HVK Archives: Holy terrorists; and a comment
Holy terrorists; and a comment - The Indian Express
Editorial
()
12 October 1996
Title : Holy terrorists
Bajrang Dal is an outcaste of civilised society
Author : Editorial
Publication : The Indian Express
Date : October 12, 1996
Beauty shall save the world. Every art seeks to renew
the hope of Dostoevsky. But it has never been an easy
passage for imagination, which defies the wisdom of
reality managers. The banished poet, the burned pages -
history is littered with the dark residues of art's
martyrdom. M. F. Husain, the beloved maverick, continues
to paint his reality in shades which can be a critic's
delight, Today. in his alternative world of painted
images, a naked Hindu Goddess has become a femme fatale
for him. The art police of Shiv Sena have not only given
a scriptural misinterpretation to his 'come-hither'
Saraswati but initiated criminal charges against him.
Such dangerous stupidities go against the behaviour of
any civilised society. State-sponsored terror marinated
in religious stereotypes may not be unfamiliar to the
artist who is fascinated with questions. But in the
undefined, diversified universe of Hinduism, public
"inquisition of art has never been a recurring shame.
And what the Bajrang Dal has done in Ahmedabad is a
barbaric act of annihilation. A ransacked gallery and
burned Husain paintings are images dark enough to remind
every Indian of the shame he is living with. For what
has gone up in flames is not the private passion of an
artist alone. The very pretence of religious politics
has been carbonised beyond recognition. It seems the
book burners of medieval vintage are multiplying on the
street.
It is a losing battle. For art outlives its tormentors.
In the beginning it was the Church which defined the
limits of the mind. It was the Book against books, the
God against men - the received wisdom of the mortals had
to be subordinated to the divine commandments. When the
Church began to go slow on applying holy diktats to the
arrogant artist (or scientist), ideology started expand-
ing power through the repudiation of dissent. From
Mandelstam to Solzhenitsyn, communism tried to reward the
deviant with Siberia, the progressive panegyrist with
patronage. The Koranic alternative as expressed in
Teheran, Algiers and Khartoum allowed no space for the
poet who didn't follow the cleric's grammar.
The fanatic militia which burned Husain's work in Ahmeda-
bad deserves to be an outcaste of civilised India. The
visceral interpretation of any religion not only threa-
tens the autonomy of the artist but puts every organisa-
tion that draws its energy from mythology on the defen-
sive. It is not enough to say that the Bajrang Dal is
the loony fringe of Hindu nationalism. It has only
updated Shiv Sena's silly protest in fire. For Mumbai's
rulers have already legitimised the State's intervention
in something which is none of its business. It is anoth-
er defining moment in the survival struggle of art.
Also, an opportunity for those political parties with a
religious manifesto to come clean on this ridiculous
controversy. For in those burned paintings lie a message
that has been long vindicated by history: the short-term
terror of faith never succeeds in taming the free mind.
COMMENT:
If a civilised society means that Hindu sentiments can be hurt, that when
sentiments of other religions are hurt then only protests are made, that art
can be expressed only by depicting Hindu goddesses in nude, then
Bajrang Dal would be happy to be outcastes in such a society.
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