Hindus against ART

[KHURRAM SERAJ 0]

NEW DELHI, May 18 — It’s a heady time for Indian contemporary art. Never before has it fetched such extravagant prices and acclaim abroad. Never before have Indians at home been so prosperous as to support a proliferation of galleries, exhibitions and even investment funds devoted to art.

But art and its inevitable transgressions continue to provoke fury in Hindu nationalist quarters, leading stalwarts to shut down an exhibition, drive an artist out of the country or, in the latest case, send a young art student to jail for a final-exam project deemed offensive. The student’s arrest has prompted protests from prominent artists across the country and dominated newspaper headlines in recent days.

The tempest began on May 9 when a lawyer accompanied by police officers and television news crews marched into the art department at the respected Maharaja Sayajirao University, a state-run institution in Vadodara, in western Gujarat state. (Gujarat’s elected government is led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.)

The lawyer, Niraj Jain, based locally and affiliated with the party, said he was aggrieved by several works exhibited on a wall in the department library, including a painting — or rather a digital enlargement of a painted work — depicting a female form wielding weapons in her many arms, evoking a goddess from the Hindu pantheon, and giving birth. It was the final-year art project by Chandramohan, a graduate student who goes by one name.

The university, at the urging of Mr. Jain, persuaded the police to arrest the student and put him in jail. His crime, the city police commissioner, P. C. Thakur, said, was “deliberately offending religious sentiments.”

In response Chandramohan’s fellow students swiftly cobbled together material from the art history department archives and mounted an exhibition to underline the obvious: that even ancient Indian art is replete with explicitly erotic forms.

What came next seems to have startled the art world as much as the arrest did. The university’s vice chancellor, Manoj Soni, demanded an apology from the acting dean of the art department and ordered that the protest exhibition be closed.

The acting dean, Shivaji Panikkar, refused and was suspended. The administration took down the protest exhibition and then sealed the art history archives. “They want to control how we interpret our past,” said Parul Dave Mukherji, a former art history professor at the university who was on campus that week grading final exams.

Mr. Soni has offered no public explanation and has declined several requests for a comment. In a statement the university called the works “highly deplorable.”

Chandramohan was released on bail on Monday after five days’ imprisonment and has gone into hiding. He could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Jain, whose police complaint set off the art school crisis, said he was proud of his campaign. He described the student’s artwork as an attack on Indian culture. “I cannot tolerate any insult to our culture and to our god and goddesses,” he said in a telephone interview. He said he was also offended by a student painting in which a figure of Jesus was placed before a toilet.

It is not the first time artistic expression in this country has been squelched by state institutions. In Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, a court charged M. F. Husain, perhaps India’s most famous contemporary painter, with obscenity because of a painting he made of a goddess in the nude. Mr. Husain now lives in self-imposed exile in Dubai. Because he had not appeared for court hearings, the court recently issued a notice directing that his property in Mumbai be seized. (The Supreme Court has issued a stay.)

India is rarely lacking for paradox, and one of the most striking is that the puritanism of today’s Hindu radicals coexists with a long tradition of graphic sexual iconography. Hindu temple carvings often feature elaborate scenes of copulation. Among the best-known examples, at Khajuraho, in central India, was invoked this week in newspaper commentaries skewering what was referred to as the moral police brigade.

Writing in the Tuesday issue of The Indian Express, a national daily, Peter Ronald de Souza, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, a research organization here, said of the Hindu activists who forced the student’s arrest:

“It tells us not just they do not fear the wrath of the law, and that they believe censorship is acceptable in the service of a cause, but also they are certain that their actions would meet with social approval. So did the Taliban.”

His commentary was headlined, “Will They Blow Up Khajuraho?”

In a protest on Monday night here in New Delhi, prominent artists, curators and art teachers condemned the attack on the student’s work as a violation of basic freedom. “India is descending into a dark prison of the imagination,” warned Ram Rahman, a Delhi-based artist who took part.

Though not charged with any offense, Mr. Panikkar, the art department dean, has also gone into hiding. Friends have warned him that opposing Hindu radical groups in Gujarat state is inviting trouble — and not necessarily protection from the police — he explained in a cellphone interview on Tuesday night.

Wearily chronicling the chain of events, Mr. Panikkar said he had refused to apologize for the student’s artwork out of “principles and conviction.” He said he was “baffled” by the university administration’s crusade against a student project.

Asked how long he had taught on this campus, he suddenly broke down in tears. He said he was an alumnus of Maharaja Sayajirao University and had been a professor of art history there for 27 years. “I can’t bear it,” he said, weeping. “My life and blood is here. My institution, which I love so much.”

Story Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/arts/des...amp;oref=slogin

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

This started a long time ago with the Shiv Sena... got a shot in the arm with the fundamentalists won (BJP) in the early 90s. Hasn't gone away since.

I have been saying to people for a long time that India will be in a state of civil war within the next two decades. The status quo can't last forever.

[KHURRAM SERAJ 0]

I dont whats gonna happen with our countries

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

More partition is necessary.

[homesick_american 1]

This started a long time ago with the Shiv Sena... got a shot in the arm with the fundamentalists won (BJP) in the early 90s. Hasn't gone away since.

I have been saying to people for a long time that India will be in a state of civil war within the next two decades. The status quo can't last forever.

Guess that'll put the kibosh on all the outsourcing then.

If enough people are making enough money, there won't be a war. Too much to lose.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

This started a long time ago with the Shiv Sena... got a shot in the arm with the fundamentalists won (BJP) in the early 90s. Hasn't gone away since.

I have been saying to people for a long time that India will be in a state of civil war within the next two decades. The status quo can't last forever.

Guess that'll put the kibosh on all the outsourcing then.

If enough people are making enough money, there won't be a war. Too much to lose.

That's just the thing... enough people aren't making enough money. A very small sliver of Indians are benefiting from all the outsourcing, no matter what the media here tries to tell you.

And that's actually where my comment about more "Partitions" comes in... the parts of India that are doing well need to disassociate themselves from the rest of the country which is a complete mess.

[homesick_american 1]

This started a long time ago with the Shiv Sena... got a shot in the arm with the fundamentalists won (BJP) in the early 90s. Hasn't gone away since.

I have been saying to people for a long time that India will be in a state of civil war within the next two decades. The status quo can't last forever.

Guess that'll put the kibosh on all the outsourcing then.

If enough people are making enough money, there won't be a war. Too much to lose.

That's just the thing... enough people aren't making enough money. A very small sliver of Indians are benefiting from all the outsourcing, no matter what the media here tries to tell you.

That's basically what the media here tells us (i.e. that there's still a big gap between haves and have-nots). I agree that if a small portion of the population gallops ahead and leaves the rest of India in the same conditions that they're in now, they won't be happy bunnies. Not at all.

[KHURRAM SERAJ 0]

More partition is necessary.

I agree 100%

[homesick_american 1]

And that's actually where my comment about more "Partitions" comes in... the parts of India that are doing well need to disassociate themselves from the rest of the country which is a complete mess.

I don't know much about India; how do you think the split would go if it happened? Would it be along religious lines, economic lines, both, neither?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

India still has the caste system doesn't it?

[KHURRAM SERAJ 0]

And that's actually where my comment about more "Partitions" comes in... the parts of India that are doing well need to disassociate themselves from the rest of the country which is a complete mess.

I don't know much about India; how do you think the split would go if it happened? Would it be along religious lines, economic lines, both, neither?

I think it should go along Modern India and Old India

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

And that's actually where my comment about more "Partitions" comes in... the parts of India that are doing well need to disassociate themselves from the rest of the country which is a complete mess.

I don't know much about India; how do you think the split would go if it happened? Would it be along religious lines, economic lines, both, neither?

It should be mostly along linguistic lines. Religious/economic lines would be much too messy.

And that's actually where my comment about more "Partitions" comes in... the parts of India that are doing well need to disassociate themselves from the rest of the country which is a complete mess.

I don't know much about India; how do you think the split would go if it happened? Would it be along religious lines, economic lines, both, neither?

I think it should go along Modern India and Old India

LOL so IT sector in Bangalore and Mumbai downtown -- 1 nation?

[homesick_american 1]

And that's actually where my comment about more "Partitions" comes in... the parts of India that are doing well need to disassociate themselves from the rest of the country which is a complete mess.

I don't know much about India; how do you think the split would go if it happened? Would it be along religious lines, economic lines, both, neither?

I think it should go along Modern India and Old India

Buuuuuuuuuh...eh? What parts of India constitute modern India?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

India still has the caste system doesn't it?

Yes .. and a million other forms of social division, a million other sources for civil discord.

[homesick_american 1]

India still has the caste system doesn't it?

Yes .. and a million other forms of social division, a million other sources for civil discord.

Do you think it's wise for India to discount the contributions of the dalits going forward? I mean, can't the caste system only hold the country back?