M.F.Hussain, the controversial Indian artist is no more an Indian now. Every nook and corner of India is buzzed with ‘Hussain issue’ while Gayatri Sundaram takes you to the Indian terrains where Hussain has been said to be wandered around without shoes in order to feel the pulse of Mother India.

Should M.F,Hussain come back to India even though he himself had asserted that he would visit his mother country at times?  Should we call back the vulnerable old man nearing ‘century’ to a land of ‘vandalizing mob’ and ‘death-threatening religious hardliners’? Should we Indians prosecute the artist who expressed his will through the nudity of our mothers?

In Hussain-affected India

The so-called intellectuals, writers, social activists, moral police, poets, film personalities of all Indian Languages and like every think-to-be-cultural activist are now behind M.F.Hussain. They add his name in the list of those who were chucked out from their own land for being ‘true to their self’ like Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Tyeba Mehta, Vijay Tendulkar, Deepa Mehta et al. Even the Cabinet Ministers call him back with red carpet marginalizing the protesters as anti-socials and pseudo secularists.

Headlines hit as ‘Focused campaign against Hussain’, ‘India’s national shame’, “loss to India’, ‘a shameful bolt on democracy’ and like. Every nook and corner in India buzzes with ‘Hussain issue’. What for?  A venerable old man who walks on the dirty Indian streets without chappals but plies through the royal roads of New York, London and Dubai in red Ferrari clad in ethnic suits and well polished boots, has got a citizenship in Qatar. And he goes there as usual as he is always tend to be like a travel maniac. For India, what is lost is a lot of Padma Awards, which had been conferred upon him already – a Padmasree in 1955, a Padma Bhushan in 1973 and a Padma Vibhushan in 1991. Luckily, we have got around with a Bharat Ratna.

What is rationale in the sporadic protests raised by VHP, HJS etc that, they roam around only Hindu religion and Hindu ethics. When it comes to the word ‘Hindu’, many inside and outside the party are under a bizarre vignette of what they are being shot at. Alternate reciprocation comes against is why not a Christian and why not a Muslim. This is the misconception which has to be exorcised from them. Hindu connotes India as a whole and that is why the alarm for “Bharat Mata’ created chaos and legal interception.

‘Apparel maketh the man’

M.F.Hussain who lost his mother in such a small age, who had to pick up his first son’s body from a gutter by himself need not be a believer, be it Hindu or Islam. But what is amazing that he never portrayed an Islamic or Christian themed picture without clothes. When it comes to the matter of arts, what is sartorial about it? Yes, there is. That is why he was denied the award from the Government of Kerala, in the name of the time honored painter Raja Ravi Varma.

Turn to Khajuraho. Turn back to Kamasutra, penned by the Sage Vatsyayana. (Let’s forget Deepa Mehta, Meera Nair and Shabana Azmi for a while). Earlier it was like that. When man was strolling among the bushy forest with beastly musings he was devoid of any clothes. Like, our Gods and Goddesses, created by man for his convenient worshipping were also nude. Now things have got changed a lot. It was Raja Ravi Varma who had redefined our Gods and Goddesses clad in silk sarees with jeri and long splashy hair with sculptural beauty. For generations Indians have been worshipping Goddesses like that and never as that of Khajuraho sculptures.

All on a sudden morning if you happened to see your mother stand nude before you, as a youngster can you adjust with it? ( provided nothing wrong with her). So how can a Hussain who had portrayed their Goddesses nude and in an exceptionally voluptuous style, be accepted with an award in the name of Raja Ravi Varma, who adorned their mothers with apparels of nobility and candor?

Ever in exile

M.F.Hussain is one among the Bohemians sprouted out of the Progressive Artists Group of Mumbai, which fostered the weird wishes of an artist struggling to get out of the nationalistic and traditional frames. His co travelers Newton Souza and Sayed Haider had already gone in exile to Paris and New York, but Hussain alone tried to glue to the Indian soil (without shoes). His parboiled art works were appreciated throughout the country but sold or auctioned for millions outside. Even though Hussain started his ghastly art works on Gods and Goddesses in early 70’s, it has been unveiled to the world only after its printed publication in a Hindi magazine.

Mimicking  the  myths

It is true that informed exposure is required to appreciate art, especially those in abstract form. When the colors communicate we should approach it with an open mind. But see, how long and how wide will we be able to open our mind to accept the ‘creativity’ in which we see our time honored customs are being stripped publicly and sold to the slobbered hedonists outside?

M.F.Hussain speaks a lot of philosophical aspects regarding Hinduism and for a long time in his teens he had been researching in Gita, Ramayana and other Hindu Epics. That is what is being inculcated by Hussain in his many interviews (from exile) as, “ I am Indian  I love India etc.”

Then what makes M.F.Hussain portray a Goddess Saraswathy nude and Sita, the epitome of purity and vestal wife-hood as a sex maniac with Hanuman whom she considered as her son? What would have prompted him to depict Hanuman as a peeping Tom who enjoys watching Ram-Sita indulged in sex? One of Hussain’s pictures illustrates a chest-ripping Hanuman with a caption ‘Hanuman – The original Superman’. He was equating Hanuman, the mighty God with the belated fictional American hero who amuses the kids in cartoons and animated films. Is that he learned out of the deeeeeep study of Ramayana? Be it Hindu or Islam theme, they are the paradigms of virtue as had been treated traditionally by the whole India.  Hussain was willingly stigmatizing and misusing a nation’s precious beliefs.

Hussain’s another picture shows Goddess Durga being indulged in sex with a tiger. Hussain’s Goddess Lakshmi is always seen bestriding upon the head of God Vinayaka, nude. And these ‘caught and bowled pictures’ are being auctioned in the foreign markets for millions making the artist a billionaire with more than seven luxury cars and a number of sumptuous apartments as his own.

Controversy is such a thing. It benefits its creators and offenders.

Artists are sensitive by nature. Hence is M.F.Hussain’s spontaneous ‘Bhartmatha’, just after the terrorist attack in Mumbai. When the picture sought clamors and apprehensions from all around, he retorted in his old man’s style as it was an artist’s mark of protest against the terrorist attack on his mother country. In that ‘most wanted’ picture he illustrates India as a naked woman being assaulted, her one hand lost, apparently with no Kashmir and all her body parts with the name of the States written on. As an artist he could portray it in the shape of the Indian sub continent in a feminine form but on the whole it connotes an Indian map drawn by a fastidious Pakistani

Whipping with brush and tongue

M.F.Hussain’s double stand and hypocrisy can be appraised if we browse through his various interviews. Hussain justifies his nude figures like this:’In India nudity means purity’.  Art Historian Alka Pandey’s words substantiate this verdict as “the erotic elements in Hussain’s pictures have always been part of our philosophical and aesthetic culture’.  Else where Hussain points out “Khajuraho pictures were built to encourage population growth”.

Once he has drawn a picture of four world leaders including Gandhiji. (Fortunately, Gandhiji had his towel around his waist). In that picture Hitler was completely nude. When asked, Hussain replied that he hated Hitler that is why he depicted him naked so as to humiliate him. Here ‘Purity’ is being synonymous with ‘Humiliation’!

Once he told the press that while he was busy learning Hinduism and drawing epical characters some of his Muslim friends asked him why he was not trying with Islamic classics. Hussain replied with a question “Does Islam have the same tolerance?” That is why Sri Sri Ravisankar told the newsmen recently, “No country is as tolerant as India.”

M.F.Hussain has done a lot of Islamic themed pictures in which he has drawn a number of portraits of his own men (women) – His wife, Prophet’s daughter, His own daughter – all neatly clad. Why didn’t he portray them also nude? Why didn’t he portray a gang-raped Pakistan while terrorist attacks become a daily phenomenon there? Why didn’t he portray a stripped and teased America after the WTC attack on that September 11?  When he was chucked out of his mother country, Qatar was there with her extended hands to accept the ‘perverse son of India’. It has been heard that the citizenship ceremony was initiated by the wife of Qatar Sheikh. Do you think Hussain would ever think of depicting the Sheikha of Qatar as his pampering mother in his usual ‘purest’ style? The answers to these questions underline the statement of Sri Sri Ravisankar.

Freedom of Expression

Freedom of expression is enshrined in the Constitution of India as a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution. The so called intellectuals of India and outside uplift this fraction of the preamble to uphold the ‘Indian Picasso’s dirty minded eroticism. The Upper Court itself has banned his pictures as ‘uncharitable and hurting the sentiments of Hindus’. It is very funny to note that whether in his self-imposed exile or in Qatar (or wherever he wishes to be), M.F.Hussain lives a Kubla-Khan style life while the mourners here wade through the chaos for daily sustenance, though they strive for the effective self expressionism.

M.F.Hussain’s courtships with Madhuri Dixit, Tabu and like Bollywood beauties are known plus-factors when those who fight for the artist’s freedom escalates to the pinnacle, to add the reading. The accusation translates that why the Hindu hardliners kept mum on the vulgar Bollywood song sequences. The frequent protests in Maharashtra including the recent event in which a bare Kareena Kapoor’s back had been covered by sarees in the posters all over Bandra is worthy to note at this point.

All these incidents throw light to the ‘freedom of expression’ and its aftermaths along with the silent protests. At times when it becomes stormy, one must remember that, though entitled to the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, it ceases when the right infringes upon the fundamental rights of others. At this juncture, should we call back M.F.Hussain only to draw more ‘pure’ pictures of India’s various other parts? Should he need an ‘encore’ within an ace of life and defeat?

(We feel sorry to display some of the controversial pictures once again through this site – only because we sense it is unavoidable to serve the very purpose of the content).