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Art held hostage in Vadodara - Your Take
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Art held hostage in Vadodara
Supriya Sharma
Saturday, May 12, 2007, (Vadodara)
The suspension of the Dean in charge of the Faculty of Fine Arts Shivaji Panikkar was the culmination of a day of high drama.
The Baroda court extended art student Chandra Mohan's custody to Monday. Later, jubilant BJP politician and VHP activist Niraj Jain issued a fresh threat.
"The student has been arrested. But what about the Dean? He is an abettor in the crime and should be behind bars too," said Niraj Jain, VHP activist.
The faculty of fine arts has argued that Jain and his men had no business disrupting the student exhibition and getting the student arrested, an attack that they say, the university should file a complaint against.
An apology offered
The Vice Chancellor offered Jain an apology and they were left with little defence but to put up another display, this time of images from ancient Indian Art.
"They say this is all sexual and offensive and it hurts religious sentiment. But these are themes linked to religion and mythology. It is along tradition in arts that still continues," said Sabih, student.
But the VHP activists were back again and this time they were joined by the University's pro Vice Chancellor who instructed the faculty to dismantle the display.
Faced with a no for an answer, he pulled it down himself and later along with the Vice chancellor suspended the dean in charge.
With the pro Vice Chancellor's open declaration of support to the VHP there is no doubt that the artist community in Baroda stands fully marginalized, bullied by politicians, abandoned by the University and by the law itself.
Meanwhile, the members of the fine arts faculty have gone on mass casual leave in support of suspended Dean of the fine arts faculty, Shivaji Panikkar.
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