JOIN US Renowned film director M S Sathyu on Thursday said noted painter, the late M F Hussain, was a victim of intolerance in the country much before the present government at the Centre came to power.
He also gave a call to discard and condemn Dronacharya, the historical character of the Mahabharata, for espousing caste system that still remains in society.
Addressing a gathering after inaugurating the Bahuroopi film festival, organised as part of a week-long national theatre festival at Rangayana here, Sathyu said, “Intolerance has been there for long and it’s not that it came after the present dispensation took over the reins of the country. M F Hussain could not return to India after he was forced out of the country for painting Sita nude.”
“Suppose Hussain was a Hindu, what would any government have done? Hussain was a world-class artist who became a victim of super censorship of fundamentalists who denied him even a grave in this country after his death elsewhere,” Sathyu said. Defending Hussain’s work on Sita, Sathyu said that for a painter or sculptor, anatomy was the most inspiring thing and it could be seen in all the temple carvings where shilabhalikas were sculpted nude except the ornaments.
Similar are the art works in Rome and in European countries. Sathyu took a dig at Dronacharya, the guru of Pandavas in the Mahabharata, who declined to mentor Ekalavya. “Dronacharya was not a great man and thinker. He refused to teach Ekalavya, as the latter belonged to another caste, thus sowing the seeds of casteism that still exists even after hundreds of years. Why should we accept him (Dronacharya)? We should discard and condemn Dron-acharya,” said Sathyu.