Threat to Husain: Judicial Verdict Won’t Save Him

Islamic Culture

04 May 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Threat to Husain: Judicial Verdict Won't Save Him

By Amulya Ganguli   Anyone who believes that M.F. Husain can now return to India in view of the judicial verdict in his favour doesn't know the saffron crowd and the pusillanimous "secular" politicians. That legal stipulations mean nothing to the Hindutva fundamentalists was clear during the Ramjanambhoomi agitation when the Sangh Parivar maintained that a court of law could not interfere in a matter of faith. Similar arguments are being advanced in the Ram Sethu case. When BJP leader Kalyan Singh was sent to jail by the Supreme Court for a day for his acts of omission during the Babari Masjid demolition, he posed for photographers with a broad smile on his face, for he knew that he would be regarded as a hero by the RSS and other outfits of the parivar. It has been a feature of saffron politics not only to operate outside the constitutional parameters, but also to try and undermine the legal system with its safeguards for the freedom of expression and minority rights. One of the demands of the RSS, therefore, has been to reject the Constitution since India inherited it from the British via the Government of India Act of 1935. It was to placate this group that the Atal Behari Vajpayee government set up a commission to review the Constitution although it didn't have the majority, or the guts, to push for basic changes. It would not be realistic, therefore, to expect the Hindutva brigade to turn over a new leaf and quietly accept the Delhi High Court's judgment. What is necessary to remember is that a major objective of the saffron warriors is to use every opportunity to widen the communal divide as a part of their electoral tactics. They would use anything to whip up tension, whether it is terrorism or Bangladeshi immigrants or cow slaughter or conversions to Christianity. The simulated outrage over Husain's paintings was less the result of a genuine sense of grievance than a desire to foment anti-Muslim feelings to consolidate the votes of communal-minded Hindus. But it would be a mistake to blame the RSS and its affiliates like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal alone for their politically inspired vandalism. What is no less relevant is the supine role which their political opponents in the "secular camp" play in allowing the saffron lobby to indulge in their pet peeves. One can expect the state governments run by the BJP to stand by idly while the Bajrang Dal activists run amok as they did in Vadodara over what they regarded as an offensive painting. The art student, Chandra Mohan, was even jailed for a brief period. But that their "secular" counterparts are no better in protecting the constitutionally guaranteed rights of artistic, literary and scholastic freedom was evident when the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune was ransacked by a group of zealots over a biography of Shivaji. It will not be out of place to point out that like Husain, Taslima Nasreen, too, has been virtually hounded out of the country by the Muslim counterparts of the Hindu lumpen elements with neither the Left Front government of West Bengal nor the Centre being able to offer any protection. It doesn't take much perspicacity to see that such meek surrenders to fanatics can only encourage the latter. Arguably, if Husain does choose to return, there is no certainty that he will not experience the kind of ordeal which Taslima Nasreen underwent since the saffronites are quite capable of renewing their agitation and specifically targeting him wherever he goes or picketing his house if he is not kept in a secret place, as Taslima was. It is also necessary to point out that in such an atmosphere of intolerance and official impotence, it will not be easy for someone like James W. Laine, the biographer of Shivaji, to visit India on an academic mission now that even the Supreme Court has unfortunately asked him to delete the controversial portions from his book. The High Court's sarcastic observation on the complainants against Husain that they "seem to be of the type who wouldn't go to any art gallery or have any interest in contemporary art" would apply to the wreckers of the Pune institute as well since they, too, were unlikely to be regular visitors to libraries. But such are the compulsions of competitive politics that even parties, which are supposedly in favour of artistic independence and scholarly investigations, are reluctant to act against the "types" pilloried by the High Court in the belief that punitive measures will alienate sections of the population influenced by the saffron propaganda. There is no better evidence of the calibre of today's political class than the fact that not a single leader of the Left or the Centre had the courage of conviction to come out in support of Husain or Taslima Nasreen. Instead, those on the "progressive" Left and in the Centre unhesitatingly echoed the retrogressive Right in asserting that artists must not hurt religious sentiments ~ a view which made Galileo refute his own observation that the earth moved round the sun as a concession to Christian belief. Since the politicians remained silent over Husain's predicament, it finally took the judiciary, which is often criticized for its activism, to state the home truth that "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and so does obscenity". What was really obscene was that "a painter at 90 (who) deserves to be at his house, painting on his canvas" should have been hounded out of his country with the tacit connivance of the politicians.   The writer is a former Assistant Editor, The Statesman http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=205378