He wrote as only an art historian would: "Art, to every artist, is a vehicle for personal expression…. Ancient Indian art has never been devoid of eroticism where sex worship and graphical representation of the union of man and woman has been a recurring feature…. The ultimate essence of a work of ancient erotic art has been religious in character and can be enunciated as a state of heightened delight or ananda, the kind of bliss that can be experienced only by the spirit."...>> Subject: Nude art and erotic Rumi Date: 5/23/2008 6:12:23 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time From: 
A good judge of art
DURING the BJP regime, a couple of men, including a gun-toting officer of the Indian army, successfully disrupted a mushaira at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University where Pakistan's Fahmida Riaz was reciting her poem that mocked religious fundamentalism in both countries.
Tum bilkul hum jaisey nikle, ab tak kahaan chhupe thay bhaai?
Wo ghaamadpan, wo jaahilpan jisme humne sadi gawaai
Ab pahonchi hai dwaar tumharey? Arey badhai, bahot badhai!
(You too, my Indian friend? Welcome to the club
We had put up with ignorant fools for decades
Now you are the hub
May I greet you for losing your way?
Should my hands with glee I rub?)
Fahmida had barely started when all hell broke loose. She is a traitor, she is anti-India, she hates Hindus, throw the Pakistani out. As the shouts became deafening, the shaken poet was spirited out from a backdoor to a secure hotel. Earlier this month, a landmark judgment by Delhi High Court's Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul may have retrieved some of the ground (and face) for India's threatened secular ideals.
The judgment quashed three lower court summons against the 92-year old artist Maqbool Fida Husain. The artist has been living in exile because Hindu zealots filed petitions in different parts of the country against his paintings, describing them as obscene because they showed their gods and goddesses in the nude. Justice Kaul described the petitions as harassment.
But before we come to the flourishes from Justice Kaul's 70-page poetry of a judgment, the point of view of Fahmida Riaz needs to be understood.
Most Indians have no clue about the travails of artists, singers, actors and dancers in Pakistan, nor are they really aware about their heroic struggles against religious bigotry that is often enough fomented by the state. The trauma that great artists like Sadequain suffered, for example, at the hands of the mullahs is not widely known here, nor dancer Sheema Kermani's war against religious decrees.
The fact that the virus has found a home in India is even more worrying. Religious fascism patronised under Pakistan's military dictatorships could be isolated and fought more easily than if it got the patronage of a parliamentary democracy like ours. The home ministry under the watch of the supposedly secular Congress party is said to have issued directives to police commissioners to proscribe Husain's paintings rather than to pursue his communal tormentors.
This is more or less what we did with Taslima Nasrin too, eventually hounding out the exiled Bangladeshi writer who had sought refuge here with hope and faith in the Indian constitution. There is one more common element between the Indian and Pakistani variants of zealotry.
When Pakistan was plunging headlong into medievalism under Ziaul Haq, it was the United States that stood by him. In India, too, religious zealots who are generously given state support make the best allies of the United States. Check this out: the common element in the spread of religious revivalism in both countries is the caring hand of the US, which stokes the fires of zealotry, possibly as a foil to godless communism.
The high court judge began by quoting Pablo Picasso, which effectively set the stage for his arriving conclusions, "Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art."Justice Kaul's inference was equally emphatic.
He wrote as only an art historian would: "Art, to every artist, is a vehicle for personal expression…. Ancient Indian art has never been devoid of eroticism where sex worship and graphical representation of the union of man and woman has been a recurring feature…. The ultimate essence of a work of ancient erotic art has been religious in character and can be enunciated as a state of heightened delight or ananda, the kind of bliss that can be experienced only by the spirit."
The judge's comments on contemporary art in India were not for the narrow minded. "Today Indian art is confidently coming of age," he wrote. "Every form of stylistic expression in the visual arts, from naturalism to abstract expressionism derives its power from the artist's emotional connection to his perceptual reality. The nude in contemporary art, a perennial art subject, considered to be the greatest challenge in art has still not lost its charm and focuses on how the human form has been reinterpreted by emerging and influential artists today."
The painting that has offended some, observed the judge, "depicts India as an abstract and graphical representation of a woman in nude with her hair flowing in the form of the Himalayas displaying her agony." But the artist did not call it Bharat Mata or Mother India. In the final analysis, the judge could, however, quash just three of the 10 cases against Husain because those three dealt directly with court summons issued to him.
The other cases, all transferred to be heard in Delhi, could be investigated and thrown out by the government if it so chooses. But that would require Delhi's Congress government to confront the Hindutva worldview, something its leaders look unprepared for.
Going through scores of similar cases from many countries, and including brilliant observations by eminent judges in India such as Justice Krishna Iyer, the high court judgment asked for help from the legislature to enact laws "keeping in mind the balancing of interests between the person aggrieved and the accused so as to prevent harassment of artists, sculptors, authors, filmmakers etc. in different creative fields".
But where does this leave M.F. Husain, who is biding his time in Dubai for fear of arrest if he returns? There are still the seven cases pending against him after all. "A liberal tolerance of a different point of view causes no damage," concluded Justice Kaul, signalling his intent.
"A debate should never be shut out. 'I am right' does not necessarily imply 'You are wrong'. Our culture breeds tolerance — both in thought and in actions. I have penned down this judgment with this fervent hope that it is a prologue to broader thinking and greater tolerance for the creative field. A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home — painting his canvasses!"
Justice Kaul's verdict can become the keystone to rebuild India's secular edifice, retrieving its image from the rubble of Ayodhya and Gujarat. But fascism cannot be defeated by the efforts of an enlightened judge alone. It needs both political courage and resolve, something that Fahmida Riaz found missing. n
The writer is Dawn's correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
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