The attack by Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists on the Garden Art Gallery of Textiles and Art in Surat, belonging to the owner of the Garden Silk Mills and art collector, Praful Shah, in which an innocuous painting of a woman holding a parrot done by MF Husain some thirty years ago was destroyed, and two water-colours of Bali temples by NS Bendre, some nudes by KH Ara, and a Durga by one of the most promising young artists of Bengal today, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, were damaged, ought to concern us as investors.
This is especially so as this attack follows closely on the attack by a similar outfit on the Bhandarkar institute in Pune, resulting in the destruction of priceless manuscripts and books. There are brigades here in our country of elements akin to those who looted the museums of Iraq, destroying artifacts that are irreplaceable today.
This ought to warn us that one of the major threats to the present world order is from among those who swear by the principles of the market economy and of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation. After all, what use an organisation like the World Trade Organisation and its complex network of bilateral and multilateral agreements if profit is ultimately to be based on plunder?
Essentially, the capitalist system rests on the legal distinction between legally acceptable exploitation and illegal theft. Once this distinction is done away with, the system as a whole collapses. It is only by preventing such brigandage that it perseveres. And when such brigandage gets support from the pillars of the establishment, it ends up by destroying the states it takes root in. The history of Hitler?s Germany is proof enough of it if any is required. So the investor must always be wary of giving in to such forces.
It is unfortunate that Shah, whose collection was vandalised, is taking a stand that ?We will ask them to tell us whatever is objectionable and we are willing to put it aside?. This is precisely how the avant garde quality of our contemporary art that makes it worth investing in will be lost and our art will become conventional second-class material. This will not only take away the rosy future our contemporary art has today in the global art market, it will also tend to limit the value of the contemporary art of the past as merely a flash in the pan. Investors like Shah must learn to confront these savages to protect their investments just as they protect them from robbers and stockmarket scamsters. It just will not do to go in for censorship by these brigades.
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Homeward Bound: Oil on canvas by NS Bendre |
They neither have the knowledge in art nor sympathy for it to be any kind of guides for its development. The very quality of originality, irreverence and radical expression that gives our contemporary art its edge and consequently its value, is what they want to suppress. It will prove disastrous for the art market if their views are not countered by collectors and galleries alike. In fact, if jewellers can protect jewellry with armed guards then galleries ought also to do the same with art works. Art works are expensive enough for that.
Moreover, protecting a market that gives better returns than even real estate should be the task of all levels of people engaged in the art trade. Artists have consistently taken a correct stand on this issue. Even this time, Rekha Rodwittiya, a leading artist living in Vadodara, has given a call that galleries which choose to exhibit works of art must also be prepared to defend the right to free expression in the face of self appointed guardians of good taste. Before this, hundreds of artists, gallery owners, critics and art lovers came out against the detractors of MF Husain all over the country. Now their attack has engulfed NS Bendre, KH Ara, Bhupen Khakhar and Chittrovanu Mazumdar as well. The whole of over contemporary art is under attack. And this form of censorship, if it succeeds, will definitely make our art less competitive globally.
In whose interest would that be? Obviously the US and Western art with which we compete in the world market. So I am not surprised that the outfits involved in this outrage are liberally funded by agencies based in these countries. As such, I see this form of vandalism as part and parcel of the unfair trading practices resorted to by the rich and powerful of the world against their developing neighbours. This must be prevented. So artists, gallery owners, critics and collectors must come together to prevent a lucrative form of investment that has evolved in our country over the last few decades from being destroyed altogether. They must come together and push back these disruptive forces before they destroy not only the art of the national movement, but its other gains as well. The art market alone is not under threat from these forces, as the losses of businesses in the Gujerat pogrom testify. The protection of our investments from such forces has become a pressing need today that cannot wait.