M F Hussain

That legendary painter M F Hussain, who passed away in London on Thursday was unable to return to his own country for reasons of hounding by some diehard zealots, had stopped making news. Once in a while, it disturbed sensitive minds, but the issue had left the arena of public discourse.

Our secular credentials certainly got a knock when an artist of the repute of Hussain, who, ironically brought the Indian culture on canvas for the international community, was almost forced to leave the country, accused of ‘polluting’ the Indian culture. More surprising, with all the arrogance of being the largest democracy in the world, we could not offer safety to an artist touching 90! The government felt helpless, the artist community chose to maintain an inexplicable silence, while gallery owners had the excuse of securing their investment. And, there was no civil society to speak for the artist’s rights. So, the biggest investment any progressive society could make in its cultural growth, by letting its artists enjoy creative freedom, invited its own death.
What did Hussain do to earn an exile, and to die in exile? He was true to the only religion he knew; of being an artist. He was unconstrained in experiencing life and giving an expression to it. And, experience cannot be labelled by a religion. The world of art recognised his transcendence. He was the first Indian to have shown his works in foreign lands, he was the first whose works were auctioned by Christie’s. But, all this became insignificant before the militant brand of some Hindu fanatics who choose to remain ignorant about the tradition of artistic freedom enjoyed by poets like Kalidasa who wrote the highly erotic Kumar Sambhavam, and artisans who created Khajuraho and Konark. Hussain was simply following a cultural legacy he was born into. He was punished for doing it in a modern, democratic, secular state