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.

Who had the right to produce culture?

"I dare anyone to file a complaint or take legal action against me. I will shut down entire Vadodara tomorrow"- BJP Leader, Niraj Jain.
There is an obvious threat that the established feels with the emergence of the new. The threat of being forgotten, of obsolescence. Of the familiar turning strange. Of not having any tropes through which we engage with what lies ahead. This fear of the unknown is a fairly familiar threat. The question is, how does one engage with this?
It's this insecurity that fuel's the cultural police and is exactly what has been happening in Baroda. A group that feels very strongly about 'their' tradition and culture is reacting to events that are de-stabilizing it. They assume the roles of the absolute custodians of a certain cultural history. What gives them this right? And then on the flip side what doesn't give us the right to stake claim to our own culture and emphasizing that. A battle of rights would seem like a perfectly legitimate one to be fought, wouldn't it? A million battles could be then fought for the rights of many cultures and sub cultures. Drama and counter drama. A million loops.
"Some people think the erotica is very much new and individualistic in "Modern Art", but this exhibition will prove that it has always been there in Indian Traditional Art practices." - The exhibition note of "Let us see the Indian Tradition", an exhibition put up by the students of the fine arts faculty on May11 in the aftermath of the Annual Fine Arts display being shut off after the intervention of BJP leader Niraj Jain and his apparent displeasure and anger over the work of one the student's of the faculty .
The fine arts exhibition attempts to destabilize the rights that Niraj Jain stakes to a cultural history, by throwing light on the fact that nudity and a certain degree of profanity has always been part of the Indian culture. Commendable for being done under such short notice. But will this quieten the aggressor down? Or fuel his already pathetic desperation for control ? Is the way we engage with a bully so simplistic that we feel nothing but threatened and victimized?
Probably one way to reign in free thought and exercise control over the production of culture is to control the dissent within the system. Rather the form of dissent within the system. The tangent of the reaction should always be predictable. The threat to those in control or those who'd like to think that they are in control is not simply the threat of conflict of a group publicly disagreeing with them. It is the unpredictability of the reaction that they cannot intercede against. Which is what is happening in the faculty of fine arts is an unsettling reminder of the current state of the affairs. Niraj Jain's actions and the art communities response fall well within the bounds of the predictable. It is not a threat. To those in real power, Chandu is simply exercising some use of the elbowroom that they have allotted him. The system remains intact. Infact, consumership may even be energized by the ordeal. It's when you stop being a predictable little consumer of the consumer world (material and cultural consumption of disposable goods and thoughts and words) that you are a threat.
I refuse to create a martyr of Chandramohan Srilamantula and fight for his freedom. It is not his freedom that really concerns me. Neither does him creating images that might offend some religious sentiments seem to bother me. What gets to me are two things. The blatancy with which a certain section of society seems to control the culture that they live in. And the complete impotency and ineptness with which we, more importantly I, seem to relate to it and understand it. The issue that surrounds us right now is much bigger than anyone incident or event. Although these events serve as milestones of something that has been snowballing ever since. It is not exclusive to a region or a culture, but to all cultures and places. Let us look back at the events that have happened since Chandu's arrest.
The BJP flexes it's rippling muscles and snarls. The university dismisses the faculty as if it were its bastard child. The faculty replies with a signed petition to the apparently powerless and impotent university authorities, to lodge an FIR against the aggressor. The aggressor blatantly threatens the university with dire actions if they switch to lawful means to counter him. The artist is still in prison with more than one charge against his name.

The scenes get played out such that they have a faint echo of comedies of the past. Is this the first time that the religious sentiments seem to have been threatened? Is this the first time that the artist's license has come under scrutiny? Why are we consistently missing the point of that which is happening and will go on unless the right questions are asked? Why do we, as artists and creative persons, fail to see beyond our practice and the implications of what just happened?
It is true that what had happened was the blatant hijacking of culture by force. But are there other tools? Who has the right to produce culture? Who can stake claim to it? Who is the vigilante and who the goonda? Is it always as simple?What is acceptable.? Can thoughts be censored? Can the translation of thoughts be censored?

I do not how the events will unfold. In all probability a hero and a villain will emerge. The Gods and Goondas will be created from different perspectives and things would be so simple from so many different corners that it would eventually die a respectful quiet death.

Should it ?



- Amitabh Kumar.

The story is three days old and so already stale for news networks to give it any importance. What Abiash eat for breakfast gathers more interest in our country these days then what we are facing in Baroda. Similar instances have occurred in the recent past be it moral policing or rustication of students in Kerala and have been casually glossed over as normal and ‘every day’ occurrences.

A fascists rule is moving into place, brilliantly hidden under the garb of a secular constitution which has been randomly changed over a period of time to suit the perpetrators who continue what they call moral policing to uphold the ‘culture’ of India Shining.

Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated and accumulated experience that is socially transmitted, through history. And as artist practicing in a ‘secular’ country we constantly move to depict nuances of culture in our work, a step that Chandramohan like many artist before him considered a right. When the students of the Faculty of Fine Arts decide to showcase a few examples of ancient Indian art, which were a part of the archives at the institute the Vice Chancellor himself came and sealed the archives and stopped the exhibit. And whe the Dean of the Faculty objected to this intervention, he was suspended. An outright message to the free thinking mass of India that Fascism is here to stay. For the supposed torchbearers of our culture this move is a means to free publicity and political mileage. Art, culture and morality are just the glossy package they hide their crude and unreasonable shenanigans behind as they lead a ‘morally upright’ India into the 21st century.

I have attached a mail which was doing the rounds and throws some light on the legal constitutional policies under which these proceedings fall.

Dear All

This notice has details of the sections of the penal code under which Chandramohan is being charged - Sections 153A and 114, along with Section 295. I would urge everyone to pay attention especially to the wonderful alliance between VHP activists and Christian priests in Gujarat, against the freedom of expression of a student.

Further, here are some details about the relevant sections:

Section 153A: Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race etc, committing acts prejudicial to the harmony of the public.

According to the section whoever by words or expression promotes enmity between different groups of the country on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, or any such grounds or commits an act which is prejudicial to the harmony of he public is culpable under the section with imprisonment which may extend to three years with or without fine. Further, when the offence is committed on any religious place or any place worship the imprisonment can extend to 5 years with or without fine. The offence is non-bailable and even cognizable (after 1898) ie. Police can arrest a person under the section
without a warrant.

Section 295: Injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class.

Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage nor defilement as a insult to their religion, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

Section 295A: Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings.

Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

Section 114 is about abetment and presence when any crime is being committed.

As a close reading of these sections would suggest, the problem lies not only with the act, but also with the idea of intention.

The problem is, Chandramohan's lawyers can at best argue that his actions are not evidence of his intentions. However, an artist is such only because his actions have deliberation. Thus, to save Chandramohan the person from a prison sentence, his lawyers might have to jettison Chandramohan's identity as an artist. Such an argument, given the circumstances that the images in question were made for an exam of the fine arts department, may be impossible, or at the very least, difficult to sustain.

The reason that distinguishes between the scrawls made by a chimpanzee and an abstract expressionist has to do with the idea of intention. To protect Chandramohan's act as an instance of un0 malicious behaviour, it has to be freed from the matrix of artistic intention. We cannot really quarrel about the purport of the intention, because the onus of proving hurt, has to do not with the hurter, but with the hurtee.

Hurt, is a subjective feeling, and as long as the hurt say that they feel their pain, we are in no position to debate whether their pain or humiliation is real or imagined. There cannot, in fact be, imagined or feigned pain, because a court is in no position to measure the intensity of feeling on any given issue. Thus when a person says that their religious sensibilities are hurt, a court has to listen, (if the injury to sensibilities is mentioned as a cause of harm). Chandramohan cannot say that he intended to cause pain. He can only say that he intended to cause meaning to be read into his actions. If someone says that they read meaning in his actions in a manner that caused them pain, there is very little that Chandramohan or his lawyers can say in defence against such a charge.

The only thing that can be debated is the question of whether or not there was 'intention' in the first place. As an artist, Chandramohan cannot run away from intention.

Therefore the only recourse that anyone wishing to protect the freedom of speech in this case is to subject the law itself to criticism, not to speculate about whether it's application in this case is an instance of its misreading.

This means arguing for a straightforward assault on sections 153 and 295. The only way that an artist or a writer's freedom of speech can be protected against religious zealots is through a complete and total repeal of sections 153 and 295.

Having said that, arguing for these provisions to be struck down also means accepting the right of the Hindutva forces to insult and (through speech acts, signs, and visual representations) humiliate and attack people of other religions and convictions.

I have no problem with that, but many who will rightly condemn the freedom of Chandramohan to act as he has done, will also call for bans on the 'hate speech' of those who have moved the machinery of law and order against him.

Let it be understood that to do that will only invite further assaults on the freedom of art students like Chandramohan in the future. Meanwhile, I would urge everyone to attend as many meetings and protests, as possible on this issue, and make people aware of the draconian nature of sections 153 and 295.

For any information or advice or anything else you can contact us on chandramohan.baroda@gmail.com