In his recent editorial Tarun Tejpal exhorts the state to act. He says:
India is full of idle troublemakers; the State should tell them where to draw the line
So true. For a long time I’ve been wanting to read The Satanic Verses but it is banned in our country. I don’t want to read the book because it angers the Muslims; Salman Rushdie is one of my favorite writers and this is a book by him that still remains unread. The state should tell the people where to draw the line and should persecute them if they protest against the lifting of the ban. Is writing not art? Or is it less of an art than what the great genius who ushered the tsunamis of creativity in Vadodara, Gujarat? Talking about that, this is what Tarun has to say about Chandramohan, the (in)famous, beleaguered, and well-supported artist:
In Vadodara, in one of the finest art schools in India, a gifted boy from humble origins has been humiliated and arraigned for artistic expression that would not raise an antagonistic eyebrow in most of the worlds liberal democracies.
I saw recently the image of one of his paintings in which he has shown the semen of Christ dripping into a toilet seat and seems far away from being a gifted artist; it seems he is a cursed artist. The poor artist, humble or mumble background notwithstanding, surely needs our sympathies.
Tarun says that the poor artist’s “artistic expression” would not raise an antagonistic eyebrow in most of the world’s liberal democracies. But then who says we are a liberal democracy? We ban TV channels. We don’t want to impart sex education to our children. Khushbu is chased around when she says it’s ok to have sex before marriage. We ban books and movies (a movie on Stalin was not allowed in West Bengal because it showed an aged Stalin being bathed by women). We can pee in public but cannot hold hands or kiss. Nakedness is blurred (but it is ok to shake boobs and butts setting new benchmarks in vulgarity). We want caste and religion based reservations. The Karnataka government wants the women in Karnataka to stay indoors after 8 in the evening because it cannot control crimes against women. Read what’s happening in Punjab. Liberal democracy? India? My foot.
He further says:
But what is it about Gujarat that allows these intolerances to flourish? Why has a community long known for its gentle, pacifist ways with or without Mohandas become so violent? Why has a community known for its mercantile skills become so rabidly religious? Why has a community with a matchless diaspora become so narrow and insular?
There is a simple reason. The intellectuals somehow seemed to have failed the people of Gujarat. Recently we saw a movie called Happily Never After in which they show that a wizard takes care that the scale of good and evil is always balanced (in all the famous fairy tales) and whenever there is more inclination towards one scale, things begin to go awry. The balanced scale is the key. Continuous Hindu-bashing and Muslim patronizing have tilted the scale towards the evil side. There has to be a balance and unless that balance is achieved, nothing much can be achieved.
[tags]vadodara, tarun tejpal, chandramohan, painter[/tags]
