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Sadly, future MF Husains will not be born in India, but in exile

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Rini Barman
Rini BarmanSep 17, 2015 | 17:49

Sadly, future MF Husains will not be born in India, but in exile

In 2010, about a year before MF Husain breathed his last in London, he became a citizen of Qatar, the country that had graciously extended this invitation to the maestro. Until that point (and even after this), Husain had frequently expressed his desire to return to India: he had been living in exile in Dubai and London for much of the past decade or so.

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But with every passing year, the possibility of Husain’s return dwindled, even as his creative flame burned ceaselessly.

It wasn’t a question of who was in power: both Congress and BJP-led governments had failed to prevent his exit from his homeland. Since the late 1990s, right-wing Hindu fanatics (I’m sorry, but the word “activist” means something entirely different) hounded him, vandalised his exhibitions, ransacked his home, destroyed some priceless works and hassled with puerile lawsuits.

Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled in Husain’s favour in 2008, pointing out that nudity was common in India’s history and iconography. But it was too late: Husain was convinced by then that he would never find a modicum of peace in India, let alone an atmosphere conducive to creativity.

We, as a nation, failed one of the greatest artists ever born in India. This shame, one suspects, will never quite leave us. And why? Because he dared to draw some of our goddesses in the nude? History will take stock of this sad tale and conclude that India was a country of prudish philistines.

What’s worse is the fact that given the steadily accreting climate of fear in India today, we may never see an incendiary, risk-taking artist like Husain ever again. (One wonders if intolerance towards art is increasingly becoming a worldwide event; remember the bloody case of Charlie Hebdo and the atheist bloggers from Bangladesh?)

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Husain’s artwork challenged the monolithic perception of a Bharat Mata, breaking the norms of a nation resembling a desexualised, always clothed, nurturing mother. This piece of anthropomorphic brilliance caused so much uproar in 2006 and thereon that the artist was dragged through several legal trials on account of obscenity charges. (I can still access online resources that carry the headline “MF Husain disrobes even our beloved Bharat Mata” indicating the incestuous, rogue nature of the artist.)

This idea is stifling to a lot of us, for why should there be a farcical Bharat Mata map, when in reality; those who mapped this out were to become tyrants of the highest order? This Mother India phenomenon has left its powerful imprints in popular cultural representations, so much so that “nationalists” who support a beef ban believe religiously in the narrative of cow as the “Mother India”.

Similarly, the paintings of Goddess Durga copulating with a tiger, a naked Saraswati, and a naked Lakshmi on top of Lord Ganesha were seen as “butchering” the ideals of Hindu mythology. A Bhopal-based Hindi magazine in the 1990s carried an article titled “Ye Chitrakar hain ya Kasai? (Artist or a butcher?)". It attacked his religious sentiments (the image of Muslims butchering meat has been strengthened by cultural stereotypes) and claimed Husain’s art is a vendetta against Hinduism.

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All of these led to an endless series of lawsuits and controversies, which never allowed his progressive nature of experiments to be fully appreciated. His directorial skills in films like Through the Eyes of a Painter (1967) and Gaja Gamini (2000) also didn’t get their due critical attention, the latter been rumoured as a sexually obsessed teaser with Madhuri Dixit.

This sort of vandalism has plagued the country; the art of language and the language of art being its two worst victims. Monica Juneja writes that the disowning of Husain’s works can be analysed as a continual policing of female sexuality by upper caste Hindu men, prominently those who dominated the cultural discourses in the public sphere.

It is frightening that an artist’s skills in terms of his technique and the allusive meaning of his work receive lesser attention than his controversies. Husain’s art has been compared with the 20th century avande garde Modernists and Cubists alongside Picasso, Metisse and others.

His excellent horse paintings resemble the style of Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus, and have inspired a lot of critical research. The ability to negotiate with history and mythology, art and science, art and artlessness should invite more reception rather than blemish an artist’s brush.

But this is sadly not true; recently a 2015 Fuwad Khan comedy film Dharam Sankat Mein (Religion in Crisis) had to be screened before being released, in front of Maulvis and Pandits in order to receive their approval. So has a work of art in the age of religious nationalism come to this? Chitrakar ya Kasai

The policing of art must be butchered, first and foremost, if we are to witness younger artists who look up to Husain as their inspiration. It is tragic that till his dying day he had to prove his Indian credentials, origins and patriotism. The exile and the consequent paparazzi around an artist’s freedom compelled him to say “They can put me in a jungle, still I can create”.

Dear MF Husain,

A place which is gifted to witness the delicacy of your brush can never be a prison, for art shall find a way to transcend its limitations. The monsters trying to rein in your art cannot inhabit that space. The "jungle" must be outside it.

Last updated: June 09, 2016 | 11:29
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