Great Artist Who Practiced Selective Immodesty

M. F. Hussain is dead. Long live his sane-paintings.

Yes. there are insane-paintings too. When he selectively (he had painted his own relatives, friends and fellow religionists in fully-clad forms) depicted Hindu Gods in nude/porn forms, he had crossed all the limits of artstic decency .

He had not expressed regret. Instead, he chose to verbally attack all those who have expressed their displeasure and moved to courts against him. Facing non-bailable arrest warrant, he fled the country of his birth, a tolerant democracy, to Qatar. He accused Indian society as intolerant of artistic freedom, and selected Qatar, an Islamic theocracy, as his new home. Perhaps it was a great nation on earth which has respected artistic freedom to the core!

No doubt he was a talented artist. One can always call M F Hussain, a great artist. But was he a great human being too?

Historically, we can recognize a form of human weakness that attributes great virtues to great achievers without any proof!

People who have opposed M. F. Hussain's obscene paintings of Hindu Gods/Godesses are now being portrayed as extremists. It seems, some of our politicians and media persons are determined to carry forward the tradition of attacking Hindus.

But reality is different  People, who peacefully opposed Hussain's pornographic art were not extremists. They were just ordinary people who got upset. They were the members of the civil society. There were doctors, lawyers, journalists, teachers, students, Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

Artistic freedom does not mean that you can do mean things. Freedom is always a subject of decency and morality. You cannot violate artistic decency to show that you have artistic freedom. Even corrupt politicians take people to courts when they feel they are being "defamed".

Communities also get upset when they feel their sacred symbols are being desecrated.

Anyway, artists have excluded Prophet Muhammad from their canvas, isn't it? They have done it (barring one or two incidents) in good faith. Mutual respect is the key. Then why one should insult Hindus?

We all do not want child-porn. No artist can paint child-pornography. Laws will not permit that. Similarly, M. F. Hussain's God-pornography should be opposed too. And it was opposed by the civil society for that reason only.

There are limitations to artistic expressions. Child porn is universally banned. Likewise, God- porn depictions must also be banned. Civil society should not be assaulted in the name of artistic expressions.

It must be saved from art-attacks.

The quest for a theory of everything

This is an age of reasoning. Man has become more inquisitive. He is trying to understand the physical world in its entirety. A-theory-of-everything is the latest mantra of scientists. New mathematics is being developed to assist this exercise.

I think we have to tread a long way before we arrive at a mathematical unification. Still, it will be a "mathematical solution" and very difficult, if not impossible, to verify it through experimental physics.

LHC experiments to find "God particle" has a long way to go. It would take many decades, perhaps centuries, to process the huge data, to be gathered by these experiments.

Quantum mechanics is opposite of relativity theories. Currently string theory is doing the rounds and is the sole `hope' for the unified theory. Still, dark matter and black holes are not "revealing" themselves!

We are the creatures of three-dimensional world. Now scientists are talking about ten-dimensions and hyperspace! The latest researches point out, that, probably, we would never be able to unravel the secrets of the universe, or, at least, in the lifetime of our planet.

Is it skeptical view? I do not know. Our mathematics has not yet developed to suit the proportions and complexities of the universe.

We have had great scientists. Isaac Newton was a great genius. He developed mathematics on his own to present his own theories. We need many more such geniuses today.

Yes, we are progressing well towards a “theory of everything”. But time will certainly take stock of all theories. We had to believe Newton's static universe until Einstein and Edward Hubble showed us "different truths".

It is also true that human mind or intellect has its own limitations. Ancient Indians realized it and resorted to indirect methods in their quest for “ultimate reality”.

Upanishads and Geertha say Atma or Brahman is Shuddha, Buddha, Nithya, Anadi, Anantha and Achintya. It is Self and Him, says Advaita Vedanta.

Geetha says Atman is more sookshma than Paramanu, which is the smallest representative of the physical world in ancient books (we can include sub-atomic particles also, and everything including quarks and boson within Paramanu). Atman or Brahman is non-physical, space-less and time-less.

As we are the creatures of three-dimensional world, we can not visualize spaceless-ness and timeless-ness in our minds (time is also a physical dimension). Naasadeeya Sookta of Rgveda recognizes this.

That is why Adi Shankaracharya had to take different, a negative, route, to put-forth what he wanted to convey. That route is Neti, Neti, means Atman is NOT this, and NOT that. By trying to show what is NOT atman, he believed, that he can, to an extent, make us understand the true swaroopa of Him.

That is the limitation of languages. Timeless, space-less, beginning-less and end-less state of being is hard to realize and visualize. It is only a matter experience in the form of consciousness.

Atmajnani cannot explain physical / biological sciences.  But he (she or anything) has no need to "understand" the physical, "unreal", world, the domain of "scientists".

But I find universe as a different thing, in the sense that it is a physical world. But I also believe that at the highest level, physical science has to be one with spiritual reality.

As for theory-of-everything with regard to the physical world, we need to have a more advanced mathematics, for it is the language of the nature (Apara Vidya). For that, we need to wait for a while.

Here, we have a great paradox. More we dig up the cosmos; we end up with more questions!

That is the beauty of science. Worldly life (loukika jeevana) will be exciting only if something remains to be known! Certainly ignorance is not bliss, the path of trying to acquire knowledge is blissful!

I do not think everything with regard to the universe or physical world will be explained to everyone's satisfaction in the near future. Again, that theory-of-everything will be open for further assessments. Now, even Einstein's relativity theories (vis-à-vis space-time) are being reassessed.

The vastness and complexities of the universe will engage human mind endlessly!

(C) G. ANIL KUMAR 2010.

Do our “leaders” have conscience like Roh Moo Hyun?

Like Rajiv Gandhi, he started out as a promising national leader. Like Rajiv Gandhi again, he ended up in corruption scandals. But unlike Rajiv Gandhi, he took all the blame, took his conscience as his guide, became sensitive to public mood and … committed suicide.

That was South Korea’s former president Roh Moo-Hyun. He was a human rights lawyer. He worked for student activists of South Korea and worked for national unity. In 2003 he became the 16th president of his country. So far so good.

But gradually he drifted towards incompetence and corruption and ended his presidency in 2008 with eroded public support. Later, bribery scandals surrounded him. During his leadership his Uri Party had collapsed like a pack of cards.

Roh succumbed to temptation while in office. He succumbed to internal pressure afterwards. He did not want to show his face to the public anymore. After leaving a suicide note, he jumped from a mountain cliff on 23 May 2009 [His funeral on 29 May was possibly the largest-ever attended popular gathering in recent memory, an indication of public forgiveness of a tarnished hero - editor].

Can we ever imagine such a situation in India? I am not glorifying the suicide. Suicides of politicians are not uncommon in the world. Even Adolf Hitler had committed suicide. Death would never wash off one’s sins or misdeeds. Japan has a large list of politicians who have committed suicide in the midst of scandals. Suicide is not self-sacrifice. But we need to note Roh’s sensitivity to public opinion.

This brings us to an important question: how many Rohs do we have in India? Wikipedia has a huge list of politicians who have committed suicide. But there are no Indian names in that list. There are two reasons for this. One, Indian thought does not believe in the finality of death. Secondly, Indian politicians are “mature enough” to defend themselves even against glaring evidences!

Leave suicide aside. How many of our ministers, Chief Ministers and Prime Ministers have voluntarily resigned over corruption and criminal allegations? We always cite the example of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who resigned as a Union Minister for Railways, after a train accident in 1956. Only one example!

Leave the old-timers aside. Take Rajiv Gandhi, widely regarded as a young, modern and promising leader. As Prime Minister, the purported “Mr. Clean” faced many allegations like the Bofors payoffs, Octavio Quattrocchi’s escapades, and dirty money from the KGB, etc. Although he was personally implicated in the scandals, he never offered to resign to facilitate an impartial investigation (he was posthumously cleared of the Bofors allegation in 2004 due to “lack of evidence”).

Mr. V.P. Singh, who uncovered the Bofors scandal as Rajiv’s Defense Minister, did nothing to take the investigation to its logical end when he became Prime Minister! P.V. Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda, Inder Gujral and Atal Bihari Vajpayee also could not get any conviction in the Bofors case. P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister was associated with various corruption charges such as the JMM bribery scandal, St. Kitts forgery scandal, Harshad Mehta’s bribery allegation and stock market scandal, Lakhubhai Pathak cheating scandal. He never consulted his “insider” then.

This is the situation in India. What sort of sensitiveness can be expected from persons like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Shibu Soren, Mayawati, Sonia Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Karunanidhi, Deve Gowda, and Jayalalithaa? Insensitiveness to public opinion is now being regarded as an “important quality” to “survive” in politics!

Until 1999, BJP leaders were able to keep themselves away from major corruption charges, although in public perception not all of them were clean. In 2000, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s decision to ‘let off’ Mauritius-based foreign institutional investors over the double taxation issue became a major controversy. He did not offer to resign.

In 2001, the then BJP president Bangaru Laxman was involved in a major controversy. Tehelka.com showed him taking bribes on a hidden camera. He did not volunteer to quit, but was forced to step down as a criminal case was registered against him. Even then he termed the event as “a conspiracy to sideline a dalit leader”!

Former Union Minister and Congress leader Sukh Ram was unperturbed when convicted in the disproportionate assets case recently. His illegal assets included Rs 2.45 crores in cash, recovered from his official residence in Delhi, and Rs 1.16 crore from his house in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh. These were amassed during 1991 to 1996 when he was a minister. He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and fined Rs 2 lakh. The Special CBI Court also ordered forfeiture of his disproportionate assets. All that Sukh Ram had to say was: “This is a conspiracy by my enemies to finish me”!

No question of morality, no call of conscience, no explanation, no sense of responsibility, no sensitivity!

The list of insensitive Indian leaders is endless. Among these Sonia Gandhi has cultivated a unique formula: “never respond to allegations”. She has not responded to any of the myriad serious allegations made against her!

In a brilliant article (http://www.boloji.com/myword/mw042.htm) columnist Rajinder Puri unearths many skeletons from her closet:–

“Dr. Yevgenia Albats is a Soviet journalist who officially investigated the KGB when the communist regime was still in control. She was appointed as a member of the official KGB Commission set up by President Yeltsin in 1991. She had full access to secret files of the KGB. She authored a book, The State within a State: KGB and Its Hold on Russia… After translating official KGB documents Dr. Albats disclosed in her book that KGB chief Victor Chebrikov in December 1985 had sought in writing from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), ‘authorization to make payments in US dollars to the family members of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, namely Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Ms Paola Maino, mother of Sonia Gandhi.’ CPSU payments were authorized by a resolution, CPSU/CC/No 11228/3 dated 20/12/1985; and endorsed by the USSR Council of Ministers in Directive No 2633/Rs dated 20/12/1985. These payments had been coming since 1971, as payments received by Sonia Gandhi’s family and “have been audited in CPSU/CC resolution No 11187/22 OP dated 10/12/1984.”

“… In 1992 the media confronted the Russian government with the Albats disclosure. The Russian government confirmed the veracity of the disclosure and defended it as necessary for “Soviet ideological interest”. The Hindu of July 4, 1992 carried this report. Mr. AG Noorani included this information in an article published in The Statesman of January 31, 1998. In December 2001, Dr. Subramanian Swamy filed a Writ Petition in the Delhi High Court with relevant KGB photocopies and sought a CBI investigation. In May 2002 the Court ordered CBI to ascertain from Russia the truth of these charges. The CBI stalled for two years and eventually told the Court that without a registered FIR the Russians would not entertain any such query. But why was not an FIR registered? ... In November 1991 the respected Swiss magazine, Schweitzer Illustrate, published a report alleging that Rajiv Gandhi had 2.5 billion Swiss francs, equivalent roughly to two billion US dollars, in numbered Swiss bank accounts.”

Where is Sonia Gandhi’s famous “inner voice”? Doesn’t she owe an explanation? Among leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Roh Moo Hyun stands out as a sterling example. He could have apologized and started out afresh after serving his jail term. But that requires a different personality.

Our own “leaders” defend themselves against all glaring evidences and shift all blame on others till eternity! Roh did not do that.