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ARTICLE: Weak to the strong, Strong to the weak - An article by Sri Arun Shourie


This is an excellent article by Arun Shourie. This was forwarded by a friend, I
do not know the original source.

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In painting Goddess Saraswati naked M.F. Hussein, his secularist advocates
argue, is merely exercising his Fundamental Right to freedom of expression, he
is merely giving form to his artistic, creative urge. The first question is :
How come the freedom and creative urge of the thousands and thousands of
artists our country has have never led even one of them to ever paint or draw a
picture of Prophet Muhammad in which his face is manifest ? I am not on the
point of dress or undress, the features could have been made as celestial and
handsome as our artists could have imagined -- why is it that they never got
the urge to draw or sculpt even the handsomest representation of the Prophet ?

The rationalization is that doing so would have hurt the religious sentiments
of the Muslims, the Prophet himself having forbidden all representations. The
reason, as distinct from the rationalization, is different : were an artist to
make such a representation Muslims would be ignited by their controllers to
riot, they would not let that artist live in peace thereafter.

Notice first that in the lexicon of those who are shouting for Hussein the
point about not hurting religious sentiments manifestly does not apply to the
Hindus : in their case the alternate principle of the right of the artist to
paint as he pleases takes precedence. The Hindus notice this duality more and
more.

Indeed they notice the length to which some are prepared to exercise their
right to give full rein to their creative urge, disregarding what Hindus might
feel as a consequence. As recently as August last year, the art gallery of the
INDIA TODAY group, ART TODAY held an exhibition of "modern Indian miniatures".
Prominent among the paintings on display was one that showed a naked ( that is,
completely naked ) Radha astride a naked ( that is, completely naked ) Lord
Krishna -- the two fornicating in a garden. Posters with this painting
prominently featured were put up inviting viewers to the gallery. The August,
1995 issue of the magazine, INDIA TODAY carried an advertisement -- urging
readers to purchase prints of paintings which were on display at the gallery,
the advertisement too featured prominently the same painting of Radha laying
Lord Krishna in a garden. Some persons protested. No one heeded them. A
demonstration was then held outside the gallery, the demonstrators entered the
gallery. The painting was taken down. Friends who heard of the incident
denounced the demonstrators: "Hindu bigots", "The saffron brigade on the
look-out for issues," "Fascist goons who want to impose their constipated brand
of Hinduism on everyone." To establish the principle, and even more to
demonstrate the scorn in which they held "these goons" another publication, THE
INDIA MAGAZINE, as demonstrative about its secular credentials, put that very
painting on its cover. That this was done with full knowledge that doing so was
likely to offend others is evident from the fact that, simultaneously with
putting the painting on the cover, the person most prominently associated with
THE INDIA MAGAZINE applied for anticipatory bail.

Now, the collections of hadis contain scores and scores of descriptions of the
Prophet, as they contain accounts -- accounts in the words and on the testimony
of the Prophet's wives themselves -- about his relations with his wives; how is
it that none of our artists have ever felt the creative urge to portray even
accurately any of those descriptions, to say nothing of these magazines ever
inviting their readers to purchase colourful reproductions of the paintings or
putting the paintings on their covers and posters. Indeed I have not the least
doubt that if they received even an article -- which, after all, can never be
as tantalizing as a Hussein painting -- an article which did no more than
reproduce verbatim those accounts, they would refuse to print it : all the
great principles about not hurting the religious sentiments of others, all the
provisions of law -- sections 153A, 295A, 298 -- will be invoked in
justification. But when it comes to a painting of a naked Radha astride a naked
Lord Krishna fornicating in a garden, carrying it in advertisements, putting
that on the cover is a Fundamental Right, to object to it is to throttle an
artist's right to give expression to his creative urge.

It is not the freedom of expression these worthies are committed to. They are
committed to their having freedom alone : can you recall a single liberal
protesting against the ban on Ram Swarup's Understanding Islam Through Hadis --
a book so scrupulously academic that it was but a paraphrase of the Sahih
Muslim, one of the canonical compilations of hadis -- to say nothing of any one
of them deigning to put in a word against gundas -- claiming to represent the
Muslims -- who tried to get at me in Hyderabad or the gundas -- claiming to
speak for the other lot these worthies champion, the "Dalits" -- who did get at
me in Pune ? Not one deigned to do so. They are not the champions and
practitioners of free speech, they are the practitioners of a very special
brand of the dialectic : Strong to the weak, Weak to the strong. And that is
what the Hindus are noticing : neither the gallery nor the magazine spared a
thought for the religious sentiments it might offend till the "goons" marched
into the gallery, but they had but to march in and the painting was immediately
taken down; Hussein was all defiance one day, but the moment some paintings of
his were burnt, he was suddenly sorry....

"But nude representations are a part of our tradition. Look at Konark, look at
Khajuraho," the advocates have been shouting. But what has the figure of a
woman being had by a dog in Konark have to do with worship ? What basis is
there for declaring the women portrayed there are Saraswati or Sita or Lakshmi
? And then, as a reader points out, there is the other consideration :
depicting women completely naked has for centuries been very much a part of
European painting and sculpture tradition; but do the artists not stop at using
this tradition for portraying Virgin Mary naked ?

And as for Saraswati being depicted naked, her image is set out in our
iconography, in the mantras by which we invoke her; in all these she is
referred to as "....yaa shubhra vastraavritaa....", as one "draped in white".
That white dress draping her is one of the four distinguishing marks of
representations of Goddess Saraswati -- the other three being that she holds
beads in one hand, a book in another and the vina in a third.

"But I have every right to portray her as I will," a secular friend protested
when I repeated to him this iconographic description to which one of the best
known and sagacious authorities on our art had drawn my attention. Assume you
do, but then you can't simultaneously claim that what you are doing is in
accord with that tradition. Second, if painting Goddess Saraswati naked is an
intrinsic part of our tradition because sundry women have been depicted naked
and fornicating in Khajuraho and Konark, then, my dear friend, what about the
Dasham Granth of Guru Govind Singh and its 300 treyi chitra ? How come not one
of you has ever been stirred by his creative urge to put on canvas any of those
-- most vivid and vigourous -- pen-portraits ? Is the work of Guru Govind Singh
any less a part of the Sikh tradition than the Gita Govind ? What about the
scores and scores of hadis I mentioned earlier ? Alongside the Quran, they are
not just any old element of Islam, they are the very foundation. Let us see you
affirm the right of artists to depict images -- not imagined ones, not ones
that depart from the mantras as the painting in question does, just the most
scrupulously faithful and exact images -- of what is described therein. 

The next argument of our artists and intellectuals is just as much a
manufacture of convenience : "All our religions, everything about our past is
the common heritage of all of us, it belongs to each of us equally," they have
been saying. This presumably has been done to preempt those who would say that
Hussein is particularly in the wrong to have painted Hindu goddesses naked
because he is a Muslim. Fine. But how come so many of you are up in arms when I
write on Islamic law ? In particular, how come you work up such a fury even
though, unlike a painter, I am not conjuring up an image and am instead
documenting every single sentence and paragraph with the exact text of the
sacred works of Islam ? What happens at that time to this principle of all our
religions and everything in our past being the common heritage that belongs to
each one of us equally? Then these very magazines and intellectuals are full of
sanctimonious sermons : If members of one religion start commenting on the
practices and beliefs of other religions, there will be hell to pay, they
proclaim.

It is this double-standard which outrages the Hindus more and more, it is
this which these inchoate outbursts are revolts against.

Many Hindus also notice the other thing -- the one I mentioned as the reason as
against the rationalization for no artist ever being galvanized by the creative
urge when it comes to painting the features of the Prophet. They notice that
the artists do not do so, not because these masters cannot do so, nor because
their muse never goads them in this direction, but because they know that, were
they to do so, they would be set upon. And that the State -- which is weak, and
which also has internalized the same double-standards to rationalize its
weakness -- will not come to their rescue. Therefore, more and more Hindus are
concluding that we too should acquire the same reputation, we too should
acquire the same capacity. In a word, three things are teaching the Hindus to
become Islamic : the double-standards of the secularists and the State, the
demonstrated success of the Muslims in bending both the State and the
secularists by intimidation, and the fact that both the State and the
secularists pay attention to the sentiments of Hindus only when the Hindus
become a little Islamic. 

The secularists' shout, "But these things destroy the very basis of our
culture." The Hindus see that argument as being no better than the Devil
quoting Scripture, or, to put it in words the secularists would find more
persuasive, than my quoting the Quran : for they know that these are the very
persons who have been deriding them for living a life rooted in that culture,
they are the ones who have been denouncing that culture and every thing
associated with it -- the idols, the beliefs, the rituals -- as being nothing
but devices which the Brahmins have forged to perpetuate inequity, to
perpetuate exploitation of the poor masses.

The arguments of the secularists therefore are mere pretense. Yet I believe
that it was plain wrong to break the window-panes and burn the paintings. Free
speech is vital for our country. If it is curbed, what will be killed is not a
painting but reform -- for all reform offends as it is a voice against the way
things are at that moment. I believe that even if one's singular concern is
Hinduism and its rehabilitation, free speech is the best guarantee : the more
Eastern religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism and others -- are subjected to critical
inquiry the more their luminescent essence shines forth; by contrast the
Semitic religions -- down to Marxism-Leninism -- wither at the first exposure
to exegesis and inquiry : and the controllers of these religions have been very
conscious of this, that is why they have for centuries together put inquiry
down with a lethal hand. The twin principles which the champions of Hussein's
right to paint as he will have been proclaiming are the exact pincer which will
work -- the principle that there must be freedom of speech and that every
religion, and the principle that every aspect of our past is the common
heritage of each of us equally. All we should ensure is that these principles
hold good for all equally. And when someone paints like Hussein did in this
instance, instead of burning his paintings we should use them to document the
double-standards which mar current policies and discourse, and demand that
either the standard apply to all or to none. Thus : education, not burning;
parity, not suppression.

In Hussein's case in particular, I feel that the youngsters who took offence
missed a very vital point -- not just about his painting but about his life. He
is and has continued to be a Muslim. Now, as anyone who has read anything about
the Prophet knows, the Prophet cursed and detested those who made
representations of things. He put pictures at par with dogs, and, remember, he
had all dogs killed. "The angels do not enter a house," he declared on the
authority of the angel, Gabriel, "which contains a dog or pictures." Abu
Huraira, the source of a large proportion of the hadis, states that God's
Messenger narrated that Gabriel had promised to visit him one day but didn't
turn up, and so, when he came the next day, the Prophet inquired as to what had
happened. Gabriel, the Prophet narrated, said, "I came to you last night and
was prevented from entering simply by the fact that there were images at the
door, for there was a figured curtain with images on it and there was a dog in
the house. So, order that the head of the image which is at the door of the
house be cut off so that it may become like the form of a tree; order that the
curtain be cut up and made into two cushions spread out on which people may
tread; and order that the dog be put out." "God's Messenger," the hadis
concludes, "then did so." His wife, Aisha tells us, "The Prophet never left in
his house anything containing figures of a cross without destroying it." She
recalls how the Prophet reprimanded her for two cushions she had made because
they contained pictures. The Prophet declared that those who made
representations of things "will receive the severest punishment on the day of
resurrection," that "Everyone who makes representations of things will go to
hell." He declared them to be "the worst of God's creatures." He put them at
par with "the one who kills a prophet, or who is killed by a prophet, or kills
one of his parents." [ Several other hadis, and of course several instances can
be cited; for the few which have been quoted see, Mishkat Al-Masabih, Muhammad
Ashraf, Lahore, Volume II, Book XXI, Chapter V, pp. 940-44. ]

Hussein on the contrary has made painting images his very life. Therefore, in a
very deep sense, his entire life is an endeavour to open an aperture in that
wall of prohibitions. It has been a banner for liberalism, indeed for
liberation.

In sum,

      I am for Hussein, not for his champions; 

      The position which Hussein's champions have taken up is just the one
      which our society needs;

      We should hold them to their word, and have them stick by it in the
      case of one and all;

      And we should await the day when their muse will lead them to
      exercise their creative urge, "that one talent which is death to hide,"
      paint as freely and with as much abandon themes from all our religions
      and traditions.

Finally, a forecast : the more the secularists insist on double-standards,
the more Islamic will the Hindus become.

Arun Shourie.
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