Ther India Post, 26 August, 2008 :The exhibition of paintings one of the most famous contemporary Indian artists, Maqbool Fida Husain and the photographs on the artist taken by Parthiv Shah, was attacked by the self-proclaimed defenders of ‘Bharat Mata’ on Sunday, 24 August in Delhi. The attackers, reportedly belonging to the Sri Ram Sena, a Hindu fundamentalist organisation having close ties with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, smashed the framed paintings by Husain and the photographs on Husain by Parthiv in a 10 minute coup at the venue.
The exhibition was put up by ‘Sahamat’, working for Human Rights, in a venue specially created to protest against the controversial banish of Husain’s paintings from the government backed exhibition of paintings of Indian artists at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. Artists from all over India have protested against Husain’s exclusion from the Indian Art Summit. But the government has chosen to remain numb.
Husain lives abroad on a forced exile from India after cases were hurled against him by the Hindu fundamentalist for his work on ‘Hindu’ Gods & Goddesses. Parthiv Shah, the founder director of Centre for Media & Alternative Communication (CMAC), and a close associate & friend of Drik India has been working on his self-assigned project on the life & times of Maqbool Fida Husain, apart form his other path-breaking works on social issues in India which have received acclaim and at the same time attacks from fundamental groups like the Sri Ram Sena.
Parthiv is well known as a social documentary photographer. Parthiv’s photographic work titled ‘Working in the Mills no more’, was exhibited in Chobi Mela III (International Festival of Photography, Dhaka, Bangladesh), 2004, organized by Drik (www.chobimela.org).
The attack on the works of both the artists leaves us spellbound and with a strong sense of condemning the attack, which has become a regular act of violence in the country. Drik India, in solidarity with Muqbool Fida Husain, Sahamat and CMAC promises to bring in Parthiv’s body of work on Husain, to Kolkata as an exhibit to protest against the curb on the rights of artists across India.