SHASHI ON SUNDAY: Be more tolerant towards creative fields

Last week i wrote about the landmark judgement by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Delhi High Court on May 8, upholding a number of petitions submitted by painter M F Husain. The nonagenarian artist had sought the dismissal of various cases filed against him for allegedly offending public decency and morality by his "obscene" use of nudity in his paintings, particularly those of Hindu goddesses and of "Bharat Mata". While the judge's ruling had taken care of the legal aspects of the case, his larger observations on the case deserve the attention of every thinking Indian. The most important of these, i believe, is his rejection of the tendency of thin-skinned (or maliciously motivated) people across the country to claim to be offended by artistic and literary works. If you're easily offended, he argues, don't read the book, look at the painting or open the website that offends you, but don't prevent the artist or writer from enjoying his constitutionally protected freedom of expression. What is vital, according to Justice Kaul, is to look at the work of art from the artist's point of view — his or her intent rather than the hyper-sensitive viewer's reaction. Lest he be promptly denounced by the Hindutva brigade as a deracinated pseudo-secularist, the judge wisely cites Swami Vivekananda's words in defence of his approach: "We tend to reduce everyone else to the limits of our own mental universe and begin privileging our own ethics, morality, sense of duty and even our sense of utility. All religious conflicts arose from this propensity to judge others. If we indeed must judge at all, then it must be 'according to his own ideal, and not by that of anyone else'. It is important, therefore, to learn to look at the duty of others through their own eyes and never judge the customs and observances of others through the prism of our own standards." But Justice Kaul goes even further in extending the boundaries of the permissible in India. Nudity and sex, he argues, have an honoured place in art and literature: "In the land of the Kama Sutra, we shy away from its very name?" he asks in surprise. "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and so does obscenity.... (In Indian tradition) Sex was embraced as an integral part of a full and complete life. It is most unfortunate that India's new 'puritanism' is being carried out in the name of cultural purity and a host of ignorant people are vandalising art and pushing us towards a pre-Renaissance era." This is wonderful language in a High Court judgement. Readers should remember that India, unlike the US, has no absolute right to freedom of expression; in our country, Article 19 (2) says that freedom of speech can be curbed by "reasonable restrictions... in the interests of (the sovereignty and integrity of India) the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence." In other words, a differently-minded judge could have easily interpreted the language about public order, decency and morality more narrowly. We Indians are fortunate that a series of judgements over the years, culminating in this one, have tilted the balance decisively in favour of our freedoms. Justice Kaul is sensitive to the charge that liberal attitudes to art and obscenity reflect the inclinations of a privileged minority and that most Indians might indeed be offended by the kind of art his judgement protects. He writes: "Democracy has wider moral implications than mere majoritarianism. A crude view of democracy gives a distorted picture. A real democracy is one in which the exercise of the power of the many is conditional on respect for the rights of the few... In real democracy the dissenter must feel at home and ought not to be nervously looking over his shoulder fearing captivity or bodily harm or economic and social sanctions for his unconventional or critical views. There should be freedom for the thought we hate. Freedom of speech has no meaning if there is no freedom after speech. The reality of democracy is to be measured by the extent of freedom and accommodation it extends." These words should give heart not just to M F Husain, but to artists and writers across the country, who in recent years have found themselves the victims of other people's hyper-sensitivities. "Intolerance," Justice Kaul writes, "is utterly incompatible with democratic values. This attitude is totally antithetical to our Indian psyche and tradition." He goes on to warn that the criminal justice system "ought not to be invoked as a convenient recourse to ventilate any and all objections to an artistic work" and be used as a "tool" in unscrupulous hands to violate the rights of artists. The judge declares that "a magistrate must scrutinise each case in order to prevent vexatious and frivolous cases from being filed and make sure that it is not used as a tool to harass the accused, which will amount to gross abuse of the process of the court.... (A)part from the harassment element there would be growing fear and curtailment of the right of the free expression in such creative persons." He decries "the large number of incidents of such complaints .... resulting in artists and other creative persons being made to run across the length and breadth of the country to defend themselves against criminal proceedings initiated by oversensitive or motivated persons, including for publicity." Let us hope his words are heeded and that the remaining cases against Husain — there are still three pending — will also soon be withdrawn. In the meantime, Justice Kaul's ruling is a remarkable charter for artistic freedom in India. "I have penned this judgment," he concludes, "with the fervent hope that it is a prologue to a broader thinking and greater tolerance for the creative field." Every thinking Indian concerned about freedom of expression should join in the applause.
1 Jun 2008, 0233 hrs IST, Shashi Tharoor
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com