Google doodle reminds us of the landmarks in art history.
Today, Google tells us, is M.F.Husain’s 100th birthday. Does it matter
anymore to us? He was a Qatari citizen towards the end of his life and was in
no mood of returning to India, where he happened to spent the major part of his
lifetime. A real international citizen, Husain lived his life the way he
wanted. He died in London. Had he been living, he would have been a hundred
year old legend. If his memory was intact today he would have woven the history
of Indian art in a magical realist fashion. He had his falls and risings. The
major fall was his adulation for Indira Gandhi during the Emergency days. Then
it was not just Husain. Khushwant Singh too had praised it and he too was not
the only one. Husain could redeem himself by shifting his focus from Indira
Gandhi to Madhuri Dixit and then to Vidya Balan. Before he could eye other
dames in the Indian silver screen, the Hindu fundamentalists had done the job.
Husain was on the run since then. Don’t mistake Husain’s or Rushdie’s or
Taslima’s running from fatwas and their sudden found identity as asylum seekers
with that of the millions of refugees running away from war torn Syria and
other East African countries to the western world. There is also qualitative
difference in asylum seeking. Your dead bodies will not be washed ashore if you
are already a celebrity. You get body guards, palaces and Ferraris.
I am not planning to go delve much on Husain. On the
contrary, I want to connect the Husain case with the recent Fatwa issued
against the legendary music composer, A.R.Rahman and the Iranian film director
Majid Majidi by a Mumbai based Sunni organization called Raza Academy (not to
be confused with our own Raza of the art scene). The ‘crime’ that these two
creative geniuses have done is this: Majid Majid directed one of the most
ambitious films on Prophet Mohammed. Named ‘Mohammed: Messenger of God’ this
film has our own A.R.Rahman as the music composer. Senitments Hurtitis suddenly
come to play. Prophet Mohammed denied worshipping idols. And he asked his
followers not to capture the image of god in any physical medium. God is an
abstract concept. What a beautiful idea it was. God, the most abstract idea in
the world and one could seek God in anything. Hinduism tries it in a bit more
concrete way. It says, god resides in everything; in stones, thorns and even in
rust. If you break it Lord Narsimha will come out. The power of atoms; once
split they can destroy the world and at the same time save it. Two different
religions see gods in two different ways. But there is something called human
curiosity. When people are curious, they would ask, why so many gods (33 crore
in total). Why can’t we have something in one and the same, in an abstract
form? So there is another school of thinking which even sees God as one and the
same with the human beings and another school that denies the very existence of
god. Both go hand in hand. The same curiosity could be applicable in the case
of Prophet Mohammed. If Mohammed was a living being, why can’t he have a
physical form? Why can’t a creative magnet imagine the life and times of
Prophet Mohammed? Why shouldn’t there be some music around His life? But sentiments
hurt, especially when it is religious.
(Google Doodle for Husain's 100th Birthday today)
Sentiments hurt and religious sentiments hurt absolutely.
Suddenly, A.R.Rahman became a Muslim. Is he a Muslim? According to Rahman, he
is a Sufi. Sufis are not Muslims per se. Even if Sufis could be considered an
offshoot of Islamic thinking, why can’t Rahman give music to a movie that deals
with the life and times of Prophet Mohammed? Why should there be a Fatwa at
all? But religious fundamentals do not need a strong reason to issue a Fatwa.
The same thing also happened when the most garish movie ever made in the Indian
film history, Messenger of God- MSG by the Dera Saccha Sauda leader Gurmeet Ram
Rahim. This break away Sikh group speaks of Sikhism in a different parlance.
The mainstreamers do not like it. They fought wars on the ground and later they
fought it in theatres. Gurmeet Ram Rahim deserves no Fatwa, he just needs a
very caring advice from some brilliant film makers. He needs help. He could be
happy for his movie only because it would be archived as an example how not to
make movies. But Majid Majidi’s movie on Prophet Mohammed is a costume drama or
a Bollywood flick, where Mohammed rights a wrong world with his horses and
swords. But the Fatwa came at its heels, far from Iran, from here, from our own
Mumbai where once the people from Iran came fleeing and settled like sugar in
milk. Who cares about histories?
What interests me, perhaps is not Fatwa. But the immediate
response of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad that looks after the worldly activities
of human soul when it gets entangled in other religious faiths. Their job is to
bring the hapless souls that have strayed to other religions back to the Hindu
fold. It is called Ghar Vapsi. Rahman is one such strayed soul. He is first a
converted Hindu, then a world renowned musician, that’s the way the VHP thinks
about him. The moment the Raza Academy issued a Fatwa against Rahman, the VHP
came out in the open saying that Rahman should come back to Hinduism (not
really but to Hindutva). Once he is back to Hinduism, then no Islamic forces
could touch him. Rest assured as the rest will be handled by the VHP goons. For
the beginners, I should just say a few lines about Rahman’s religious
background. He was born to Hindu parents. His father, R.K.Shekhar was one of
the best Music Arrangers in the south Indian film industry and also had
composed independent music for a few films. Shekhar lived films and neglected
the family to certain extent. A gifted keyboard player and a child prodigy,
Dilip Kumar (A.R.Rahman later) grew up in the complete absence of his father.
When he was ten years old his father passed away. The family had no income and
Dilip Kumar had to pitch as the bread winner for the family. He stopped his
schooling and took up the job of a keyboardist with the music troupe of
Ilayaraja, another legendary composer.
(Iranian film maker Majid Majidi)
In 1987, the family of Dilip Kumar converted to Sufism. A
Hindu astrologer gave him the name ‘Alla Rakha Rahman’. In an interview with
Nasrin Munni Kabir, Rahman said that he never liked his name Dilip Kumar. He wanted
to change it. The change in religion itself was a reason to have a new name and
he settled for A.R.Rahman. Now, it is well known that Rahman takes up regular
visits to the Ajmeer Dargah in Uttar Pradesh, which considered to be a famous
Sufi Shrine along with Nizamuddin aulia’s dargah. The name Rahman and his music
were never a problem for the music lovers in India or elsewhere. In this
context we should remember the Shehnai Mastero, Ustad Bismillah Khan, who lived
and played Benaras the seat of Hinduism and played in the temple festivals
without any religious conflict. Rahman was not a problem for the Hindu fundamentalists
in India. It is so funny how Rahman’s music became a problem for the Sunni
believers. Rahman responded to his Fatwa in a very serious way. He said that he
was given the gift of music by the Allah himself. Once he is dead and there at
the Allah’s presence, what he would answer if He asks why he did not make use
of his talent for a film about the Prophet. Rahman was responding to the Fatwa
which read that he would be answerable before God once he is dead and taken
before Him.
Rahman stands at a curious threshold of Indian film music
not only because of his captivating music but because of his enigmatic persona
which is as curious as his Sufi belief. He never embraced Islam or Sufism for
marrying again. He is well settled with his wife, kids and mother. In India,
people convert to Islam only to marry twice or thrice as it is allowed in
Islam. Dharmendra converted to Islam technically to get married to Hemamalini
while keeping his first marriage going. Rahman was a different case. He came to
the national attention along with the whole crew of the film, Roja in mid
1990s. Though the Kamal Hasan starrer Nayakan had brought Mani Ratnam’s name to
the Bollywood and to the north India in general, it was Roja that consolidated
his name. Along with Mani Ratnam, the careers of Arvind Swami, Madhu (heroine)
and the music director, A.R.Rahman were also established. While Arvind Swamy,
the hero of the movie remained largely a south Indian actor, Mani preferred to
do movies first in Tamil and later in Hindi, Madhu could bag some roles in
Hindi films, it was Rahman who became the biggest achiever in the film with his
ravishing music.
(Roja poster)
Roja’s music done by Rahman was not just captivating for the
melody of it. It had a lot to do with the mainstream nationalism that was the
debating theme of the movie. Set in Kashmir, this film speaks of a hero who
would die for his country rather than yielding to the pressures of the
dissenters and terrorists. Rahman’s music was the perfect blend that brought
the ethos of nationalism with love, scenic beauty with sacrifice. The large
ensemble of violins exploding to the peak when Swamy falls on a burning Indian
flag literally placed Rahman as the musician of the nation, irrespective of his
religion. Closely followed was an assignment to redo a version of Vande
Mataram, the militant national anthem, which spuriously vies with the much more
accommodative Jan Gana Mana for attention and acclamation. Considering the
origins of the songs from Bengal, with two different mindsets to nationalism,
one could see how Vande Mataram became very palatable to the taste buds of the right
wing fundamentalists. Rahman became quickly accepted to the larger Hindu fold.
His Sufism was taken as a mid-way. In Jodha Akbar, a Hritik Roshan-Aishwaray
Rai starrer movie that brought the idea of religious integration through the
marriage of a Rajput woman and the Mughal Monarch, Akbar, Rahman composed the
songs and even sang one of the best kawalis every produced in Indian music
industry with the lyrics going Kwaja mere Khwaja. Rahman was an integrating
figure.
Now Rahman is suddenly pushed to the Muslim identity. If he
is a Muslim, then only he could be afraid of the fatwa. As he is given a Fatwa
by an Islamic group, he should be a Muslim. There goes our common place logic.
So there is no other way for him to remain as a Muslim or Sufi. If he remains
there he would attacked. To escape the attack he should come back to the same
Hindu fold from which he had walked off out of ‘ignorance’ at some point of
time. It was a mistake as far as the VHP is concerned and they are ready to
forgive Rahman. It sounds exactly like a film plot much consumed in India. A
hero is weak till he realizes his origins. That is always Brahminical Hindu
origins. The moment he comes to know about it by a crisis or by the
intervention of a God (if you need religious approval) or by the revelation of
a scientist or a social worker or a historian (that gives a larger and logical
appeal to the public), he becomes strong and invincible. Nobody could match up
to him then. Rahman is exhorted to realize and recognize his origins as a
Hindu. They are calling him back to the fold so that his soul and body could be
saved?
The question is, doesn’t it show the other side of the same
terrorism that the Sunni Academy wants to perpetuate by issuing a Fatwa. It
almost sounds like that if Rahman remains what he is today, the Sunnis will
torture him and as he is a Muslim and refuses to come back to the original
fold, then the VHP also would torture him on that very refusal. Then their sentiments
get hurt and the displaced target would be A.R.Rahman himself. If the VHP
activists are really real and they are nationalistic as they claim to be, don’t
you think that it is their responsibility to act against the Fatwa itself than
targeting the victim on the same basis of religion? It is here I think of
M.F.Husain. If Husain had taken up his boyhood days of growing up in Pandarpur
in Maharashtra and involving in all the religious festivals and the number of
time he has painted Ganesh for the consideration of the right wing
fundamentalists and had expressed his willingness to convert to Hinduism,
wouldn’t he have been saved from the disgrace of becoming a refugee by the fag
end of his life? Why the VHP did not suggest this to him? Why they were witch
hunting him?
We are living in a very difficult time. Yesterday I came to
know about the VHP asking the superstar Rajni Kant to avoid doing a biopic on
Tipu Sultan. Rajni Kant has not replied for or against the request. But I am
sure that Rajni cannot offend the Hindu outfits in the country. He has stopped
atrocities in screen and to certain extent he had withstood the political
pressures within Tamil Nadu. But for the first time he is facing a very ugly
issue; a request to reconsider a role, not from his fans but from a religious group.
The other day, we came to know that the central government has withdrawn the
postal stamps depicting the portraits of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
Dhabolkars, Pansares and Kalburgis are getting killed every day for speaking
up. Where are we coming from, where are we going and what are we?
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