When customs babus decide to censor art

Political parties in India for decades have refused to stand by the Constitution in the face of any conservative onslaught against free speech.

It’s possible that some officials at the Mumbai Customs cannot distinguish between Souza and samosa. Yet, it is appalling that these officials, whose remit is restricted to financial and regulatory functions, decided to play moral police and seized the drawings of Francis Newton Souza and Akbar Padamsee, seminal figures of the Bombay-based Progressive Artists Group, which introduced a modernist idiom to post-Independence Indian art, and have kept them in custody for months on charges of “obscenity”. When the Bombay high court was seized of the matter, the judges asked a pertinent question: “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?”

Mumbai, India - Aug. 12, 2016:Artist Akbar Padamsee at his residence at Prabhadevi in Mumbai, India, on Friday, August 12, 2016. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

Well, the prudes who were offended by Souza and Padamsee may be unaware of Khajuraho and Konark! But their underdeveloped idea of art and aesthetics do represent the communitarian common sense that easily gets offended or hurt these days at the sight of a painting, sculpture, film, or book that is unconventional, radical, or simply an original thought. The rise of conservative political views, drawing inspiration from narrow interpretations of religious texts and conventions, has also contributed to the making of this common sense which is in sharp contrast to the constitutional values of freedom of speech and expression.

Political parties in India for decades have refused to stand by the Constitution in the face of any conservative onslaught against free speech. Governments have sought to ban books, films, and exhibitions at the behest of the conservatives — MF Husain was hounded out of the country and died in exile. It’s the judiciary that has mostly saved the day in such situations by offering relief to the artist, filmmaker, and writer. It is now the turn of Souza and Padamsee to be rescued by the courts.