Indian Art: Where is Hussain?

"Art is a very good investment in India. Shopping in a few years now and the value is multiplied, "he has a gallery on the first International Art Fair in India. The organizers take chest by list of artists, over 200, and 35 leading galer ies that are represented in the Trade Fair in New Delhi, better known as Pragati Maidan.

The welcome given by a car made ​​with skeletons paste, to which visitors, unaccustomed to contemporary art, taking photos with smiles. After loitering for the jobs of the galleries, where abstract paintings are interspersed with experimental portraits of Gandhi and other reasons which prove the existence of an "Indian way" for contemporary art.

The artists roam sandals give visitors little more elegant to ensure their sensitivity squeals from the crowd. A fair, it seems, the most homologous with the West. "The Indian market 'says in a statement the organization-has grown by 485 percent in the last decade, making it the fourth most buoyant in the world."

And business people rush to buy Souzas of HTAs me of Burmans, new names that are slowly populating the walls busiest in India. In all but one: MF Husain, the most media coverage of the painters, who has become the center of controversy ... without being present in the sample.

"We did get a warning (to the galleries) of the real risk of including Husain" he told the Hindustan Times Sunil Gautam, director of the organization. "The exposure is worth millions of dollars and thousands of visitors."

But Husain is a dangerous man? ¿Threatens his professional colleagues, destroys their works? Far from reality: Husain, 93 and known as the "Picasso of India", lives between Dubai and London and want to return home, but can not.

What he fears the organization, in fact, is that exposure of any of his paintings attract the attention and ire of the "moral police" India, the name given in India conservative groups trying to maintain a strictly-for them and others, the tradition and standards of "decency" in the country.

T o Husain, the problems began in 1996, in his eighties, coinciding with the publication in a magazine several nude portraits of Hindu goddesses made ​​in the seventies. The article, entitled "A painter of flesh", was the presentation of eight complaints against the artist for "inciting religious hatred."

Although the charges were later dismissed by the courts, Husain received death threats and his house was attacked by a group of Hindu radicals destroyed several of his works. The painter left India and now in exile, he saw from afar a new controversy, this time a couple of years.

The painting in question, "Bharat Mata" ("Mother India"), depicting a naked woman superimposed on the map of India and the names of some parts written in your body. Was displayed in an exhibition on Kashmir, and automatically received criticism from Hindu groups like the VHP (World Hindu Organization).

The painter apologized for his work, promised to withdraw from the auction s and since then awaits his chance to return to India. "The only way is perhaps the Conservatives return to power Hindus" he said recently, hoping that they could control their own members to avoid attacks on this "old man".

But Husain is actually just one of the sights of the most radical organizations in India, as the RSS, the Shiv Sena or VHP on the Hindu and the SIMI and fundamentalist clerics at the head Muslim.

Their activities, and other groups of fast nerve-van since the sack of newspaper offices for publishing articles disadvantages to destroying movie theaters to project films considered offensive. His list includes "cheer-leaders" of cricket, the caricatur ists bold or foul-mouthed actors.

Thus, the Muslim tennis player Sania Mirza in India does not play by the criticism of the apparel, the writer Taslima Nasreen had to leave Calcutta for his criticism of Muslims, actress Khusboo threw tomatoes to break a lance in favor of sex premarital ...

A long statement, in short, of offenses against the tradition that often ends with the apologies of the characters, prior violence or court action. "I understand the organizers of the art show, is resigned Husain, aimed at reconciling or Stockholm syndrome. In India there are 2,500 complaints against me. "

Shortly before the start of the exhibition, the Ministry of Culture issued a commu nicated denial "have been consulted about the artists in the exhibition." In other words, praising the freedom of expression appropriate vechando this time the buck was from another: "We would be happy if all the great artists, including paintings by Husain, were represented."

This time, the painter has been supported by the organization of artists SAHMAT, which has organized an exhibition solidarity parallel where there are 20 of his works, but for now the champions of the moral police have issued a verdict.

By the way, in the pompous India Art Fair, where a box of cockroaches vanguard entertains visitors or where the outline of a train station marks the colorism of Indian painting, the first Indian Art Fair, I say, there many portraits of women in sari, but not a single naked.

Photographs: MF Husain, his "Bharat Mata", an untouchable flees after being stripped for protesting.