ACTIVISTS of Durga Vahini, women wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, forcefully shut down the exhibition named ‘The Naked and the Nude – The body in Indian modern Art’ organised by Delhi Art Gallery in Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi on February 4. Smt Sanjana Chaudhary, State convener of Duga Vahini said we have today personally seen all such paintings and called the police to stop it as the nude and obscene paintings, which show women in very bad light and disrespectfully, is highly objectionable. The gallery was later closed.
In this regard, the Durga Vahini had already written a letter to the organisers of the exhibition before its opening on February 2 morning. A copy of the same was also sent to Union Home Minister, LG Tejendra Khanna, CM Smt Sheila Dikshit, South Delhi Mayor Smt Savita Gupta and police chief of the national capital Neeraj Kumar requesting them to ban exhibition and arrest the organisers.
Around 250 nude paintings of women show them as a mere commodity and in the light of Delhi’s infamous gang rape this kind of immoral act which depicts women as a sex object should not be allowed. It is also to be noted that showing indecent pictures is a punishable offence under section 292 and other sections of IPC, thus we requested the concerned authorities on behalf of women of Delhi to ban this exhibition. We have demanded immediate action against the organisers of this exhibition, said Shri Vinod Bansal, media chief of Indraprastha Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
Shri Deepak Kumar, State vice president of the VHP also accompanied the six member delegation comprised of Smt Usha Nechal, Harpreet Dhillon, Deepa Lalvani, Anita Paliwal and Seema Thakur.
Meanwhile a massive protest from VHP workers on February 3, forced the organisers of the fashion week to cancel the event in Visakhapatnam. The members of the outfit staged protest after a designer displayed his dresses with the image of Ganesha.
According to local police, the VHP had lodged a complaint against the organisers and the event had to be called off. “It has been reported that exhibiting images of Lord Ganesha on the garments of models in the fashion show was being shown in the Park Hotel, we are investigating the matter”, said K Lakshmana Murthy, a local police official.
The VHP stressed that such fashion shows are degrading the culture of the country. “We condemn such fashion shows and moreover, printing the images of gods and goddesses on the clothes is also condemnable,” said G. Radhakrishna, VHP vice-president. On the other hand, the designer in question, James Ferreira said that he just wanted to spread the message that God is everywhere. “I think Ganpathi is one of the cutest gods in the world and I just associated him to the little angels from Italian renaissance. So what I wanted to do was to show people that God is everywhere and God is everything,” said James Ferreira. The four-day long fashion week in the coastal city of Andhra Pradesh was started on February 1.
(FOC)
