vandalism

The recent quarrel at Jaipur Art Show has proved that imagination is still a foreign subject to our society. Also, this boxed up mind set has failed us in making us understand the quote, “Beauty Lies In Our Standpoints”. On Thursday, members of two local bodies deliberately ruined the set ups and paintings at Jaipur Art Show. According to them, they were “protesting” against the semi-nude paintings displayed at the show.

Not only this was disturbing, but naming such sheer violence as an act of democracy is not being less unconscious.

The culprits, Lal Sena and Hemlata Sharma justified her acts saying that, she was practicing her “freedom of expression”, by pulling down a painting, she found offensive.

vandalism 2

Sadly, their half knowledge has made them understand that, freedom of expression is law of the land. But, they need to understand the difference between “expression” and “violence”. Freedom of expression can be exercised within the law confinements also. Such as filing an appeal at Police station.

Unfortunately, this is not the first act of these outlaws. They have resume of such acts in the shows of MF Hussain also. He was an eternal target of these overly concerned self-styled protectors. They even have not spared Pakistani artists.

The offenders are always to be blamed, but one stimulating reason as why these groups carry such audacity is because of lack of a consolidated step from the government side. They should be given a strong message, so that they can become capable of grasping art and imagine the motive behind artist’s intuitions.

People like Pandey and Sharma project them as hypersensitive towards “culture” and end up attacking the property, they have no right upon. It is imperative for country folk to understand that, violence is not a form of protest but violence itself. Hence, if done in the right way, they can manifest their own ways of projecting sheer truth, if they don’t like an artistic way of doing it.