In March this year which also marks his 100th birth anniversary Francis Newton Souza’s painting “Lovers” set a record for a South Asian artist when it sold for ₹40 crore at a Christie’s auction of South Asian and Modern Contemporary Art in New York.
In this file photo, Artist Akbar Padamsee photographed at his residence at Prabhadevi in Mumbai, India, on Friday, August 12, 2016. (Anshuman Poyrekar/ Hindustan Times)
Back home in India though Souza’s art is making news for an altogether different reason. In April last year Mumbai Customs seized a consignment of seven drawings, including a folio of four erotic drawings comprising one called “Lovers” by Souza, citing obscenity. The other three, also held back for the same reason, are a drawing titled “Nude” and two photographs by Akbar Padamsee. Both Souza and Padamsee were part of the Progressive Artists’ Group that introduced European modernism to Indian art, and their works are among the most coveted by collectors in India.
On Monday, the matter reached the Bombay High Court.
In 2022, Mumbai businessman Mustafa Karachiwala through his company BK Polimax Pvt Ltd acquired a folio of four erotic drawings by Souza featuring a couple from the Scottish auctioneer Lyon & Turnbull. The three Padamsee artworks of a woman in the nude were bought at a separate auction from Roseberys, London. But when Karachiwala got them to Mumbai, the Special Cargo Commissionerate of Customs (APSC) seized the consignment saying the artworks fell under the category of “obscene material” and hence they cannot clear them. In addition, the principal commissioner of Customs also imposed a penalty of ₹50 thousand on Karachiwala. The department cited a notification of 1964 under the Indian Customs Act for withholding the seven artworks.
“These artworks are nothing short of national treasures and cannot be treated as obscene. We’ve came across various past instances where the said artists themselves had to fight for exhibition of their drawings/ paintings and had to even fight with customs itself for importing their own drawings,” says the petition filed in the Bombay High Court by Karachiwala’s lawyers Shraddha Swarup and Shreyas Shrivastava. The lawyers also contend that Customs in the UK had inspected the same artworks and cleared them for export to India.
The reference made in the petition about an earlier run-in with the Customs is about a 1979 event when Souza’s hand-written manuscript for his autobiography featuring 62 drawings was seized by Delhi Customs citing “Obscene” material which led to a huge furore. Noted Hindi litterateur Shrikant Verma had made a forceful address on the floor of Rajya Sabha in defence of Souza’s art. Frustrated by the bureaucracy Souza had eventually dropped the whole book but not before writing, “How do they [Customs] function there? The official is acting outside his jurisdiction as a custodian of public morals. His duty is to collect revenue on dutiable goods and to prevent contrabands entering into the country. The manuscript he is arbitrarily detaining has not been legally declared contraband.”
On Monday, when the matter came up before the division bench of Justices MS Sonak and JS Jain, the bench observed: “If the drawings of Souza can be detained by Customs, why not the paintings of the great masters of the twentieth century in Europe and America? If we were to agree to the standards adopted by the Customs for considering a certain work of art as obscene and erotic then what shall we do when we are confronted with our own temples at Khajuraho and Konark?”
The bench also restrained the Mumbai Customs from destroying the artworks and expressed concern over how the art work may have been kept by the Customs department. A detailed order is to follow.
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