(Inside Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai)
If I could believe my eyes and invest my faith in technology
aided communication like an email, then I should say that the cultural
discourse in India has hit a new low with the advent of the right wing thoughts
within the cultural establishments. With Members of Parliament extolling pseudo-science
as the ultimate scientific innovations of India for the global countries to
emulate, citing mythology as non-verifiable proof but adamantly asserted dictum
which should not be disputed and also with some from the same fold wanting to
rename many an establishment including the highest educational establishments
in India in the name of the head of the present administrative dispensation,
and also with the citizens being segregated based on their intelligence
quotient (ironically, the ones who have it a lot go lower in the rungs and the
ones who despise it and turn sycophants go higher up in the social ranking) one
could just imagine that things are not going to be as expected in the previous
years.
Mumbai’s prestigious cultural museum namely Bhau Daji Lad
Museum has sent out an invitation, which apparently looks harmless but is
loaded with political suggestions and directions that the country has already
taken. If someone is not heeding to the hints then they should take a good
notice of it and behave or simply vanish from the cultural scene. Had it been
in the yester years none would have noticed it at all: the illustrious and also
rebellious and cutting edge museum celebrating ‘Krishna Ashtami’ or
alternatively called Janma Ashtami, the birthday celebrations of the
mythological character, Lord Krishna. There had been many exhibitions titled,
Yoga, Kriya, Karma, Ardhanareeswara, Laya, Siva-Shakti, Spiritual Meanderings
and so on. None took offence or objection to any of those titles. Maximum response
of the intelligent was a meaningful smile. In Delhi, I have had so many reasons
to keep smiling all these years. But with the new exhibition coming from one of
the cutting edge museums in the country, the smile on my face and on the other
faces must be a bit wry and contorted; one could see how the tides are changing
and the cheering of celebrations turning into a war cry which would instill
fear in the minds of the intellectuals who are now the most ‘unwanted’
creatures in the new India under the new government.
(Facade of Bhau Daji Lad Museum)
Bhau Daji Lad museum is not doing anything other than showcasing
the Pahari miniatures that depict Krishan story, from its good repertoire.
There is nothing wrong when it falls on the same day of Krishnanshtami. But
what makes it eerie and ironic is the museum going out and out and telling the
world that it is celebrating Lord Krishna’s birth with an interesting
exhibition. Nowhere in the world today do we see museums doing shows that
really celebrate religion or religious art. Even if they do, it is always done
in an academic context or in the context of a survey of religious artefacts and
icons. There is always a space for problematizing and vivifying the iconography
and epistemology of images. There is always a space for understanding the myth
in a non-religious context. Even the Biblical art today has turn to an academic
field of research and study, and of course aesthetical enjoyment, nor really
about the transcendental understanding or meditation that the people are
expected to have while standing before them.
What Bhau Daji Lad museum gives is a new context where the
Pahari Miniatures which have been hitherto an academic as well as aesthetical
field of enquiry, or an interesting interface to probe the lineage of artisanal
traditions in India (as done by Dr.B.N.Goswami) could turn into an interface
for an extremely different aesthetical discourse, laden with religious meanings
and loaded with religio-political intentions. Interestingly Bhau Daji Lad
Museum was in the eye of the storm because the land mafia had made some
encroachments while alleging that it was the museum that had made the
encroachments. The cultural leaders in Mumbai stood with the Bhau Daji Lad
Museum administration and even the rightwing government of the state had
relented and let the museum function without much problem. Today the scenario
is different. With an absolute majority in both in the state assembly and in
the parliament, the writing on the wall is very clear; the government just does
not want any ‘rebellious art’ to be featured. Anything and everything that
should take place within the Indian museums should be something related to the
so called Indian tradition, preferably the Hindu tradition. The Museum authorities
have toed the line.
(Historical remain in the Bhau Daji Lad museum campus)
Bhau Daji Lad museum is the latest wicket that has fallen
and the bowling is in the body line nature and there are no many good batsmen
left on the crease. The National Gallery of Modern Art (D, B and M) have
already made alterations in programing according to the present government and
its ideology. Artists who are featured in these museums, even if they are not
for the present government, their art could be interpreted as something that
works ‘for’ the government’s ideology in the long run. We could call such art ‘harmless’
art. And it shows that the future of Indian art is going to be replete with a
lot of abstract art works and religiously or spiritually inclined works. We
have to wait and see how our art fairs are going to respond to such turn of the
winds. The mainstream galleries have already started putting up harmless
exhibitions and many a small gallery has downed the shutters. Even if they come
back, it is not so complicated to think that their shows would have something
to do with either dominant religion or with abstraction that pushes the works
towards the so called spirituality.
Government of India is on the way to clear the cultural atmosphere
of this country of the smoke that has been created by the secular art and also
by the pluralistic traditions of India. With the country’s patronage also plays
the same game of the government we cannot expect that there could a different patronage
coming out in support and if they do they would be clamped sooner than later as
we have seen in the case of the Infosys Foundation. So folks, here we are.
Fasten your seatbelts and we are about to take off to a sky path where only
conformists could feel all comfort. Be ready with your paper bags; you may
retch at any time out of that bad feeling of having eaten that rotten sandwich.
n
JohnyML
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