M. F. Hussain’s ‘Mother India’ draws protests.
M. F. Hussain is one of India’s most celebrated artists. His art is auctioned at prestigious venues across the world for considerable sums of money. At the same time, he has always had a precarious reputation with many Hindus. His work has always pushed the boundaries of what is considered artistically sensible.Hussain’s art often takes a Hindu theme. Nothing wrong with that, most of the time. But it gets a bit pushy when we see paintings that show Sita masturbating on the tail of Hanuman. Or Parvati fornicating with a bull while husband Shiva looks on. Or Goddess Durga in union with her lion. Up until now, Hindus have (with the exception of the odd murmur) refused to be provoked by such paintings of Mr Hussain…
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:03 am
On the topic of art, Islam and Hinduism, a couple of random points:
1. At numerous points in the Hadith (both Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim), there are very definite injunctions against making or owning pictures of any living thing (humans/animals) so by the standards of Islam, Hussain is a sinner.
2. An interesting story was narrated by the late Ustad Bismillah Khan, the shehnai maestro, in an interview for an English documentary. At a certain concert that he was playing at, he asked some of the Hindu musicians there what was the status of music in Hinduism. They replied that it is given the highest status, being a celebrated method of worship and bringing man closer to Divinity. In politeness, they then asked him back, what the status of music was in Islam. He replied that it is absolutely forbidden in Islam. They expressed surprise and wondered how it was then that there are so many such great Muslim musicians. He replied to them that ‘just think - you people revere music so much and yet you’re no better than us at it, who are forbidden from its practice; if Islam valued music as highly as you Hindus do, just think how much greater we’d be than you!’