Some Thoughts on the Moral Policing of Indian Art

In January this year, the team at DAG, a prominent art gallery with spaces in Delhi, Mumbai and New York, sent out a press release stating that they had been made the target of a frivolous police complaint. To put the situation in context, we must go back in time to October 2024, when the gallery in question hosted an extensive exhibition on the works of Indian modernist master artist Maqbool Fida Husain, which included works from their own collection as well as those borrowed from others.

Husain was a self-taught artist, who joined the famous Progressive Artists’ Group in 1948. His career began by painting billboards for feature films and designing furniture and toys. Later, he began creating works of art centred on themes related to his roots, as well as those of folk, tribal and mythological art. Indian cultural icons like Mother Teresa and the characters of epics like the Mahabharata also inspired him greatly.

In his decades-long career, Husain also made feature films like the 1967 Through the Eyes of a Painter, which won a Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, and Gajagamini in 2000. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan awards by the Government of India. Husain passed away in London in 2011, while on exile from his homeland following controversy surrounding his famous painting ‘Bharat Mata’ where he depicted the shape of the Indian nation in the form of a nude female bending at the knee.

DAG’s retrospective of Husain’s work was a celebrated one – I myself covered it for the Indian press. Over the course of a month, more than 5000 visitors reportedly visited the exhibition to admire the works of one of India’s most famous artists.

However, one of the visitors, an Indian advocate who wears her right-wing identity on her sleeve, filed a police complaint against certain drawings where Hindu gods were depicted, alleging that they hurt her religious sentiments. Lots of drama ensued. At first, the gallery apparently hid the works in question, so when the police visited to check before filing an FIR, they could find no works of that description.

Then the advocate went to a judicial magistrate asking for an FIR to be filed – in itself a discouraged practice as it’s tantamount to a citizen taking the law in their own hands by bypassing police procedures. Yet, the magistrate allowed her to proceed and ordered for the seizure of the two works highlighted in her complaint.

A similar incident took place a few months ago, when the works of another great Indian modernist, F. N. Souza, had been detained (with the purpose of destroying them) by the Indian customs department because of their alleged ‘obscenity’. Fortunately, in that case, the Bombay High Court’s timely intervention prevented any untoward action being taken. Both Husain’s and Souza’s works are worth millions of dollars!

These incidents beg the following question: how far is too far when it comes to the moral policing of art? More specifically, how far is too far to police the work of artists who are long dead, making their work invaluable?

Back in 2008, the Supreme Court of India refused to lodge criminal proceedings against Husain, declaring that his paintings were not obscene. The bench also observed that nudity was common in Indian iconography and history. Just think of the temples of Khajuraho – or even M.V. Dhurandhar’s painting of Krishna’s white, anglicised and stark naked Gopis.

Back then, the Supreme Court had rallied against the rise of a “new puritanism” in India and refused to summon Husain from exile to explain his paintings. The bench observed, “There are so many such subjects, photographs and publications. Will you file cases against all of them? What about temple structures? Husain’s work is art. If you don’t want to see it, don’t see it. There are so many such art forms in temple structures.”

In this dialogue lies the fulcrum of the argument – “If you don’t want to see it, don’t see it.” Art is subjective. Everyone has their own views on what is beautiful and what isn’t. So, why should a select few from the new puritanical order, be allowed to sit judgment on creative mediums? And why should they do so only to grab eyeballs on social media and earn their 15 minutes of fame in the process?

I strongly decry the acts of this advocate, and as the team at DAG most astutely observed – she herself had spread the photos she objected to, by sharing them relentlessly on social media, contributing in turn to their popularity. If she truly objected to their subject, she would have tried to hide the visuals, no?

This morning, while reading an interesting article in an international magazine, I learnt that the famous Cubist painter Pablo Picasso, who lived in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, was almost sent off to a concentration camp because he was considered a “degenerate artist”. Hitler’s favourite sculptor Arno Breker personally put in a word for Picasso and saved his life.

Whatever one may think of the merits of the work of any artist – Picasso, Souza or Husain – does it give them the right to do away with the artist or their work? Of course not. Art is education, art is life. How would humankind progress if we were to disallow any form of creativity that didn’t conform to norms? How would cars, the internet, mobile phones, even AI, have come about if someone had stopped “degenerate creatives” from doing what they do best, i.e. think out of the box?

I cannot pronounce on the fate of the two works of Husain in question, but I sincerely hope that better sense prevails among the learned judiciary, and they are brought back in the public domain.

While it is surprising that art is being scrutinised and censored through such a narrow-minded lens in this day and age, it becomes doubly worrying when the art in question has been made by artists who represent the best of the Indian art pantheon, and whose works can’t be replicated owing to their demise. Husain and Souza, in particular, eschewed the minority religious identities they were born into – the former is a Muslim, and the latter is Christian – to adopt a multicultural lifestyle in keeping with the idea of a secular post-independent India. That Husain focused on Hindu gods spoke of his commitment to being Indian; that Souza painted nudes of women in their brown, often portly glory, depicts his commitment to showcase his Indian identity to the world.

They are Indian, of the soil, firmly committed to promoting their homeland.

So, let’s give them their due? And if you really can’t – perhaps just ignore them?

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This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla

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*This is not a sponsored post.

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