Husain’s nationality: Pyrrhic victory for fundamentalists

BY Geeta Seshu| IN Media Practice | 01/03/2010

When the 95-year-old artist M F Husain decided to accept the nationality offered to him by the Middle Eastern state of Qatar, he turned his back on more than five years of persecution and vilification and handed out a Pyrrhic victory to the Hindu fundamentalist forces who had hounded him for his depiction of both Hindu deities and the map of India.

Hindu fundamentalist organisations, mainly the Hindu Jagruti Samiti, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, unleashed a campaign against the painter. An astonishing 900-odd cases were filed against him in various parts of the country. His painting were vandalised, his house was attacked and in 2006, he was forced into a self-imposed exile from his native land.

In several interviews, Husain repeatedly stated that nationality was a mere piece of paper and that he continued to feel ‘Indian’. He also believed that the attacks targeted art and self-expression and felt ‘rejected’ by the political leadership in India.

The painter’s decision to accept Qatari nationality evoked strong reactions around the country, with Hindu fundamentalists keeping up their demand that Husain appear in court. Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, in an editorial in his party newspaper Saamna, rather grudgingly said that Husain was a ‘great painter’ and could come back if he apologised. The RSS also said that they would not oppose his return if he apologised.

Husain had apologised, not once but several times, but fundamentalist groups felt that this was half-hearted. Others, like Tamil writer and editor of Tuglak, Cho Ramaswamy, derided his decision to accept Qatari nationality as the country was not known to uphold freedom of expression. Artistic freedom of expression had no place before religious belief, his detractors said, casting aspersions on his intentions. The argument that there are enough examples of the nude depiction of gods and goddesses in art through the ages cut no ice with them.

Increasing attacks on artists

While the change of nationality became the main focus of discussion, there was little acknowledgement of the culture of intolerance that prevails over all forms of expression today. Writers, artists, film-makers and academicians have been viciously targeted and any whiff of protest that those ‘offended’ by any thought, word or deed, has immediately resulted in a clampdown by the state.

Husain was, of course, not the only artist to have been attacked by fundamentalists. In 2006, artists Sanjeev Khandekar and Vaishali Narkar were charged with obscenity by Mumbai police. In 2007, art student Chandra Mohan was attacked for his art work submitted for evaluation at M S University’s Fine Arts Faculty. The dean of faculty, Shivajirao Pannikkar was suspended for standing up for his student. In 2008, artist Jehangir Jani had to remove two exhibits from his show in Mumbai  as they were attacked for being explicit!

But the sustained and virulent attack against the prolific Husain has been exceptional, with Hindu fundamentalist organisations devoting websites and blogs to his paintings of nude Hindu gods and goddesses. Like someone stalked, every move of his was closely monitored and his exhibitions or auctions of his work became the focus of the protest.

Husain had been painting Hindu gods and goddesses since 1970 but it was in 1996 that his paintings attracted controversy when Vichar Mimansa, a Hindi monthly magazine, published them in an article entitled ‘M.F. Husain: A Painter or Butcher’. In 1998, his house in Mumbai was attacked and his paintings were vandalised, allegedly by activists of the Bajranj Dal, an act that received the support of the Shiv Sena. Several cases were lodged against the artist in various parts of the country, charging him with offending religious sensibilities and obscenity.

In 2006, a painting entitled ‘Bharatmata’ (Mother India), part of a show ‘Art For Mission Kashmir’, organised by Nafisa Ali of Action India (NGO) and Apparao Art Gallery, was targeted by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu Jagruti Samiti. The painting depicted a nude woman kneeling in the position of a map of India with the names of Indian States on various parts of her body.

Husain apologised and the painting was withdrawn from the exhibition but this did not assuage the fundamentalist groups who mounted another campaign against him. When Husain received death threats, he left India, moving to London, Dubai and finally, Qatar.

Stand of the judiciary is clear

The cases against him were later consolidated into six cases in Baroda, Mumbai, Bhopal, Indore, Haridwar and Rajkot. In 2007, acting on the artist’s plea that he was too old to travel to Haridwar to attend hearings, the Supreme Court clubbed four cases together and these were quashed by the Delhi High Court in May 2008. In his judgement dismissing the criminal complaints, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul was unequivocal :

"A painter has his own perspective of looking at things and it cannot be the basis of initiating criminal proceedings against him. In India, a new puritanism is being carried out in the name of cultural purity and a host of ignorant people are vandalising art and pushing us towards the pre-renaissance era. A painter at 90 deserves to be sitting at his home and painting his canvas (rather than living in exile)."

It was also clear that the response of lower courts to such complaints was at variance from that of higher courts. Justice Kaul observed that frivolous and vexatious complaints, which impinge on the basic freedom of an individual, should be scrutinised in a strict manner at the magisterial level itself. It should be ensured that the criminal justice system was not misused, he said.

In September 2008, the Supreme Court dismissed appeals against this order and upheld the quashing of proceedings against Husain. Turning down a plea to prosecute the artist on obscenity charges, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan had observed: "There are so many such subjects, photographs and publications. Will you (the complainant ) file cases against all of them?" It is art. If you don’t want to see it, then don’t see it. There are so many such art forms in the (Hindu) temple structures."

Today, only three cases are pending against the artist in the lower courts in Delhi.

Despite the clear stand of the courts in these cases, the sustained attack on Husain and his work left the artist besieged and hurt at the apparent lack of support both from artists and from successive governments. Regardless of assurances from the government that he would be given security, Husain felt that too little was really done.

As Husain slips away from the glare of the media and the fuss about his nationality dies down, what remains is the hole in the canvas, one-dimensional and bereft of interpretation.