Maqbool Fida Hussain Is No More

As we go to press news has come from London that Maqbool Fida Hussain, 96, the legendary Indian artist who was a veritable global colossus in the art world, breathed his last at the Royal Brompton Hotel at 2.30 am local time on June 9, 2011. He was keeping indifferent health for a month-and-a-half and is learnt to have finally died of lung congestion.

Described by the Forbes magazine as the ‘Picasso of India’, the iconographic artist and painter was in self-exile for the last several years (even though his heart was all along in this country, especially Mumbai) because of the death-threat to him from a fringe section of our society. Those who threatened him apparently claimed that their religious sentiments were hurt by some of Hussain’s works depicting Indian goddesses in bad light but, as actress Shabana Azmi pointed out, they actually used that claim “as a peg on which they could hang their political agenda”. The artist eventually took the citizenship of Qatar sometime ago.

Asserting that he had “deep roots in India’s soil and syncretic culture”, Shabana said she had personal knowledge of that and hence “he was so sorry that he could not return to India”, adding: “Of course, the government did not provide him the sense of security to stay in India. But we as a country, and that includes me, did not do enough to help him return home.” In this context she laid the blame on the civil society as a whole for not adequately striving to ensure Hussain’s return to India.

Her views were shared by Gulzar, the reputed poet and film director, who said: “This repentance (of not enabling him to come back) will be with us for a long time.” He also felt that all of us “should have brought him back with respect and affection”.

Hussain’s demise abroad has been mourned by one and all as a national loss. His greatness was also manifest in the fact that he neither carried any ill-will nor harbour any bitterness towards those who had threatened him, thererby exposing the short stature of his detractors in comparison with him.

Following the attacks on his paintings N.C. wrote a piece (published in this journal on October 26, 1996) wherein he observed:

...One of the groups, the Bajrang Dal, attacked a well-known art gallery in Ahmedabad and tore out Hussain’s paintings and made a bonfire of them. This shocking example of vandalism has evoked widespread condem-nation from a large body of intellectuals while artists at a number of places have come out to demonstrate their resentment against this piece of intolerance and vandalism. Undaunted, the President of the Mumbai branch of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has now come with a new offer for truce with Hussain. He wants Hussain himself to destroy the paintings to which the VHP and its fellow-travelling crusaders have objected, as a Dussehra reconciliation. Obviously, this move has clear communal overtones: A Muslim artist cannot be permitted to depict Hindu gods and goddesses as he likes. Ironically, these fanatics want our people to forget that most of the religious festivals in our country cut across the communal divide. The best of the idol-makers for Dussehra in Calcutta, for instance, are Muslim potters for generations.

After all the vandalism committed, this spate of threats makes it abundantly clear that the fanatic fringe which has arrogated to itself the role of the upholder of morals as per its own book would pursue the persecution of all those who are their target. Today the target is Hussain. Tomorrow it may be an author or a dancer. And let us not forget, it is the same mentality of blatant fanaticism that had fired the bullet that killed Gandhi. In the year earmarked for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of our achieving independence, it is an ominous sign that this country has within its fold such fanatics that would not hesitate to destroy our hard-earned democracy.

In conclusion, one can only repeat the lamen-tations of Shabana: “..if only sufficient efforts had been made by all of us to bring him back!” In that case his last rites could have been performed here with national honours that he richly deserved.