and mallika, rajdeep, prannoy james, ramachandra guha, james astill, william dalrymple et al? there are plenty of shrill harpies of several genders in india.
we can actually pay pakistan to take them. of course in a week or so, pak will offer to surrender to india and stop all terrorism if only we will take these worthies back.
ps. isn't it poetic justice that husain's initials are "mf"? so... appropriate!
9 comments:
I think you have done injustice to chindu N.Ram. He should be first in the list not under et al. He has dedicated several pages on this issue.
I would ask supporters of this MF what their MF has done for India. The MF raked in billions of rupees without giving anything for the country of his residence. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that buyers of his "paintings" have been mostly foreign-based persons, giving rise to the inference that the MF was probably a channel for foreign-funding of anti-Hindu and anti-India groups. There is a parallel in science and technology, and especially agriculture. Foreign agencies give huge funds and awards to mediocre or incompetent -- but pliant -- scientists and create an illusion that they are geniuses. This illusion enables these persons to get ensconced in strategically vital positions where they serve their foreign masters by subverting and sabotaging Indian science, technology, and R&D.
Finally look carefully at what Husain wrote in the "black and white line drawing" that was reproduced in The Hindu: he says he is “an Indian origin painter”. It is an admission that he considers himself to be not fully an INDIAN, but a "PIO" in the same category as Musharraf, Dawood Ibrahim, et al.
As an art lover, I love the fluid paintings of MF Hussain. The influence of Henri Matisse is all over his works.
MF left India because he was kicked out and it is a sad commentary on the current state of affairs. It goes against our established tradition where we gave refuge to the parsis,jews,armenians and the tibetans.
Are we going to demolish the temples of Khajuraho next? I think Hindus have never shied away from celebrating nudity or sexuality. Isn't Shiva Linga part of our culture? It is the current west (Souther Baptist kind) which has a warped view of sexuality - remember Ashcroft who put clothes on a sculpture in DOJ.
I feel that Hindus should have embraced MF and let him live in India. It is really sad that the phoney left ( who have no compunctions kicking Taslima out) are the new protectors of freedom!
MF cannot be a 'true' muslim because they don't paint any human/animal forms.
I welcome objective arguments against my position.
-Sudhir
@Sudhir,
Your argument is flawed. That M.F Hussain's paintings are not objectionable - solely due to their depiction of Hindu Goddesses in the nude. They go far beyond that - portraying them in unnatural sexual positions, with characters who are traditionally their devotees etc. These are a deliberate effort to denigrate, ridicule and injure Hindu religious sentiment. Therefore, your equation of MF's perversion with Western/Christist moral posturing is invalid.
If someone had sketched, for example - Yesu copulating with the Virgin on a bed of thorns, or Teresa performing self gratification with a crucifix, or performing fellatio on the semi dead corpse of Yesu nailed to a stick - they would have come close to the M.F Hussain's perversion.
I don't think such artistic freedom would have been tolerated in Sickular India for a minute.
@karyakarta
Don't we have explicit sexual scenes depicted in many of our temples? I take pride in those artworks which are a sign of tolerance displayed by ancient Indian Hindu society back in those days when most of the world was in dark age. So should we burn those tibetan/bhutanese thankas where the centerpiece is copulation?
This whole premise of 'injuring' Hindu Sentiment to me is bogus. Something that has survived 800 years of invasion is not gonna be injured by some artist. Please..
I am from kerala where we have a temple where toddy is served every day and another where expletives are spewed during the annual carnival. I would argue that this is the strength of Hindu Religion which celebrates all forms of expression and not just what is defined by the narrow western 'morality'.
In my post, I was referring purely to the freedom of expression and not what would be approved by leftists in India - as I mentioned in my post abt the author of Lajja being tormented by the Bengal Govt. Secular Left is no paragon of freedom.
There are many artists in the west who have pushed the envelope enough. For example, Andres Serrano's "piss christ" is a case in point. Another one is Chris Ofili -"Mary with dung and porn". Andres or Chris were not kicked out of the country or threatened for their bizzare works. Indeed, the catholics made some noise and Guiliani said he would cut off funds, but largely the freedom of expression remained intact ( although the right in US would love to ban such 'immoral' art.).
Your artistic freedom rule sounds more like the leftists/muslims who decried the works of the Danish Cartoonists. It has only one way to go - downhill.
As Naipaul said we have plenty of cultural jingoism, but rather shallow cultural scholarship. Naipaul is not particularly an apologist for the left.
I read news papers where these 'arts' type people wre supporting MF.
I dont knw wht is special abt these 'arts' fellows. By special, I mean the special of special children....
by the way, MF does not mean Mutual Fund :P :)
Sudhir,
You still don't get it. Yes, there are some temples such as Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh and Halebid in Karnataka that include erotic sculptures on their walls, including depictions of copulation. But, these are generic depictions of nameless characters, NEVER depictions of objects of reverence, leave alone perverted depictions such as Sita with Hanuman, Parvati with a bull etc.
It is good hear about practices in Kerala that you describe.
However, these are not mainstream Hindu conventions. Hindus in the rest of India should not be held to the standard of one state, be it Kerala, Bengal or any other.
That too, when the said practice is a very unconventional one. Is there artistic freedom in your native Kerala to depict
Islam's prophet in a painting of any kind?
Leave alone, a depiction of him consummating his "marriage" with 9 year old Ayesha? Would anyone dare to sketch him copulating with his mother or with a camel?
Can anyone in Kerala paint a scene of the Virgin performing fellatio on the grimacing Yesu nailed to a stick?
Such an artist would be killed brutally by Kerala's adherents of the Abrahamic cults. Not to sound like I'm bashing Kerala, this would be true anywhere in India.
Then why should artistic freedom target objects held sacred by Hindus alone? That MF is a Muslim. Why doesn't he paint characters revered in Islam with the same denigrating attitude as sacred Hindu images? Actually, he did paint Mohammed's mother - in a very respectful manner. He also painted "Mother" Teresa - again in a highly respectful manner - not depicting her arousal by a crucifix or being sodomized by "Pope" John Paul etc.
Therefore, that MF had every intention to denigrate, ridicule, de-humanize objects that Hindus hold sacred.
His intention was to inflict humiliation on the Dhimmi Hindus. In this, he was consistent wit the iconoclastic Muslim invaders of medieval times - who desecrated and demolished Hindu temples - deliberately, seeking to humiliate and subjugate their Hindu subjects and demonstrate their impotence and inferiority.
Therefore, that MF is a true Muslim - of the pork eating, wine drinking Jinnah kind - who nevertheless presided over a genocide of Hindus - and created a Muslim nation on Hindu soil. The argument of injured Hindu sentiments is not "bogus". MF Hussain's injurious actions took place in India, threrefore will have consequences in India.
Some Italian's urine crucifix or some Yankee liberal's manure Yesu exhibit at the Guggenheim in New York - do not compensate for & are not equivalent to that MF's deliberate and clinically targeted perversion in India. Period.
Nor can any parallel be drawn to the consumption of alcohol or other paranormal practices involving Tantriks etc.
Let MF or any other artist paint the themes I suggested and exhibit them personally in India, beginning in Kerala. If he makes it out of Kerala - without being castrated, disemboweled or both - I rest my argument.
Otherwise, your notions of "artistic freedom" stand discredited.
@Karyakarta (and @Sudhir V)
I thank you , Karyakarta, for your informative reply to Sudhir V’s comments. I wish to add the following to what you have said.
The “explicit scenes…etc” are not present in “many” temples, but only in a few rare ones. They are also on the walls, outer walls as far as I know. They will not be found near the places where people worship or perform puja, and certainly not anywhere near the sanctum sanctorum. It must also be noted that no worship of any kind is offered at the Khajuraho “temples”, and I really wonder when worship was last offered there: how many centuries ago? In fact, they are no longer called "temples", but "monuments". Even the question of worship is irrelevant, because, “the Khajuraho temples do not contain sexual or erotic art inside the temple or near the deities” [from wikipedia; emphasis added. I strongly recommend that one should read the whole paragraph in Wikipedia.]. Wikipedia also says: “Dr. Devangana Desai points out that there is a misunderstanding regarding representation of homosexuality in Khajuraho sculptures. It is not depicted in Khajuraho sculptures. There are two sculptures mistaken as gay figures, …”
I wish the Supreme Court bench (presided over by KG Balakrishnan, CJI) that absolved MFH had been aware of these facts and had considered them. Also, more appropriately, the Bench ought to have given a hearing to Hindu scholars, especially those with deep knowledge of temples and temple sculpture.
Sudhir V also asks, “Isn't Shiva Linga part of our culture?” The widely held belief that Shiva Lingam is a representation of the phallus is an annoying misconception. Take a look at any Shiva Lingam: their geometric proportions are short and stout, different from a phallus. My understanding is that it is a mystical representation of primordial ENERGY. Curiously enough, when I first saw a picture of the nuclear reactors at Trombay (I was a graduate student at that time), I was struck by the similarity of shape to Shiva Lingam!
Again, Sudhir says, “ [in] Kerala […]we have a temple where toddy is served every day and another where expletives are spewed during the annual carnival. The place where toddy is offered to the “deity” and given out as prasaadam is really not a temple in the true sense of the word, but it is a shrine for a local spirit – I knew one that was called “chaaththaan kaavu” (ചാത്താന് കാവ്) in Malayalam. The temple where “expletives are spewed” is in Kodungallur. Not expletives, but bawdy songs, which are sung when the pilgrims are on the road, but stopped before they reach within earshot of the temple.
As I mentioned, these 'Artist' types act as useful idiots for Islamists, christists and Maoists..
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