M F Hussain in news again by accepting Qatar nationality and with this started discussion on how much he was justified in painting Hindu Deities naked. I watched a few of them and was really disappointed in the way intellectuals were justifying his painting by considering it an artistic freedom of expression.
I am a man with common intelligence, but still, I know freedom must end were it starts offending others. Freedom of expression is undoubtedly an essential human right but like every right, it also has a boundary. Even in contemporary modern and free world (for “intellectual Indians”, modern and western world are synonyms) they extra precaution that they do not hurt somebody’s sentiments and perhaps that is why Black or Nigger people are not called by respective names. Any painter or artist is not different than a common man and so does not have "special" privilege to do as they wish even if it offends common people sentiments.
What is wrong in painting goddess naked?
What I do not understand is why to show one’s creativity, one has to go to that extreme which is quite offensive to a huge section of population. Those “modern intellectuals” who doubt that the paintings were not offensive to all people; I want them to do two simple tasks. 1. A calculation: How many Hindus reside in India and what percent of that will be offended by Hussain's paintings? I am sure, no matter how small this number would be, it will certainly be many times more than so called “intellectual liberals” in India. 2. A task: I would like these modern liberals to hang these paintings in their living room where everyday, they can enjoy these paintings with their whole family. I might be going too far, but how these modern liberals would like to get their mothers painted in completely nudity by great M F Hussain himself?
Some people might argue that, it is just a painting and what difference does it make? It is not about any arbitrary painting, one needs to see things in context, what it stands for. A painting of goddess Durga stands for all the faith, believes and respect millions of people invest in that painting. It becomes more than a painting, an idea or an icon. This question is not about Shiv sena, Bajrang Dal or BJP, as a common man, I feel offended and so do many Hindus. If we do not come to street or throw stones on art galleries, does not mean that a common man is not offended. The hypocrisy of Hussain’s creativity is that he does not get creative while painting Prophet’s daughter or his own daughter. He must realize that some things are sacred and everything can not be done under the freedom of expression. May be these strict boundaries differentiate us from western world for good. With huge drive to be westernizing in copycat manner, India still has to go miles to complete the transformation.
The problem with copycat westernization is that we are copying everything blindly without understanding the basics. Western culture stands for more than nudity and fast track superficial life; it stands for equality, honesty and professionalism. But sadly we are only able to see nudity and insensitivity in western culture. We started copying TV programmes without understanding whether these are suited for our society or not. A country where talking about sex is considered taboo, on the show “Sach ka Samna” contestant were asked about there ex and pre marital affairs. Funny thing is, producer justified in interviews that telling truth is what Gandhi Ji advocated and there is nothing wrong with it. But I am sure Gandhi Ji would have not liked to watch the kind of truth “Sach Ka Samna” was selling. Perhaps he was ignorant to acknowledge “Satyam bruyat priyam bruyat, na bruyat satyam apriyampriyam”. Do we really need to stoop so low at the level of cultural cannibalism for entertainment? Why can not we have a proper, fresh creativity which does not draw provocation?
Coming back to Hussain, criticizing a religion or its norms is tolerable but blasphemy against religion should not be tolerated. A line needs to drawn for creativity of artists who keeps challenging boundaries. Some things are simply not acceptable. No one should be able to sell porn on television justifying it by saying it his way of expression of love. An artist has freedom to have ideas, even paint them but not to make them public if it is going to hurt people’s sentiment.
