Mumbai
> on his new iPhone.
> >
> > Back home on the same day, his granddaughter Rakshanda
> was getting engaged. It was the first major family function
> he had missed since his exile. "Such an auspicious
> day," he murmured. "Anyway, we will have a
> ceremony here again."
> >
> > In Mumbai, it had been his custom to host an annual Id
> al-Fitr breakfast for his community, a Shiite subsect that
> calls itself Suleimanis. This morning, he hosted one here,
> too, at a community hall with steaming plates of mutton and
> flatbread. A stream of people came to pay their respects,
> taking his gnarled right hand, placing it above their eyes,
> one after the other, then to their lips. Mr. Husain, a
> master of flamboyance, stood beaming in a green silk jacket
> embroidered with motifs from his paintings, including
> several voluptuous, scantily clad women.
> >
> > He is now working on two ambitious series: one on
> Indian civilization, to be mounted in London, the second on
> Arab civilization, which will be exhibited in Qatar.
> >
> > Here in Dubai, he is at work on a whimsical
> installation titled "Form Meets Function," which
> will incorporate his five luxury cars, including a sound
> piece he intends to create using their engines.
> >
> > At sundown, he climbed into the passenger seat of the
> Ferrari, pounded the dashboard and instructed his driver to
> hit the gas pedal. The engine revved, and he squealed in
> delight. He said he had stopped driving several years ago,
> after cataract surgery.
> >
> > He does not have a studio in Dubai. There are easels
> in each of the homes he has bought for his extended clan. He
> spends a night here, a night there.
> >
> > One of them is an 11th-floor apartment with
> spectacular, south-facing views of jagged skyscrapers under
> construction. It is filled with dozens of small canvases
> from the 1950s that he had given to a Czech woman he had
> once intended to marry, though she turned him down.
> >
> > She found him recently and returned his paintings.
> "They belong to India," she told him.
> >
> > This afternoon, recalling the story, Mr. Husain said
> he would eventually have to take them home.
> "Temporarily," he mused, "they are
> here."
> >
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/world/asia/09india.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the
> city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to
> reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject
> header.
> > To unsubscribe:
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive:
> <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> mail at shivamvij dot com