THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Economist and State Planning Board vice-chairman Prabhat Patnaik has said that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) attack on the creative works of a student of the M. S. University, Baroda, his arrest and suspension of the Dean of the Department of Fine Arts are a clear attack on artistic freedom.

Participating in a meeting here on Monday to protest the attack and the action against the Dean, Prof. Patnaik said nobody who valued artistic freedom could tolerate such incidents.

"It is a clear case of political manipulation of people's religious sentiments to stifle creativity and democracy," he said.

Prof. Patnaik said the issue did not involve any conflict between artistic creativity and people's religious sentiments as the exhibition, said to have angered the VHP activists, was not a public event but an internal display for evaluation of the art students' works.

The attack on the student's works amounted to intrusion into university space and, therefore, everybody who believes in creative freedom must protest, he said.

Senior journalist B.R.P. Bhaskar said what had happened at the M.S. University was nothing but a continuation of the `fascist activities' going on for some time now. The attack showed that the academic freedom of universities is in peril. Gods and goddesses have only the forms that have been given to them by artists and poets and, therefore, the attacks could only be seen as a sign of the `intolerance' of the Hindutva forces, he said.

Thiruvananthapuram College of Fine Arts principal Ajaya Kumar chaired the meeting. Artists and cultural activists M.M. Rimson, K.P. Kumaran, P.J. Cherian, Reghoothaman, J. Devika, Savithri Rajeevan, Alex Mathew and Jeevan Thomas, among others, spoke.

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