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Bangalore Protests under Mahatama’s Statue

Rollie mukherjee and V. Divakar follow up the protest meetings held at various places in Bangalore and report that eminent personalities from all the walks of life were there to express their solidarity with the protesting artists in Baroda. With inputs from artist, Surekha.

As part of the all India call for protest against chandramohan’s arrest Bangalore responded strongly by standing against the victimization of art. Eminent Artists, Writers, Theatre personalities, film directors, actors and activists from various organizations of Karnataka assembled in front of Gandhi statue, M. G. Road, around 6.p.m and protested against the unlawful arrest of Chandramohan and the interference in academic matters of the Faculty of fine arts, Baroda.

The silent protest was a coming together of people of prominence like S. G. Vasudev, Girish Kasaravalli, K.T. Shivaprasad, Martha Jacowitz, Balan Nambiar, Ravi Kumar Kashi, Shanthamani, Babu Eshwar Prasad, Chippy Gangee, G.K. Govind Rao, J.M.S.Mani, Ammu Joseph, Surekha, H.A.Anil Kumar, Ramdas Adyanthaya, N. S. Harsha, Despande, Ambarish Bijoor, Sachidanand, Suresh Kumar, Shayamala, Nandeesh, and young artists like Abisekh Hazra, Nania, Sunoj, Nishad, Sonia, G.Mahesh, Uday, Prakash, Gopinath, E.K.Venugopal, G.Venugopal, Varnasindhu and students from Bangalore university and Chitra kala parishath. Members from A.R.T which was also instrumental in gathering support were also represented.

Various galleries in Bangalore supported the protest and were also present in the meet. The protesting people wore black ribbons and held placards and banners. Various artists expressed their views in support of the student and against the fundamentalist forces. Interestingly this signals a very interesting point in the contemporary times. The incident leaves many troubling questions to be answered within the cultural climate of our country. Whether at all there must be censorship? Whether we can separate art from politics and society? Whether there are options for artists and individuals to be critical about majoritarian politics and beliefs? Whether art is away only in the elitist intellectual domains? Also the issue of Chandramohan has raised the issue of repeated vandalisation of art by the fundamentalist  forces who still have a sanction within the society.

By 5.30 pm itself the crowd started gathering in front of Gandhi’s statue which is a public-protest- place and happens to be the entrance to Mahatma Gandhi road, the prime road of Bangalore. There was a remote fear of a VHP attack in Bangalore against the protest (we had already heard from Baroda by then), for half the ruling coalition party was its supporter. But we did not expect it to happen and it did not happen. On 14th Monday evening between 6-8 pm the peace loving city saw a peaceful display of artistic aggression. There was a big crowd from Mysore led by Harsha, with placards and banners. There was a huge crowd of artists from Bangalore and Mysore along with the students from different art colleges.

The rest happened. “We are with you” placards-- by those who were remotely connected with art but genuinely disturbed by the Hindutva agenda-- were also there. With black bands on hands and holding plenty of slogans written in English and Kannada, the artist community stood at a strategic position, at the entrance signal of M.G.Road wherein the traffic movement is rather very slow, if and whenever the red signal would let them move. It meant that every minute there were hundreds of eyes watching the protest, to an issue which the news media have been unable to avoid by now.

NGOs, designers, filmmakers, writers, minority supporters were seen in numbers that almost equaled the number of artists. They all took part in the protest supporting   the crowd which was rather a genuine gesture. This is a rather unprecedented combination of cultural personalities as well in Bangalore. There were nearly 400 people and the crowd was emotional. And there was an undoubted suspicion amongst everyone, sparing no one, that what has happened at Baroda Fine Arts faculty is/was a tip of an iceberg! One poster in particular said it all, “Judgement before argument is Fundamentalism”.

The students from the department of Visual Arts, Bangalore University, and Bangalore gathered in the Department premises around 11.00 A.M, 14th may 2007, and did a token protest against the unlawful imprisonment of Chandramohan. The students tapped their mouth and symbolically protested the violation of students rights and democratic freedom of speech/ act. The students also gave a memorandum to the university Vice- chancellor and sought permission for a signature campaign within the University. In a letter to the president of India and the governor of Gujarat, the students stated that the matters which was to be decided by academicians were taken into the hands of goons and all democratic norms of academy were disrupted. They also voiced their support to the suspended Dean, Shivji Paniker and the students of Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. U. Baroda. They also joined in the evening protest called by senior artists and art lovers.