Supreme Court finds no reason for the initiation of criminal proceedings against M F Husain

Economic and Political Weekly
September 13, 2008

Editorial

Restraining thin-skinned Fanatics

The Supreme Court finds no reason for the initiation of criminal proceedings against M F Husain.

In the last decade, fanatic groups have increasingly been resorting to vandalism to express their vehemence against artists, writers and filmmakers, whose works and views have, they claim, hurt their sentiments. Painter M F Husain's works d epicting Hindu goddesses in the nude have been the target of violent protests by groups espousing the ideology of Hindutva, the severity of which has led the 93-year old painter to live in self-imposed exile in Dubai since 2006. Now the Supreme Court has ruled that his Bharat Mata (depicting a nude woman on the con- tours of the Indian map) is a work of art and refused the initiation of criminal proceedings against him. However, the ruling is not likely to change the opinion of his detractors or lead to Husain's return soon to India.

Since 1996, Husain's art shows in Delhi, Ahmedabad and London have been vandalised, his house in Mumbai attacked by the B ajrang Dal and criminal cases filed against him. While the artist community largely continues to support him, the state machin- ery (including the present United Progressive Alliance govern- ment, which asked police chiefs to take "appropriate legal action" against him in 2006) has proved to be ineffectual in dealing with his tormentors. In fact, the first ever India Art Summit (supported by the union ministry of culture and inaugurated by the culture and tourism minister) held in Delhi last month excluded his works on grounds of "security". This provoked the cultural group Sahmat to hold a Husain exhibition at the same time but at a different venue. Predictably, Sahmat's exhibition was attacked by a little known Hindutva group. Prominent artists had pointed out that Husain had single-handedly put Indian art on the world map and that the organisers were playing into the hands of the extremist groups by excluding his works. The government excused itself on the grounds that it was not consulted about the choice of artists at the art summit.

While the Supreme Court's ruling is welcome, court judgments do not necessarily deter groups bent on using violent intimidation to extract political mileage. In 2000, filmmaker Deepa Mehta could not shoot her movie Water, based on the plight of Hindu widows, after Hindutva groups destroyed the film's sets saying the subject was anti-Hindu. The then Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Uttar Pradesh cancelled the permission to shoot the film on the plea of "people's protests". Whether it is the attack on the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune (the author of a controversial book on Shivaji was based there) or the refusal to "allow" cinema theatres in Gujarat to exhibit actor Aamir Khan's films (the boycott provoked by his stand on the Narmada dam issue was later with- drawn), the pattern in the response of political parties in general and the concerned state governments in particular is the same: statements of condemnation are muted and the law and order machinery goes through the motions of dealing with the bigots half-heartedly. It is left to the victim's fraternity (again, it is a small minority that dares to express an opinion) or a small group of concerned citizens to express solidarity with the victim and protest the attacks.

How may campaigns by fanatical political outfits whipping up hysteria against what they decide is "offensive" in the fields of art, literature and cinema be rendered worthless in the eyes of the people? The defence of freedom of expression does not happen in a vacuum but in an environment where democratic rights are protected and bigots are deterred from taking the law into their own hands. What does it say of us as a society when artistic freedom, indeed, even the freedom to express one's views is being hemmed in more and more by thin-skinned fanatical groups with hardly any fear of repercussions?