Mr. Shashi Tharoor
Why is India's Picasso staying away?
By Shashi Tharoor
It's a lovely small apartment in Dubai, with a view from the balcony of the old port where dhows used to drift in before the town had a single skyscraper. But what interests me is the view inside: a room with a single easel, a bare floor, and canvases stacked against the wall. And off a narrow corridor, a treasure trove: mounted close to each other on the walls of a bedless bedroom, 88 previously unknown paintings by the Master himself, India's Picasso, MF Husain.
This tiny flat in the Gulf Emirate is Husain's studio, his escape, his museum, his refuge. The last word sticks in my throat as i utter it. Why should our greatest living artist need a refuge from his homeland? For the last year Husain has been shuttling between Dubai and London, and has not set foot in India, where his paintings have been vandalised, his exhibitions assaulted. So many abusive cases have been filed against him that a court even went so far as to attach his home and his property — a fatuous decision since reversed by the Supreme Court. But Husain fears the harassment will not end there; the moment he sets foot in Delhi or Mumbai, he says, he is sure to be dragged off to the lock-up, tormented by legal proceedings. He is 92 and does not want to spend his years battling the persecution of the petty hypocrites who have turned on him. So he stays away.
His tormentors profess to be defending their faith and the nation's cultural integrity. They object to the use of nudity in his art, particularly in his evocations of Hindu mythological figures and deities, which they claim offends them. Instead of applauding the decision of a Muslim artist to derive inspiration from the ancient legends of his homeland, they accuse him of desecrating a faith that is not his. Instead of honouring an artist who has revived worldwide appreciation of the richness and diversity of the sources of Indian culture, they have attacked him for insulting Indian culture, reducing Indianness to the narrow bigotry of their own blinkers. It is ironic that a profoundly patriotic painting of the geographical shape of India in the persona of a semi-naked woman elicited the loudest howls of outrage from these philistines.
It is a disgrace that our democracy has allowed the most intolerant elements of our society to derail the life and work of such a great Indian artist. These so-called Hindus have clearly never seen the inside of any of our ancient temples, have never marvelled at Khajuraho or seen a sunset at Konarak. Worse, Husain is far more steeped in the Hindu sensibility than they are. Theirs is a notion of 'Bharatiya Sanskriti' that is profoundly inauthentic, because it can be traced back no further than the Puritanism that accompanied the Muslim conquests.
Will they next attack the explicitly detailed couplings of Khajuraho, far more scandalous than anything Husain has ever painted? What about the Kama Sutra, the tradition of the devadasis , the eros of the Krishna Leela - are they all un-Indian now, or even un-Hindu?
When the late, great Mexican poet Octavio Paz wrote his final ode to our civilisation, In Light of India, he devoted an entire section to Sanskrit erotic poetry, basing himself, among other things, on the Buddhist monk Vidyakara's immortal 11th-century compilation of 1728 kavya , many of which are exquisitely profane. Are poets like Ladahachandra or Bhavakadevi, who a thousand years ago wrote verse after verse describing and praising the female breast, to be expelled from the VHP canon of 'Bharatiya sanskriti' ? Should we tell future Octavio Pazes seeking to appreciate the attainments of our culture that the Ramayana on Doordarshan is 'Bharatiya sanskriti ,' but a classical portrayal of the erotic longings of the gopis for Krishna is not?
It is time all Indians, but especially Hindus, woke up to what is being done to our heritage in our name. To reduce the soaring majesty of an inclusive, free-ranging, eclectic and humane faith to the petit-bourgeois morality of narrow-minded bigots is a far greater betrayal of our culture than anything an artist can paint. It is deeply disappointing, too, that our government has been silent in the face of the harassment of a living Indian icon. Only a handful of politicians — take a bow, Maneka Gandhi — have had the nerve to speak out against the barbarians who are destroying the image of India. And it's striking that the only state government that has had the courage to stand up for Husain is that of Kerala, which has awarded him the Raja Ravi Varma Prize. Reports say that Husain will travel to Thiruvananthapuram in September to receive the award. If so, it would be the first time he has set foot on Indian soil in over a year.
But that is not enough. He must be able to return to live and work, free of frivolous lawsuits and the threat of assault, spending his last years in the land whose culture suffuses his work - and whose culture he has immeasurably enriched. In that Dubai apartment, Husain showed me the 88 paintings and drawings that he had once gifted to a Czech friend 50 years ago, and which she insisted be returned to him upon her death. "She could have kept them - they were hers," he told me. "But she said these pictures belonged to India and deserved to return there."
How ironic, then, that they are languishing, crammed into every available inch of wall-space in a Dubai apartment. They belong in India - ideally in a Husain museum, showcasing the life and astonishing career of a national treasure. When will someone build such a museum, and where? "Perhaps in Kolkata," Husain says wistfully. "They would not attack my paintings in Kolkata."
(Mr.Shashi Tharoor, he has has earlier praised M.F.Hussain several times in various lectures and through his articles. Mr. Shashi Tharoor will never glorify the Danish Cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammad's cartoons because he knows what will happen after that ? - Editor)
We request you to legally & peacefully voice your protests against Mr. Shashi Tharoor praising Hussain at -
His website: http://www.shashitharoor.com
Contact Details:
Shashi Tharoor
c/o Editorial Offices
Arcade Publishing
141 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Related HJS Section
>M. F. Hussain Campaign
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