On Thursday 15 May 2008 8:56:42 am Charles Haynes wrote: > There are people who are offended by MF Hussain's art who find the > political response to his art to be hypocritical - politicians react > when art offends muslims, but they ignore art offensive to hindus. As > a result those people feel they need to respond directly.
Dead right > Interesting you would choose that example. I assume you are aware of > Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q? In fact I had not heard of him, although a Google and one look at the picture tells me that I have seen it before and it is likely that I have a sub-conscious memory of that picture about which I have formed an opinion. > Do you see violence as a legitimate form of criticism? This is an interesting question. Personally no, but that means zilch to Indians. As I shall explain below, the question itself may be a meaningless one for India. Violence is the most primal and basic response that humans display towards things that anger them. The behavior of Indians, where unmodified by fear of the Indian Penal Code often descends to violence. Man seen picking a pocket - thrash him. Bus in an accident? Stone the bus. Burn vehicles nearby. Fruit vendors fail to listen to calls to move out? "A good thrashing should teach them" With reference to the latter, educated and wealthy middle class residents of my locality have often said, "The police are taking bribes from fruit vendors, which is why they are not thrashing them as they should". In the UK I found that anger did not seem to be followed by violence as easily as I see in India, but the Indian police are not always at hand so soon to enforce state law, as opposed to crude "justice" I think this propensity for violence needs to be remembered by people living in India. Indians of the social class that Silklisters belong to are often exempt from this violence because they occupy the exalted position in society that the British used to occupy. But a belief by people in this social class that the IPC applies to all Indians as it applies to them is surely mistaken. India is a country in which emotions and violence often overtake and outstrip the ability of law enforcement to apply the penal code. A failure to recall this leads to the basically meaningless question that asks if violence is a legitimate form of criticism. Legitimate or not, violence is what tends to happen in India far more often than "decent society" would like to see. "Decent society" are not bothered when violence occurs to "offenders" like pickpockets. But "decent society" tend to get uptight when their backyard - the arts and other niceties of life are given the same treatment as everyone else. > > Hindus are learning that intolerance > > works as a political force. > > How do you feel about that? I feel like laughing because Hindus had been convinced by Gandhi and others that they were required to tolerate some things. The charade could last only so long. Sooner or later, the real Hindu must show up. I could probably write a lot more to explain this - but will leave it for some other time. shiv
