(Tehelka
Feb 17 , 2007)
Equal Opportunity Fundamentalism
The right’s only objection to MF Husain’s depictions of Hindu deities is that they are made by a Muslim, says Salil Tripathi
Who’s Profane? A Husain interpretation of Lakshmi
As you enter London’s netherworld — its labyrinthine underground subway system — you will notice large images of a Hindu deity, looking sinuous and sensual, cavorting cheerfully and wearing almost no clothes at all. There are other posters nearby, of sexy women advertising perfumes or holidays, wearing almost as little as the god in the poster, but the god wins hands down in attracting your attention.
More unusually, nobody from London’s neo-hypersensitive Hindu community has expressed any criticism or outrage over the nearly-naked image of the Hindu god staring at almost 2.5 million commuters daily. This is surprising. I remember last year, when Asia House — a gallery near Oxford Street in central London — hosted an exhibition of paintings, which included some canvases of nude Hindu deities, a self-styled Hindu human rights organisation (and the so-called Hindu Forum in Britain, claiming to speak for the 700,000 Hindus who live in the country), protested immediately, and forced the gallery to cancel the exhibition.
Why are the Hindu groups quiet this time? And why were they so noisy last time? The answer is simple, revealing, and banal: for them, the show last year had to be opposed because the artist, Maqbool Fida Husain, was a Muslim. But the show this year was to be revered, for what the Sackler Wing of the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly is showing are the famed Chola bronzes: seductive and erotic certainly, but presumably untouched by the hands of a Muslim artist.
The Royal Academy has brought together nearly 40 sculptures, from India, Germany and the United States. These sculptures are consistently evocative, exuding virility and sensuality. You see a divine male caressing a female deity; elsewhere, a willowy maiden strikes poses meant to guide the viewer towards her attract-ive body.
To be sure, the Chola bronzes are not only about sex or erotica. The quintessential Chola image, — of the dancing Nataraja performing the celestial tandava nritya — personifies not only the defeat of evil, but also the destruction of the world as we know it, so that a new world can begin.
True, Husain has painted several goddesses in the nude, but his works reshape our thinking about Hindu myths, they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate
But then Husain’s art is also hardly meant to titillate. That’s the deep-rooted hypocrisy among people who claim to lead Hindus — in Britain or in India. They say they are deeply wounded when a Husain depicts Draupadi, Saraswati or Sita without clothes, even if the image Husain portrays is elegant, bold, linear and sharp. Inspired by the expressionists, Husain’s figures are not always complete, and leave a lot for the viewer to imagine. The Chola bronzes, in contrast, are curvaceous and vivacious. For much of December, they competed for attention, in that respect, with the majestic sculptures of Rodin, which were also on display at the Royal Academy at the time.
Whether coincidental or by design, the coexistence of Rodin and Chola at the Royal Academy was resonant with meaning. As William Dalrymple noted in an article in the Guardian: “In Western art, few sculptors — except perhaps Donatello or Rodin — have achieved the pure essence of sensuality so spectacularly evoked by the Chola sculptors; or achieved such a sense of celebration of the divine beauty of the human body. There is a startling clarity and purity about the way the near-naked bodies of the gods and the saints are displayed. Yet, by the simplest and most modest of devices, their spirit and powers, joys and pleasures, and above all their enjoyment of each other’s beauty and their overwhelming sexuality, is highlighted.”
And yet, those offended Hindu leaders in Britain have remained silent about the bronzes. It is a tragedy of our times that Hindu nationalists have succeeded in running a nearly decade-long campaign against Husain and forced him into involuntary exile, shuttling between Dubai and London.
True, Husain has painted several goddesses from the Hindu pantheon in the nude, but those are bold works that reshape our thinking about Hindu myths, revealing them in a new light; they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate. His nudes delineate the body in sharp lines, elevating it to an abstract realm, suggesting the formlessness of divinity.
This explanation, which is faithful to Hindu philosophy, is too abstract for the semi-literate fundamentalists who have protested against his works and, in some cases, ransacked art galleries displaying his art in India. There are some 1,200 cases filed against him.
Even though he does not need to, Husain has apologised for hurting sentiments. Explaining his motives, the painter has traced his art to India’s millennia-old heritage in which gods and goddesses were “pure and uncovered”.
But we live in complicated times. Instead of celebrating the openness of Hinduism, which should make those who claim to lead the faith feel proud of a non-Hindu artist expressing homage to their gods, Hindu nationalists are busy trying to outdo other faiths, by complaining that they, too, have the right to be offended. So if Muslims want Danish cartoons banned, Hindus want Husain’s drawings banned. The attention Muslims have commanded with their protests against images they consider blasphemous — a concept alien to Hinduism — has left Hindus wanting equal treatment. Don’t mistake them for being liberals.
The sacred and the profane have always coexisted in India. As a faith, Hinduism is broad enough to include some sects that think sex is the main way to enlightenment, and broadminded enough to overlook sadhus roaming around naked, their bodies smeared with ash, during the Kumbh Mela.
Indeed, in many aspects of Indian literature and art, nudity connotes purity and openness, not vulgarity. Architects have decorated many temples with nude deities. The Chola bronzes, which depict scantily-clad Hindu goddesses are no less divine. The temples in Khajuraho from the Chandela period have hundreds of erotic statues. The Gangaikondacholapuram Shiva Temple has an almost nude Parvati, and that hasn’t diminished her holiness. The Parshvanatha Temple of Khajuraho has nude sculptures of the holiest of the holies in the Hindu pantheon. And many sculptures in Bikaner have Hindu divinities clad only in exquisite and ornate chains, necklaces and bangles.
For the Hindu nationalists, if Husain did any of that, it would be sacrilegious. But when anonymous sculptors carve such figures, it becomes divine, even if not high art. That’s the hypocrisy that is so fundamentally against the Indian ethos, not Husain’s art. Husain’s art may not be sacred, but what the fanatics are doing is profane.
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