Pragya Paramita
If art at its best is more often than not consummated through abstraction, the reality facing the artist is grim. Chandramohan got jailed, his supporters gagged and the idea of the art being a seamless expression of the artist’s mind infringed.
The ripples of Baroda - where art student Chandramohan was first, manhandled, and then jailed, for his alleged ‘offensive’ paintings of nude divinities - has reached Kolkata. The city, considered often as the storehouse of art and artistic talent in the country, joined other Indian cities on Monday in raising its voice against a gross violation of the artist’s license to create.
It is not just the arrest of Chandramohan, and the subsequent suspension of the acting dean of the Fine Arts faculty of Baroda University, Professor Shivaji Panikkar who stood up for the artist, which has shocked the artist and academic fraternity of Kolkata. What has them fuming is the “lack of apathy of the university authorities”, be it in the delay in securing the release of the student or in expecting an apology from both the student and the Dean. “A university is supposed to be a place of learning, a place for the exchange of ideas, where one can give free reign to their imagination. It is incomprehensible how the university authorities could do this,” stated historian Janaki Nair of the Centre for Study of Social Sciences (CSSS).
It is ironic that when the protest in Kolkata at the Academy of Fine Arts premises was on, news filtered in that twenty more students were arrested in Baroda for protesting against the incident.
The frequency with which artists have been targeted in India by the ‘moral police’ for hurting religious sentiments has added thunder to the voices of protest in Kolkata. While the current controversy may have triggered the protests, the gathering objected to the ‘moral policing’ on creativity in general. “From established artists like MF Hussain and Bhupen Kakkar to younger artists like Chandramohan, all are now answerable to the moral brigade,” complained one of the artists present at the venue.
Artist Jogen Chowdhury felt that the clampdown on artistic creativity being experienced in India has less to do with safeguarding religious sentiments but more to do with “pleasing governments”. “The protestors don’t understand art or, for that matter, the Hindu religion. I think there was more freedom 20-30 years ago, when there was less of these cases of forcible censorship,” Chowdhury mentioned.
The problem, Chowdhury mentioned, started with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. “Since then certain elements in society have displayed extreme reactions whenever anything to do with religion or religious iconography has come up,” he added.
Says historian Tapati Guha Thakurta of CSSS: “Hussain has been targeted more for his religious background than anything else. He painted in privacy and those who brought the paintings out in the open should be held accountable. If anything is considered offensive then the way to deal with it is through discussion and debates. Certainly not through extreme methods.”
“People have to understand the difference between something meant for religious worship and something that has been created for artistic purpose. Paintings are not meant for worship,” mentioned Nair, who was one of the signatories on a petition condemning the incident.
Through their protest, the artists and academicians also attempted to bring to focus the position of nudes in Indian art. Nudes, they emphasised, have been an intrinsic part of Indian paintings since ancient times and the recent hoopla over it does not have any historical basis. “Moreover what is even more shocking is that this is the 60th of Indian Independence. It is a shame that we seem to be progressing in the wrong direction,” summed up artist Dipali Bhattacharjee.
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