Vandalism and flagrant threats that followed the release of Kunra’s demolition by former Maharashtra main minister, Eknath Shinde, has in the foreground, once again, questions about freedom of expression, acute creative and the roller. It would be discouraged to talk about the current situation without recognizing that Indian society in general has been thin. We have artistic interpretations and vehemently opposition from life, myths, religion and politics. Underwritten some countermen does not erase the fact that the innumerable artists have attacked their legs by private organizations, individuals and equally ostacted by the governments of the Union and State for their work. In many cases, objective individuals have not been standing. We must take into account that more cases of these excesses come to our notification today due to social networks.
It is completely irrelevant if we like or not like a work of art. While making us feel and think in a way that we are not accustomed, he has done his job. Artists can never chore the result of their work. They took him completely well that will cause all kinds of reaction. This vulnerability is precious and needs to be safeguarded. Violence in all its forms of research and floors about this beautiful opening act that artists embody when they make art.
Although physical violence, police action and judicial cases are visible attack methods, many artists constantly face other forms of intimidation: monument and dissemination of twisted and false news through real and virtual whisper networks, pressurizing family and friends, incessant abuse in social networks and sending anonymous letters to organizations that support such artists are some examples. These modes of disconcerting creative people not only affect artists, but also create an environment of docility and subjugation within the art world. At the moment when artists fall silent or apply the sound of ‘beep’ to their work, society loses its critical faculties. The intention behind these actions is to prevent artists from making art that fulfill their real intention: wake up to all of intellectual and emotional inertia. Collectively, we do not understand the role of artists and art itself. According to our own convenience, we remember some of the distant adjustments to prove our errenal ‘tolerance. But as a practice, we believe that art is beatification, a pleasant indulgence. He does not have a serious role to play. Literature, theater, cinema and music are destined to entertain, please excite, even act as placebos, but not go towards the transformation awake. This is also the reason why we cannot accept any child or alternative explanation of our mythological texts. Formost, there must be a unique narrative, the victory over evil, with some divine intervention.
The statis is essential if an thoughtless society is going to be consecrated. This is exactly as the powerful see the role of art, as the cultural arm of the social establishment. If an even cut if it is false and causes social disturbances, the story that the establishment has chickens to spread, then is allowed. This other point of view, designed apparently brave, intends to keep people under control and entry majority majority compliance. In fact, it is difficult to differentiate between an honest reevaluation and an intelligently manipulated history. Any discussion in this direction will lead us to abstract territories such as honesty and ethics. What we need is an environment that allows all kinds of artistic interpretation and encourages an equitable public sphere that allows decent and robust discussions about each and every one of these possibilities.
Those who enjoy violence explain their reaction to the vague statement of ‘damage our feelings’ that allows anyone to affirm that he/she has been injured even by the most benign work of art. It is impossible to show harm. It is just a feeling, or that emanates from an inability to seriously compromise. It is, consistently, easy to offend. But crime is not the problem. It is the manifestation of crime as violence what the problem is. Beyond the motivated political actors that instigate this action trajectory, it seems that we have a predisposition to allow the so -called ‘pain’ spilling on ugly acts. We have ignored this climb for a long time, that we accumulate each individual of eruption and locate it in relation to a specific art object. This is convenient because it allows us to remain unchanged in nature. Soon, the incident is forgotten and we continue with life claiming that there is artistic freedom in this country.
I have to point out a difference between the past and the present and that is the broad nature of this violence towards artists these days. Now it is seen in all areas and is almost an expected consequence and the perpetrators are shameless about their actions. What is also new is the acceptance of barbarism by the general public. Innumerable apologies are tested for thesis thugs and, in a few days, the artist becomes the offender. The other shocking change is government or government agencies that participate in acts of destruction.
At the base of this trend, cultural authoritarianism is entrenched. Our houses are at the entrance to hierarchies. Our schools work on the basis of unbridled powers given to teachers. Our social building is based on the inequalities of caste and gender. We grow within this environment, absorbing everything that is dedicated to doing complex thesis structures. This network of authority thrives in fear and follower. For this to remain as it is, we suffocate interrogations. We also skillfully dramatize a facade or freedom to relieve certain types of artistic challenge. The artist knows little that this permission to question is selected by hand. This type of constriction exist in religion, ritual, culture, education and political thought.
Since artists grow in that environment, invariable never make art. In other words, what we have in India is an entire universe of people who do beautiful things that have an appearance of art but are not art. More than just being afraid of repercussions, he suggests that they are unable to make art because they only learn to meet the needs and touches. They hold people in a state of cultural sleep.
Kunal Kamra exists despite all this. That is why it is a threat to the establishment. We need to speak for Kamra not because she is a headline. We need to speak because there are Kunales among the marginalized who are the sausage hit by the normalization of reactionary brutity. If something happened to them, there would be as much as a footnote on a publication or a ticket on a television channel.
(TM Krishna is a musician, author and activist. Courtesy: The Telegraph, and the TM Krishna Bulletin).