Letters expressing concern on arrest of Baroda Student and the right expression

Letters to the Editor , The Telegraph - 15 May 2007

Assault on an artist

Sir — You must have known through media reports that Chandra Mohan, a student from the department of graphics at the Fine Arts College in Baroda has been arrested on May 9, 2007 for making an allegedly controversial painting depicting nude figures with some religious motifs. The arrest followed the storming of the university premises by a group of outsiders. The work in question was part of a display in the college premises for assessment by a team of examiners for a Master’s degree in Fine Arts. Charged with sections 153 and 114 as well as sections 295A and 295B, he has been denied bail and is presently in Central Jail, Baroda.

In a civilized society, any dispute on a controversial depiction or content of a work of art can be dealt with through dialogue and consultation with experts in the field rather than left to self-appointed moral police employing coercive means. In the present case, the outsiders, taking law into their own hands, barged into the campus without prior permission, and did not consult or inform the dean of the faculty before disrupting the annual examinations in progress. The reports are that they returned again to abuse the dean and threatened him with dire consequences.

Such an instance of assault on a student by outsiders within the university premises is unprecedented in the history of the faculty of fine arts and must be condemned in no uncertain terms. The Fine Arts College, known nationally and internationally for upholding the highest standards of creative and critical practice, has also earned a reputation for its firm commitment to the freedom of expression. Former authorities of the university, like Hansa Mehta, the very first vice-chancellor in the Fifties, up to Bhikhu Parekh in the Eighties, have stood by the faculty and its ideals. The present assault seems to strike at the very ideals on which it was built by pioneering artist-academics, supported by enlightened university authorities. The present administration of the university has not initiated any action against the trespassers or applied for the bail of the victimized student. The students and staff of the Fine Arts College have organized a dharna and the acting dean, Shivaji Panikkar, has planned to undertake a hunger strike on the college premises against the assault on the student and the callous attitude of the university authorities. A solidarity demonstration of artists, intellectuals and cultural workers from all over India was called on May 14 at the Fine Arts College premises, beginning 2 pm, with an appeal to all concerned to gather there to lend their support. As an alumnus and former teacher of the faculty of fine arts, I fear these developments may imperil the working of an institution which, in many ways, has formed our lives; and is indeed an integral part of what we are today. I hope all other alumni and teachers, as well as concerned artists and intellectuals of the country, will come forward to protect it in its moment of crisis when the values it stands for are threatened.

Yours faithfully,
Gulammohammed Sheikh,
Vadodara



Sir — We write to share our deep shock and outrage at what has occurred at the fine arts faculty at the M.S. University of Baroda in the course of the past few days. The police action on campus — the disruption of an ongoing examination and evaluation of student work, the arrest of Chandra Mohan without producing at the time any FIR or warrant and without the knowledge of the dean, and the subsequent heckling of students and teachers — amounts to a gross violation of the academic life and autonomy of a university, and is to be strongly condemned. Equally condemnable are the subsequent refusal of the police to register the complaint of the faculty, the deliberate inaction of university authorities in securing the release of Chandra Mohan, the forced closure of the exhibition organized by the faculty on ancient Indian art and iconography, and the suspension of the dean of the faculty for his refusal to shut down the exhibition. In his courageous stand in support of the arrested student artist and the peaceful dissent of his faculty, the dean has set an exemplary standard for the art and academic world.

These attacks, coming in the wake of the unabated campaign against the art, property and person of M.F. Husain, come as a chilling warning about the extreme vulnerability of our current public positions as artists, intellectuals and academics. It underlines the urgency of our mobilization today in defence, not only of our private rights of opinion and expression, but equally of the public domain of our autonomy and intellectual positions. We need to drive home the point that the nude has formed an integral feature of the vocabulary, not only of traditional Indian art and religious iconography, but also of modern Indian art, and that the nudes of modern art (even when they feature gods and goddesses) have never been intended for the uses and practices of worship. A categorical distinction has to be maintained today between the work of art and the religious icon — failing which, neither the nation’s senior-most modern artist, Husain, nor a young, upcoming student in the country’s premier art institution can take on the licence of experimenting with forms and iconographies. We also need to define and defend what constitutes the legitimate spaces of art and intellectual activity. The point to emphasize is that the works of artists, intellectuals and academics must be allowed to freely circulate in the public sphere to foster a democratic climate of debate and criticism. It is in this public sphere that an academic has been penalized for fulfilling his duty of protecting students and certain fundamental tenets of art practice. We stand in defence of this public sphere, in complete solidarity with those who have been victimized within its bounds. The charges of criminality must be turned away from artists who paint and the community that stands up for them to those who attack them with the motives of political vendetta and murderous assault, with the force of the police and the government behind them. We demand that the law must protect rather than tyrannize, that it must guarantee rather than hold at ransom these spheres of academic and artistic immunity.

Yours faithfully,
Partha Chatterjee, Sukanta Chaudhuri and 47 others from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, Jadavpur University and the IIM,
Calcutta