STOP Mr. M.F. Husain?s onslaught on Hindus.

There is lot of apathy and un-assertiveness among the Sanatan Dharmi or so called Hindus, this must be dispensed with quickly or there is going to be no future for us. Art for the sake of Art is one thing but having no regard for the subject matter is another.

Even viewing these pictures brings strange unkind unsettling emotion in any ones mind Violence is wrong, any kind of violence is wrong whether it is emotional, physical or mental. Mr M.F. Husain is showing his aggressive violence towards a community of people who have pardoned every one for centuries for all kind of wrong doing.

Enough is enough. All these painting must be burned now and Mr. M.F. Husain should not be allowed to propagate such demeaning pictures. They are not work of Art.

Please circulate the petition to every one.

http://www.sanatan.org/en/05/Protests/MFHusain/petition.php?vtm=1132313026

Bal Ram Singh, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Indic Studies
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

I'm happy with your answer for first question. But coming back to my second question, why can't hindu gods be naked? Do we really always have to make big fuss out of it, and is it right to demand for burning his paintings?

I cannot speak for the entire Hindu community but I can only speak for myself.
Let me direct the question to you and ask you to do a little self analysis. Lets say for example you are a buddist and someone presents you with a picture of Buddha killing someone or having sex how will that make you feel??
Have you heard " it is not what you say it is how you say is important"? Same goes here. I am also offended by the pictures however the request to burn them is going a little too far. It is upto the masses to decide what they want to do. Have you thought that this propoganda will only increase the value of those paintings??

Even if I'm buddhist, I won't goto protest for such kind of buddhist paintings because everybody know buddha didn't kill anybody. So buddhists don't have to prove it again. Regarding sex, he'd many sex while he were inside palace. So, i'll take second painting as portrait of his early life before enlightenment.

I think that naked paintings of gods are okey. There's nothing wrong in that imagination. But something is definitely wrong in portraying these gods having sex with animals. If gods're Homo sapiens, this shows that they're same like us. But i don't think they ever had sex with animals.

.Here's the thing guys: STOP being ignorant!!

Nirvana:

Do your research before you start blaming anyone. Have you ever been to the Manakamana Temple? If you have, then have you seen the wooden bars that support the roof from outside? Each of those bars have a naked Hindu god or goddess sculpted on them with clearly and distinctly visible breasts and penises.

Therefore, don't argue that Hindu gods and goddesses should not be drawn or sculpted naked. We have done it ourselves! So why get mad when others do it?

8-):

" When you see your beloved deity nude offensive posture, it is natural for the follower to be offended."

Makes me laugh when you say that! I have seen Mahadev's 108 penises in Pashupatinath temple, yet I don't see anyone in Nepal being offended. As mentioned above, I have seen naked gods in Manakamana Temple, yet I haven't found a single upset Nepali worshipper.

Please put your theories of "offense" to yourself. Don't impose it on others.

Yep.. about the last para ->that's one of my point as well.
:-)
<|8-)

mickthesick ,
Please check the paintings we are talking about carefully before making your final remarks..

Mickthesick,

Mick are u really sick as your name says or you are just a kid with no knowledge of religions? Do you even know what we are talking about here?

We are not talking about just any painter painting just any Hindu deity's naked picture. We are talking about renowned Muslim painter portraying Hindu deities are some kind of sex maniacs comparing his own deities with clothes. And no, it does not justify and makes us happy if he paints his deities in nude. Main issue here is this ignorant painter with no regards to someone else religion is portraying Hindu god and goddess: Ram, Sita, Shiva, Parvati and Hanuman etc. in nude and having sex with animals. You mentioned you have seen naked gods in Manakamana Temple and Mahadev's 108 penises( this I have not see yet but Bhairab's big one though) in Pashupatinath temple but do you really know what the meanings of these? Yes, in Nepal as well as India there are temples scuplted with naked deities and deities having sex but they all have meanings and It does not mean all Hindu deities are sex maniacs. Just like there are some Muslims terrorist doesn't mean all Muslims are terrorist.

Have you logged into the site and seen these paintings? if yes and if you don't have any problems, then I have nothing to say to you and I apologize. Either you are atheist or have no regard for your self. I guess you are one of those kind of people who says Kamashutra is porn book.

I think Mr Hussain is a great painter. He is extremely gifted, creative and talented. As for his choice of subject I wonder if this would be such a big issue were he not a Muslim? I can understand, to some extent, the concerns of people like Mr Bal Ram Singh but I think such thinking is misguided and out of place in a society that prides itself for religious tolerance and co-existense. Hinduism has historically dealt with sexuality much more openly than other religions and has given the world such fine pieces of work like the Kamastura and the temples of Khajuraho. MF Hussain is not the first person to take advantage of this aspect of Hinduism and I would disagree that he should be singled out solely because of his religion (which seems to be the case here)

yep, there is no question that M.F Hussien is a great and gifted painter and this issue wouldn't be raised as much if he was a Hindu. But I am surprised people didn't see any difference between the naked portrayal of gods and goddesses in his picture versus the shivalingas and naked sculpture in different temples.
FYI, only penise of mahadev is worshipped because he's been cursed by the Saptarishis and the naked sculptures are there to protect the temples from thunder.
Whereas, Hussien's picture portrays Sita sitting in the lap of Ravana with bare ass. How can a hindu accept his mother goddess (we call her sitamata, remember?) being posed in such manner? And Durga goddess having sex with a Lion? Where does that kind of ideas come from if you have any respect over that religion and the morales of the multi-millenium old stories? So, to me, it is absolutely lack of respect and ignorance.
I don't dare say Mr. Hussien trying to gain any cheap popularity of being bold and experimentalist but he has surely shown his unorthodoxy.

If Mr Hussain's paintings offend you, I respect your right to speak against him and his work. I simply disagree with the notion that artists need to be politically or religiously correct with their work. I am not terribly fond of nudity in art per se but I feel attemps to curtail artistic freedom are usually futile. They often have a boomergang effect as controversy generates more publicity for the artist which in turn, typically, sends the price of his work up and ends up rewarding him instead of punishing him.

If this is a choice between religious sensitivity and artistic freedom I am convinced about where I stand but can see why others might feel differently about it.

I do agree that an artist should be as free as a bird and has a full right to express what he/she wants to in his/her art but that does not mean he can produce something out from his ultra imagination that tends to hurt the sentiments of people's belief and respect towards their owns.

As far as Hussain saab is concerned, I admire his art and his personality but as Stalker mentioned, I have at times found in him ultra aggresssion for expression as is pointed out by his painting of goddess Sita and Durga for that matter.

An artist should also be aware of his boundaries and limitations. Expressions cannot be suppressed but should be well directed.

And who is to decide how or where they should be directed?

A good artist should have a knowledge of how and where his expression should be directed. If not, he is not an artist.

A very judgemental opinion and one I disagree with. It is creativity and skill, and not morality, that I would measure an artist by.

Its attitude and not altitude that measures one's success. Creativity and skill are certainly THE factors that measure an artist's ability but morality is yet another asset that a true scholar of art should possess.

I am not trying to voice anything for or against any religion. Religion is too a trivial boundary for an artist and I believe an artist can well go beyond that to depict his expression. Thinking is infinite, it has no boundary but thinking cannot be flawed and erratic; if it tends to be, its the artist who has to decide about its correctness. He should be able to direct himself not to let his thinking flow towards the region of error and false prediction.

I am with you on that only to some extent. I feel art that has no tension to it and art that does not make you think is hardly worth the canvas it is created on. Mr Hussain is not a conformist by any measure but there are plenty of others who are and whose work might be more palatable to folks like yourself. Social consiousness, in my opinion, is at the artist's discretion - great if someone choses to excercise it but not worth ostracism if he choses not to.

Haddock,
I am not saying Hussain deserves ostracism for what he portratyed about the Hindu deities. He is a great artist, exrtemely talented and I am dead sure he is well aware of his limitations as well.

While popularity is what these days every professionals pursuit for, they should equally be well aware of the facts and stats before expressing them in their arts. All artists should be aware of this and Mr. Hussain is no exception.

Art, by defintion, doesn't have much to do with facts - it is about creativity and imagination. If you are seeking facts in art, you are probably looking at the wrong place.

I'll give you the last word.

With due respect to your understanding on arts, I just want to clarify myself in my last posting. When an artist describes something based on what he read and heard, he is supposed to express what he knows from his understandings. He can certainly imagine beyond something which a normal mind like ours can imagine but that does not mean he is supposed to make unnecessary elaboration on things which he himself is not aware of.

Lets say a painter wants to paint a natural scene. He can apply all his imagination and creation on this. He can paint a mountain, or he can paint a clear blue sky or he can paint a cloudy sky with a rainbow or whatever a painter can think of.

But say if he wants to paint Monalisa, he will probably paint a smiling Monalisa posing for the picture. He cannot paint something weird like Da Vinci making love with her or something like that which the painter himself is not aware of but tends to imagine like that.

Goddess Sita sitting on the lap of Ravana is something which came from Hussain's imagination but has nothing to do with reality whatsoever. Its not like painting a woman in pain. You are painting an incident and you cannot think beyond truth.

Alright, I wasn't online for a while.

Captain, there is no doubt that an expression straight from the heart expressed in the form of any portrayal is an absolute piece of art. And it is neither religious nor political and not necessarily has to be of any culture. But, our brain is over our heart, and you use it for the perfection of your art. Not just to make it politically or religiously correct but also to make it more beautiful. So cap, you think he used his brain here just to make it beautiful? I agree the pictures are thought provoking and more abstract but I can not call it a beautiful piece of work. Anybody here in Sajha call it beautiful?
If he just wanted to make it artistic, why didn't he dare pick Fatima instead of Sita, why not Mohammad instead of Hanuman? Does it sound like an accident to you Cap?
So Cap, there is definitely a shade of intensional conflicting ideas he is expressing here.