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Sita is the centre of consciousness - The Pioneer

Sandhya Jain ()
May 14, 1998

Title: Sita is the centre of consciousness
Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 14, 1998

It is an irony that as the secular condemnation of the ransacking
of Maqbool Fida Husain's Mumbai residence reaches a crescendo,
saner voices in the Muslim community are being edged out of the
debate. As self-styled liberals and defenders of artistic
freedom jostle for centrespace in what could have been an
appropriate occasion for introspection on the parameters of
artistic liberty and creativity, few have noticed that orthodox,
conservative elements within the Muslim community have quietly
distanced themselves from the controversy.

So, as with most disputes in India, this too is an intra-Hindu
affair. The pretense that Husain is being unfairly singled out
for attack by illiberal fanatics merely because he is a Muslim
has mercifully ended, because saner elements in the minority
community have refused to take the bait. If my memory serves me
right, not a single Muslim of status has, to date, risen to the
defense of the beleaguered artist on this issue. Their silence is
eloquent.

But even as we ponder the reasons for their reticence, we would
do well to consider why Tahir Mehmood, chairman of the Minorities
Commission, went out of his way to address himself to an issue
that does not fall within the Commission's ambit. Strongly
condemning Husain's depictions of Hindu gods as unIslamic,
unconstitutional and "immoral", Mehmood asserted that his faith
did not justify "indecent art hurting religious sentiments." For
good measure, he added that the Constitution does not sanction
unbridled freedom of expression.

The merit of Mehmood's criticism is that he has attacked Husain
on ground on which secularists dare not defend him. After all,
those who demanded the banning of "The Satanic Verses" because it
blasphemed the Prophet and hurt Muslim sensibilities, cannot
today argue against those who themselves speak in the name of the
faith. Mehmood has thus focussed the spotlight on the phony
posturing that goes in the name of secularism, freedom, and
tolerance today.

What, for instance, do artists mean by freedom of conscience, and
how legitimate is their demand for tolerance and secular
privileges if they deliberately tamper with the sacred? I am also
curious to know if an artist can claim to be "secular" if he
repeatedly dabbles in religious themes, whether provocative or
otherwise? In the present case, there is an interesting religious
aside to the controversy, though this has not yet emerged, which
is that, if the Muslim clergy decides to impose a ban on the
faithful making depictions of the human or divine form (a
prohibition that already exists in Islam), would our "secular"
friends dare rush to the defence of freedom of conscience,
artistic freedom, etc. I think not.

Let us consider the controversial painting itself, and the
reasons for Mehmood's strong views about it. Since most of
Husain's defenders have simply brushed the issue of its intrinsic
merit aside, I think this would be the appropriate place to begin
our assessment of the impugned work. It is true that the
lithograph was made a good two decades ago, but pray, what
exactly is its theme?

I have seen a picture of the offending piece in a Hindi daily
>from Maharashtra. It is not just that Sita is depicted nude, as
in the previous controversy over the goddess Saraswati; it is
much more. Briefly, it shows a large monkey (Hanuman) with a
long tail, on which a naked Sita is seated, clinging to the tail,
with her back to the monkey. The phallic symbolism of the work is
obvious, and an artist of Husain's stature cannot claim either
ignorance or innocence on this score.

Now, can the work legitimately be said to offend religious
susceptibilities? Sita, as anyone with a nodding acquaintance of
Hinduism would know, is revered as the symbol of chastity,
fidelity, and power (shakti) of Indian womanhood. The great epic
makes it clear that when Hanuman contacts her as Rama's emissary,
he does not himself rescue her then and there because Sita could
not be touched by another man, even one who addressed her as
"mother". What is more, even Ravana, when he abducted her, is
said to have done so by lifting the earth under her feet.

The point is that in Hindu mythology and belief, Sita, the pure,
remains ever untouched. As such, Hindus cannot with equanimity
countenance the thought of her being depicted clinging to the
tail of an adult monkey, for the sake of artistic revelry! And
since Husain has made much of his name (and fortune) by
plundering Hindu iconography to pander to his largely Hindu
clientele-all in the name of the country's "composite culture"-
he cannot claim ignorance, or surprise, that knowledge of the
work should rouse strong passions.

Sita stands at the centre of Hindu consciousness; she is the
rallying point for concentrating the forces of good in the
universe. For centuries, her courage, loyalty, travails and
tribulations, and finally, her redemption, first at the hands of
her husband and his army, and then by her own sons who vanquish
their fathers' army, has been the stuff on which generations have
been nurtured and raised. Until the very recent present, when the
modern Indian woman began casting about for more activist role
models, Sita alone was the sheetanchor of Indian womanhood; even
today, she exerts a powerful hold on millions who revere her as
the symbol of shakti and righteousness.

It is not for nothing that Tahir Mehmood and others found
Husain's portrayal distasteful. It is only our amoral Hindu
intellectuals, secularists and liberals who are neither shocked
nor offended at sheer license parading as liberty. Theirs is a
classic case of arguing from both sides of the mouth. If this
country is to have anything akin to intellectual honesty and
integrity, the eminent painters, artists and intellectuals who
rushed to Husain's defence must now tell us why they do not
bestow the same liberty upon Salman Rushdie, whose great novel
depicts a brothel with twelve whores, each one of whom is named
after a wife of the Prophet. What a coincidence, what an
imagination! Surely it is just that?

We all know that the issues are more complex. Rushdie's otherwise
unreadable book went far beyond the familiar anti-Islamic
rhetoric of western writers. It was notable only because it was
the first significant attack on Islam by a member of the
community, as well as because of the extent to which the West as
a political entity rallied to the aid of the besieged author. Our
own secular intellectuals, however, rushed to the defence of the
offended Muslim community.

Yet, in the Husain controversy, they have adopted a different
yardstick and chosen to dissimulate over the "allegedly sullied
honour of Sita." The issue is thus part of our larger national
struggle to revalidate the Indian tradition, in its own eyes and
in the eyes of the world, and to defeat the socio-political
climate in which such obscene Hindu-baiting is permissible.

I owe a word of gratitude to the honourable Muslims who have
condemned the "masterpiece" and advised the maestro to apologise
for causing offence to the Hindus. Yet I can safely predict that
he will do no such thing. With the country's art aristocracy
backing him all the way, projecting him as "part of the
progressive group which was responsible for laying the foundation
of modern Indian art," he need have no qualms about his
acceptability in the depraved sections of society that today
constitute our power elite.


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