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Hurt sentiments and moral policing

Hurt sentiment in India has become a cynical euphemism for moral policing and vigilantism. The recent incidents in Gujarat relating to Chandramohan, a fine arts student of Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, highlight this. A gang of Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists enters the institution, roughs up the young artist, and vandalises his on-campus exhibition. The local police arrest him under Section 153(A) of the Indian Penal Code, which relates to the promotion of enmity and the hurting of religious sentiment. The artist spends almost a week behind bars before being granted bail. The Chandramohan incident — which follows the M.F. Husain and Shilpa Shetty controveries — points to a rising tide of intolerance and fanaticism. The charge that Chandramohan's works offended Hindu and Christian religious sentiments makes no sense given the context in which the works were displayed. The faculty of MS University has clarified that they were part of a student exhibition, an exercise that was wholly internal and academic. Given this, what possible offence could they have caused except to the fanatical storm troopers?

The answer is none at all. But the pattern of the attack, the ideological affiliation of the mob, and the high-decibel sound bites to television cameras suggest that the reason for creating the controversy has little to do with sentiment and a lot to do with politics. It is an irony that organisations that thrive on promoting enmity between communities routinely accuse others — artists, filmmakers, actors, writers — of doing exactly the same. The enormous influence these groups wield in Gujarat's cultural space was reflected in MS University's outrageous decision to suspend Shivaji Panikkar, the Dean of the Fine Arts Department. It was Mr. Panikkar who mobilised democratic solidarity with his student, resisted the decision to close down the exhibition, and criticised the University authorities for buckling under pressure from extreme right wing groups. The community of artists, to whom creative freedom is like oxygen, has done well to come together in an unprecedented show of solidarity. In cases relating to cultural freedom, the lower courts have shown a tendency to accommodate vexatious complaints rather than dismiss them with exemplary penalties. By doing so, they have provided the space for moral vigilantes and mischief-makers to abuse the legal process. All democrats look up to the higher judiciary for the protection of artistic freedom and the freedom of expression guaranteed in the Constitution — and for putting an end to a distressing situation in which vandals can make a mockery of this fundamental right.

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