Click to play videoIndia is a pluralistic society but when it comes to the freedom of artistic expression, we seem to run out of space.
The moral police have slammed MF Husain for painting nude pictures of Hindu Gods. An arts student at the Maharaja Sayaji Rao University is arrested because his painting hurt religious sensibilities.
Artists and students across the country have expressed solidarity with Chandra Mohan, a student, and Shivaji Panikkar, Dean of the Art Faculty after the former was arrested when a BJP member found his painting meant for an internal project to be offensive.
Renowned artist Anjolie Ela Menon and artists and students from Delhi, Mumbai and Vadodara Joined the show Art Attack on CNN-IBN, moderated by Anubha Bhonsle, to discuss – has intolerance laid claim to spaces of academia and creative expression?
Blaming the state for the current controversy, Anjolie Ela Menon said that Chandra Mohan has been made a “scapegoat” of the situation and the whole thing is “obviously pre-planned”.
Describing the young student as “vulnerable”, Menon also pointed out that, he has no support – neither his parents are their nor the state provided him support and the state have simply put him behind the bars “without giving him a chance to speak”.
Expressing sympathy for young students, Menon said, “This was supposed to be an exam and these exams are on camera. Only the jury, may be the dean and head of the department get to examine these works. I am amazed that somebody from outside was allowed to buzz in. That’s whom the police should have arrested instead of police being party a trespass of this nature.”
Agreeing that it would have made a difference if the painting was exhibited in a public or private domain, Menon said that the painting meant for exam is entirely a “private affair” and had nothing to do with public. She also said that somebody must have tipped off the mob about the painting, “How else would people have known what is being exhibited or going to be exhibited on camera?”
Against the question, “Can people have the right to explain divergent views?” a student of MS University said, “Of course there can be divergent views. But the question here is about how these divergent views can be addressed. Where is the distorted space, where such discussions can take place and these divergent views brought into one space?”
On the question of the right of any institution like Bajrang Dal to come and express their opinion on such arts inside the university, another student said, “No that is not done. Because this is an institution’s space and there is a procedure for going about it… It was not an exhibition, it was examination work to be viewed by the jury and by the students and by their parents at the most. So, first of all, they were not supposed to be there and if, in case, someone does have a problem, there is a way of dealing with it.”
On the issue that, if an artist should respect the feelings of other people, another student remind that Chandra Mohan is not an artist but a student, who is in the process of learning.
Menon reacted by saying that the people who went to the campus “know nothing about arts” and they probably “know nothing about religion” either. Accusing the morale brigade of reducing the religion to the “lowest common denominator”, Menon said, “As a practicing Hindu, I object to been told by the Bajrang Dal, how to practice my religion”.
Raising objection on the expression that “increasingly we are becoming very intolerant about anything and everything”, Menon said, “I don’t think ‘we’ are becoming intolerant, it is certain orchestrated intolerance.”
Criticising the arrest of Chandra Mohan, an art student from Mumbai said, “Look at the insignificant material that our political parties are resort to. We have to call for an end to this sort of – not the right wing but the riot wing – politics.”
Indicating that artists and citizens of the country are coming together against such hatred campaign, he said, “It is high time to hold the fabric together rather than just let it in pieces”.
Relating the nudity and eroticism in Indian art to history and religion, Manon said that these are not only the part of “secular representation” of the figure but very much linked with “religious iconography”.
Refusing to acknowledge it a problem related to society, an art student of JNU in New Delhi said, “It is not the problem of society, it is a particular group and they are imposing their views on entire public”. She also indicated that the public of this country is always liberal to these kinds of arts.
Another student indicated that even in the campus, there were mixed response of an artwork of his. He also said that the artwork of artists involve imagination, which state cannot understand and misinterpret it and try to suppress it.
Not quite acknowledging the view that “state cannot understand the art”, Menon said, “The greatest gift the republic has given to us artists was the freedom of expression. And because of this our country has forged ahead in all the arts.” She regretted that “today this self appointed moral police is making a new Taliban” and we can very well do without it.
Expressing her wonder on the ongoing controversy, Menon gave the example of the nude Jain Tirthankaras and the image of goddess Kali, standing nude on a copulating couple with her severed head holding on hand, which is worshipped in many homes, and indicated that “as a Hindu nation, we are not prudish” and termed the prudery as a recent “import”. “What happens to a modern painter or a contemporary artists – there is always hullabaloo,” said Menon.
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