Vadodara row: Wake-up call for artists to behave themselves!

By Staff Reporter

Shri. Madanjeet Singh, is a diplomat and a well-known painter, photographer and internationally known author of several books on art and other subjects. currently he is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

After Vadodara incident Mr. Singh has written an article “Cultures & vultures: wake-up call from Vadodara” in the ‘The Hindu’ dated May 18, 2007. In his article Mr. Singh has portrayed artists like Hussain as a ‘creator’ of masterpieces and strongly supported Chandra Mohan (the art student from M.S.University, Baroda)in the name of creative art & Temple tradition. Recently police has arrested Chandra Mohan for creating obscene painting of Hindu deities and Jesus & hurting religious sentiments.

Given below is the letter written by proud Hindu Shri. B.R.Haran to Shri. Madanjeet Singh regarding his article “Cultures & vultures: wake-up call from Vadodara”.

Dear Mr. Madanjeet Singh

I refer to your article “Cultures & vultures: wake-up call from Vadodara” in the ‘The Hindu’ dated May 18, 2007. I never expected that I would be forced to write my third letter on the same subject, within a week. I had already shot off two letters, one to Mr. Peter Ronald Desouza for his article “Will they blow up Kajuraho?” in ‘The Indian Express’ and the other to Ms. Sushila Ravindranath for her article “Are we a nation of hypocrites?” in ‘The New Indian Express’. It is really sickening to read this kind of articles, but then, one has to respond suitably, so that, the concerned authors think twice before making another attempt, in future. Had M.F.Husain been dealt with in a ‘proper’ manner at his first attempt itself on denigrating the Hindu Gods & Goddesses, he would not have had the guts to grow up to this level. The artists like Hussain and writers like you, take advantage of the tolerance shown by the Hindu community and repeatedly indulge in insulting our Gods & Goddesses.

Coming to the subject, your article is worse than Husain’s paintings, in the sense that, it is maddening in content and highly provocative too. M.F.Husain is notorious in repeatedly hurting the sentiments of Hindus, and a crime, which is repeatedly perpetrated is beyond tolerance & unpardonable, and deserves to be given the maximum possible punishment. This ugly & mean-minded artist has been a habitual offender and due to his own peril, he is loitering in the streets of London & Dubai now. As he had made huge fortunes and become filthy rich by selling his paintings on our Gods & Goddesses, he is able to loiter in foreign soil; otherwise he would have been cooling his heels off in the prisons of India. It is bad that such a third-rate artist is supported by the so-called liberals like you, in the name of creativity of art and freedom of expression. Worse is, the Communist government of Kerala had decided to bestow on him the ‘Ravi Varma’ award, which is undoubtedly an insult to the great painter Ravi Varma. Worst is, the suggestion made by Mr. Sashi Tharoor (who brought us the unwanted disgrace by miserably losing the election in UN) in an article in this very same newspaper a few months ago that, M.F.Husain must be awarded the coveted Barath Rathna. What for? For painting Barath Mata in the nude? What a shame!
It is in a way sad that the young students like Chandra Mohan (M.S.University, Baroda) take artists like Hussain as role models and get spoilt, there by facing a dark future. People like you are also responsible for misleading such students through your articles, which portray artists like Hussain as a ‘creator’ of masterpieces. What was conducted in Baroda was an ugly exhibition of perverted art, and the Hindus, who were truly hurt, did the right thing by taking the matter to the police, which in turn took action as per the section-295 of the IPC. The University management also did the wise thing by suspending the disgraced Dean Panikkar, who had the audacity, irresponsibility & arrogance to conduct another exhibition within two days of the Chandramohan episode.
 
May I request you to kindly answer the following questions:

Why not these third rate artists paint their own Mothers, Sisters and the self-styled activists and liberal columnists in such a fashion? What is the need for including Hindu Deities in their perverted show called creative art? What were the activists & writers like you doing when the Mullas were taking the streets of India for ransom in the guise of protesting against the ‘Danish Cartoons’ on Mohammed? Why don’t you ask that Rascal Hussain to paint Jesus, Mary & Mohammed, Kathija in the nude? Who is Hussain and what has he got to do with Hinduism and why should he paint our Gods & Goddesses?

Konarak, Kajuraho and Bubhaneshwar were all there for ages and the Hindus have never felt the need to target them, because, those sculptures have a sort of divinity attached to them giving a sense of passion. Moreover, this great Hindu country has thousands of Temples all over and only very few of them have sculptures of ‘Romance & Love’ and most of them have only the sculptures of Gods & Goddesses. The elders of the community know the traditional importance and they bring up the youngsters in such a way that they understand the divinity attached to the sculptures. After all, the true Hindus visit Temples only for prayer & worshipping. It is only the ‘Lunatic Liberals’, who see ‘Lust & Sex’ in Temple sculptures and such perverted minds resort to paint crude obscenities in the name of creativity of art & freedom of expression and support them too.

So, I strongly condemn your attempt to justify the arrogance & vulgarity of Hussain & Chandra Mohan in the name of creative art & Temple tradition.

Also, please be informed that, the so-called Babri Masjid was not a Mosque, but only a disputed structure. Prayers were never held there and it was never used for worshipping. And there were never Buddhist Stupas, as you have presumed and enough evidences are there to prove the existence of not one, but two Temples, which were demolished by Babur. Let me also tell you that almost all Churches & Mosques in our great Hindu Nation (100 years and above) were built over the ruins of Temples after demolishing them.

At the end of the article you have worried about the ‘secular’ India of Jawaharlal Nehru and I appreciate that you have got it right. The ‘secular’ India of Nehru is the actual problem. Had he got the wisdom to declare Hindustan as a Hindu Rashtra after partition, you would not have written an insensitive article like this and I need not have sent you a letter like this. These talks about creativity of art, freedom of expression, human rights and secularism are all fraudulent methods adopted by leftist liberals, Communists, Minorities and pseudo-secular political parties with the aid of foreign missionaries to de-Hinduise this great Hindu Nation.

 When the perverted artists and the lunatic liberals, who support them, are attempting to efface the rich Hindu culture of art, tradition, image & narrative to conform to their own track of de-Hinduisation of Hindu civilization, the Hindus have woken up in time.

Vadodara is truly a wake-up call for the artist community to behave themselves without indulging in denigrating the Hindu Gods & Goddesses. Rats & Rodents should be careful while coming out of their hidings, for Vultures will certainly pounce on them.

Thanking You,

With Warm Regards,

B.R.Haran. 

Comparison of Paintings of Raja Ravi Varma and MF Hussain ! and Protest Details