Indians are selectively sensitive. It does not hurt their sentiments when a famous artist is forced to leave the country and seek citizenship elsewhere, but his paintings, displayed long after he has passed, still wound them deeply. Deeply enough for a visitor to an art exhibition where some of M.F. Husain’s paintings were on show to ask a Delhi court to order the police to register a first information report against the gallery. The Delhi court, however, rejected the plea. The complaint was that the paintings offended under the laws that prohibited the hurting of religious sentiments and the inciting of hatred between communities. The police had felt they could not ascertain a cognisable offence by the gallery, which prompted the visitor to go to court. What the court emphasised was that FIRs should be registered in a judicious manner and not mechanically. Since there was no need for investigation and evidence collection, and all the evidence was in possession of the complainant, an FIR was unnecessary. But it cannot be said that the matter was considered frivolous because the court allowed it to proceed as a complaint case and issued a notice to the gallery.

The sequence of events suggests a complicated attitude towards art. The court’s objection would appear to be the misuse of the FIR, not the incongruity about complaining in court about paintings in a gallery. Not everybody likes all paintings, neither are people expected to. But the artist has the freedom to visualise his subject in his own way and portray it the best he can. He cannot be dictated to by individual likes and dislikes or be moulded according to the viewer’s sentiments. Occurrences such as this one show that artists are not given the space or the respect due to them. More, India has grown over-sensitive about religion in recent years. Art and all other activities of life become secondary when aggressive religious sentiments are aroused, resulting in anger and hatred. It is not the painting which arouses hatred but that the viewer’s hostile sentiments find a vehicle in it. That is why it is puzzling that the court should have allowed the complaint to go forward. The basic issue comprises works of art and a gallery’s decision to exhibit them. The law’s presence alters the dynamics.