WHAT HAPENNED ON PROTEST DAY!!

The local news channels and news papers had been announcing the arrival of our bus carrying supporters from Bombay. A VHP functionary had even gone as far as to demand (on one local TV channel) that the bus not be allowed to enter the city and if it did there would be rioting in the city! All the same the bus took an alternative route, bypassing Baroda and entering the city from the Ahmedabad Express highway. There were no checkpoints it http://www.hindu.com/2007/05/11/stories/2007051117101500.htm
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/baroda-art-controversy-intensifies/40455-3.html
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=370961&sid=REG
http://www.saharasamay.com/samayhtml/articles.aspx?newsid=75220
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=235916
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=9cb71e3b-4392-4d4b-95bc-f9730065c67e&&Headline=MS+University+dean+suspended+in+Gujarat
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=8f2213c7-4b12-4e48-9b7c-40302cd7a968&&Headline=Vadodara+art+student+lands+in+jail

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Hindu Sacred Art Offends Self-appointed Custodians of Hindu Culture
by Ranjit Hoskote

In a grimly ironic turn of events following the 9 May arrest, without a proper warrant, of Chandramohan, a final-year fine arts student at the M S University, Baroda, the self-appointed custodians of Hindu culture have now demanded the closure of an exhibition showing the vital role of the erotic in Hindu sacred art.

Earlier today, 11 May, students of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the M S University put up an exhibition of reproductions of images drawn from across 2500 years of Indian art. In a silent protest against the brutality with which their fellow student has been treated for exhibiting works that BJP and VHP activists claim are offensive and obscene, the students put up pictures of the Gudimallam Shiva, perhaps the earliest known Shiva image, which combines the lingam with an anthropomorphic form; a Kushan mukha-linga or masked lingam; Lajja-gouris from Ellora and Orissa, resplendent in their fecund nakedness; erotic statuary from Modhera, Konark and Khajuraho; as well as Raga-mala paintings from Rajasthan. All these images, among the finest produced through the centuries in the subcontinent, celebrate the sensuous and the passionate dimensions of existence – which, in the Hindu world-view, are inseparably twinned with the austere and the contemplative.

This treasure of Hindu sacred art did not win the favour of the establishment. The Pro Vice Chancellor issued a verbal request that the exhibition be closed, which the Dean of the Fine Arts Faculty, Dr Shivaji Panikkar, ignored. A written order followed, and was similarly ignored. The Pro Vice Chancellor then arrived at the venue, accompanied by some members of the Syndicate of the University. They requested Dr Panikkar to close down the exhibition, then ordered him to do so. When it became clear that the Dean would not bend to their will, they had the exhibition locked.

It appears that the champions of a resurgent Hindu identity are acutely embarrassed by the presence of the erotic at the centre of Hindu sacred art. As they may well be, for the roots of Hindutva do not lie in Hinduism. Rather, they lie in a crude mixture of German romanticism, Victorian puritanism and Nazi methodology.

What happens next? Will the champions of Hindutva go around the country destroying temple murals, breaking down monuments, and burning manuscripts and folios?

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Open Letter from Gulammohammed Sheikh

Dear friends

You must have known through media reports that Chandra Mohan, a student from the Department of Graphics at the Fine Arts College in Baroda has been arrested on 9th of May 2007 for making an allegedly controversial painting depicting nude figures with some religious motifs. The arrest followed the storming of the university premises by a group of outsiders. The work in question was part of a display in the college premises for assessment by a team of examiners for a Master's degree in Fine Arts. Charged with sections 153 and 114 as well as sections 295 A and 295 B, he has been denied bail and is presently in Central Jail, Baroda.

In a civilized society any dispute on a controversial depiction or content of a work of art can be dealt with through dialogue and consultation with experts in the field rather than left to self-appointed moral police employing coersive means. In the present case, the outsiders taking law into their hands barged into the university campus without prior permission, did not consult or inform the Dean of the Faculty before disrupting the annual examinations in progress. The reports are that they returned again to abuse the Dean and threatened him with dire consequences.

Such an instance of assault on a student by outsiders in the university premises is unprecedented in the history of the Faculty of Fine Arts and must be condemned in no uncertain terms. The Fine Arts College known nationally and internationally for upholding the highest standards of creative and critical practice has also earned reputation for its firm commitment to the freedom of expression. The former authorities of the university like Smt. Hansa Mehta, the very first Vice Chancellor in the fifties up to Prof. Bhikhu Parekh in the eighties have stood by the Faculty and its ideals. The present assault seems to strike at the very ideals on which it was built by pioneering artist-academics and supported by enlightened university authorities. The present administration of the university has not initiated any action against the trespassers or applied for bail for the victimized student. The students and staff of the Fine Arts College have organized a dharna and the Acting Dean, Prof. Shivaji Panikker has planned to undertake a hunger strike in the College premises against the assault on the student and callous attitude of the university authorities. (Latest report is that the Department of Art History has been sealed and Prof Panikker has been suspended by the university authorities). A solidarity demonstration of artists, intellectuals and cultural workers from all over India is called on 14th of May at the Fine Arts College premises beginning 2 pm with an appeal to all concerned to gather there to lend their support. (Contact details below*).

As an alumnus and former teacher of the Faculty of Fine Arts, I fear these developments may imperil the working of an institution which in many ways has formed our lives; and is indeed an integral part of what we are today. I hope all other alumni and teachers as well as concerned artists and intellectuals of the country will come forward to protect it in its moment of crisis when the values it stands for are threatened.

Gulammohammed Sheikh
11th May, 2007

Venue:
Faculty of Fine Arts (or Fine Arts College),
Pushpabug, University Road, Vadodara (Baroda) 390002
Date and time for all: 14th May, 6p.m .

New Delhi - Rabindra Bhavan
Mumbai - Jehangir Gallery
Vishakapatnam - Faculty of Fine Arts, Andhra University
Cochin - Kashi Art Café
Hyderabad - Fine Arts, S N School, University of Hyderabad
Bangalore - M G Road, opposite Gandhi statue
Santiniketan - Kala Bhavan
Guwahati - Press Club
Time:
2 p.m. onwards

Contact emails: Shivaji Panikker: shivji dot panikkar at gmail dot com
Deeptha Achar : deeptha dot achar at gmail dot com

THE KAANTIAN TWIST!!

Dear All,This is in continuation of my earlier posting about the incident at theMS University at Vadodara and the relevant sections of the Indian PenalCode.It is one of the wonderful properties of South Asian subcontinental lifethat reality is always better adorned than fiction would have it.And so it is that along with Mr. Niraj Jain, (a purported Bajrang Dalleader who also contested the Vadodara civic body elections on a BJPticket), the other guardian of public morality who protested against theart student Chandra Mohan's work in a departmental exhibition at theFine Arts Faculty at MS University Baroda happens to be a pastor withthe Methodist Church, most appropriately named the Rev. Emmaneul Kant.See, a report on the Vadodara incident in the Vadodara City page ofIndian Express 'BJP Men rough up fine arts student'(Express NewsService, May 9) athttp://cities.expressindia.com/archivefullstory.php?newsid=235608&creation_date=2007-05-10

Apart from the fact that this incident shows a beautiful secular synergybetween majoritarian and minoritarian interests (thereby confusing allthose who spend most of their time worrying about majoritariancommunalism, especially when it comes to the province of Gujarat), therehas to be adequate recognition, I think of the magical facticity inknowing that a protest against a work of art is being led (at least inpart) by an Emmanuel Kant.For all those familiar with the Vadodara pastor's distinguishedKonigsbergian philosopher namesake, Emmanuel (or Immanuel) Kant's'Critique of Judgement' (a book that continues to be influential enoughin discussions of contemporary aesthetic practice and thought to be seenhovering around the curatorial mandate of Documenta 12 and other seriousmatters like a spirit that got stuck in limbo after a mistimed seance),the delicate ironies of this haunting of the Vadodara controversy by theghost of Kant cannot be escaped.In his Critique of Judgement,(and I quote, for the sake of convenience,from the excellent, online entry in the Internet Encyclopaedia ofPhilosophy) http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kantaest.htmKant can be found paraphrased as saying :"through aesthetic judgments, beautiful objects appear to be 'purposivewithout purpose' (sometimes translated as 'final without end').
An object's purpose is the concept according to which it was made (theconcept of a vegetable soup in the mind of the cook, for example); anobject is purposive if it appears to have such a purpose; if, in otherwords, it appears to have been made or designed. But it is part of theexperience of beautiful objects, Kant argues, that they should affect usas if they had a purpose, although no particular purpose can be found."Now a Kantian, confronted with Chandramohan's work, Jain & Kant ledprotests, and the sections 153 and 295 of the Indian Penal Code, wouldnot be in any position to wriggle out of the problem of 'aestheticintention'. If Chandramohan is an artist, his work would affect us as ifthey had a purpose, even if no particular purpose were to be found.The only legal solution available under the Indian legal system, in myopinion, is for Chandramohan to say that he is not an artist, but a mereimpostor, and that his work, is not purposive, or intentional, but themere outpouring of a distracted, and demented mind. What I amsuggesting, is the insanity defence, as used in a murder trial.In other words the - 'My Lord, my client was not of sound mind, he didnot know what he was doing, when he shot the plaintiff's aged mother'maneouvre.If Chandramohan is an artist, then the courts will look at intention.And as in a murder trial, the calibration of intention can lead to adegree of dimunition of a sentence from homicide to manslaughter, butcannot do away with the fact of the offence.I say this neither to attack Chandramohan's work, nor to defend hispractice (although I have no doubt in my mind that the freedome ofexpression is a higher good than artistic quality or religioussensibility). I say this only to underscore the problems of aestheticintention, ethical conduct and legal judgement that this case seems tohave thrown open, perhaps at the instance of the long neglected spectreof the venerable I(E)mmanel Kant

Maneka flays the BJP on MSU Case!!

MSU: Maneka flays arrests, ‘BJP offending cultural world’
Press Trust Of India
New Delhi, May 12: IN a stinging attack on the saffron opposition to painter M F Hussain’s works and to an arts exhibition in a Gujarat university, BJP MP Maneka Gandhi today said the party and VHP activists have gone “too far” in their protests. She also opposed the arrest of two arts students of M S University in Vadodra in BJP-ruled Gujarat.
“VHP and BJP activists attacked and damaged their paintings. This is unacceptable behaviour and I am sure, as a reasonable and open-minded person, you will realise that we offend the entire cultural world and thinking when we do this,” she said in a letter to senior party leader L K Advani.


The Pilibhit MP, who praised Hussain for his charity, alleged that his paintings had been misread deliberately and suggested that they were worthy of being displayed in a museum.
“Even if they have been interpreted correctly, and objected to, that is the purpose of good art: to arouse debate, to create emotion and passion, to be a means of communicating the artist’s own thoughts. Otherwise, all art would be a mediocre representation of real world and would have no value except as a photograph imitative record of the world,” Gandhi wrote.
In an attack on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, she alleged that the state had the highest incidence of cow slaughter.
“I have pointed this out to CM and Home Minister many times. No attempt is being made to make sure that the police, who are hand in glove with cattle smugglers, stop this open killing of something that the BJP stands for,” she said.
BJP rejects Maneka’s plea for Hussain, says he hurts faith NEW DELHI: THE BJP today rejected its MP Maneka Gandhi’s plea in support of painter M F Hussain, describing as “unacceptable” his depiction of Hindu gods and goddesses in the nude.
“We do not subscribe to her views on Hussain. As far as the party is concerned, it believes nobody has any right to give a vulgar depiction of our deities. Such acts are unacceptable,” Vijay Kumar Malhotra, the BJP’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, said. Malhotra refused comment when asked whether the party would take action against its Pilibhit MP for her public defiance of the saffron line on Hussain.