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.