marine
Mann
It has now become abundantly clear that Qatar has offered M F Husain citizenship, though it is not entirely clear yet whether one of India’s greatest artists has accepted the offer yet. If he does, he will have to renounce Indian citizenship. And that, as members of the art fraternity and the public at large say, will be a matter of great shame. India’s reputation as a democracy will be blackened throughout the world. More importantly, however, Indians themselves will have to ponder important questions relating to democracy, rule of law and public culture in general. There seems to be an attempt to blame the veteran artist, now 95, for shaming the country by not returning. That is a load of nonsense. The people primarily to blame are of course the thugs of the Sangh Parivar and their leaders. They routinely vandalise his paintings and have been responsible for creating an environment of terror in which organisers of art exhibitions find it impossible to feature Husain’s paintings in their shows. The kind of fascist intolerance they display to any viewpoint or perspective that does not square with theirs makes a mockery of democracy.But that is just a part of the problem. After all, we all know what the Sangh Parivar is all about. Their intolerance and their use of muscle to impose their point of view should come as a surprise to none. The other important problem is the unwillingness of the agencies of the state and other parties to take robust steps to counter the illegal activities of the many lumpen arms of the parivar. People get away with whatever they want to do — the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, for example in the Husain case, the Shiv Sena and its new offshoot in many contexts or the Shri Ram Sene with its attacks on women in Karnataka. The government just refuses to act against flagrant violations of the law, when what it should do in short order is put behind bars the Thackerays, Singhals and Togadias. It is supremely ironical that those who routinely instigate violence in which lives are lost and property vandalised should enjoy the protection of the state at the highest level. It is also most unfortunate that all too often the Congress chooses to run with the hare while hunting with the hounds, calculating that defending the rule of law is not worth it if it means offending the lunatic fringe of the Hindu community.
