MF Husain: Long journey of barefoot master

Minutes after news of MF Husain’s death was flashed, Yahoo India posted one of those instapolls with two choices: 1) He was a prophet not recognised by his own country. 2) He merely caused controversy in the politics of art. Leave aside the awkwardness of the language, but it is a sad fact that ultimately the great artist was reduced to these two extremes. In our times of classifying everything and everyone to such yes and no answers, Husain became little more than a high-profile figure whose claim to fame was the controversies he attracted.

But Maqbool Fida Husain was much, much more. He was, of course, the flamboyant public figure walking barefoot with a long brush in his hand, his bearded mien a familiar sight on Mumbai’s streets. He sailed into the salons of socialites and industrialists and sat down at a roadside dhaba with equal nonchalance. His paintings sold for crores, but he was known to quickly sketch a work and give it to the bemused owner of a small chai shop. He belonged not only to Mumbai and India but also to the world; but most of all, his heart was in Pandharpur, his birthplace.

Born on September 17, 1915, MF Husain was largely self taught and began painting cinema hoardings to make ends meet. One of his sons, Shamshad, himself a well-regarded artist, once told me that the family lived in modest circumstances in Bombay and food came on the table only when Husain sold one of his works, since the hoarding work paid barely anything. But such was his passion that he continued painting.

In 1947, Husain joined the Progressive Artists Group started by the rebel FN Souza and a few others who chafed at the sentimental and nationalist works produced by the Bengal artists. Modern art in its true sense had not come to India, but the Progressives wanted to break the shackles of the old and turned their faces towards international art. Soon after, Indian critics began noticing his talent.

By the end of the 1950s, Husain was among the biggest names of the small universe of Indian art, which included Souza, Tyeb Mehta, SH Raza and VS Gaitonde. He was committed to modernism, but his art was rooted in the soil of India. He travelled widely, studying Indian artistic and cultural tradition. In the 1970s, he began producing large works based on a single theme, ranging from the Ramayana and Mahabharata to the controversial play Ghashiram Kotwal to Mother Teresa. In between he also made paintings showing Indira Gandhi as Durga and was criticised for wanting to ingratiate himself with the powers that be.

It was also in the early 1970s that he produced the controversial Bharat Mata painting featuring a nude woman. The work remained unnoticed until it was published in a magazine in 1996 and angered radical Hindu groups who went after him. His permanent exhibition in Ahmedabad was ransacked and several criminal cases were filed against him. The cases dogged him for years.

Even galleries and exhibitions that featured his work were not spared; for the Hindutva right he became a public enemy, notwithstanding the irony that he arguably knew far more about Hindu culture than they would ever do. Fearing for his life, Husain left India in 2006 and, in January 2010, became a citizen of Qatar.
But it would be wrong to see him through the prism of his so-called “controversial works” or, indeed, his last few years. In every decade since the 1950s, Husain produced seminal work, from his classical horses to his multi-painting series to even his small works. His showmanship brought him fans and critics alike: he once spread newspapers covered with white paint all over Jehangir Art Gallery; rumour said he had booked the hall for a show but hadn’t completed his paintings so took this way out, but his followers were thrilled. He painted while Bhimsen Joshi sang and went gaga over Madhuri Dixit after she made Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, which he saw repeatedly. It all sounded like a stunt and certainly no one can deny its publicity value, but Husain was canny enough to know the pulse of Middle India and how it was changing. He was the only artist who comfortably straddled the two worlds of high art and mass recognition with film star-like popularity.

Till the end, he remained a friendly, accessible soul. In the early days of DNA, we asked him to write an article about his friend Tyeb Mehta. He dashed off a piece putting at rest the rumour that they were rivals. Then, as if to emphasise his point, he did a quick sketch to go with the piece.

How will history judge him? Kindly, I think, because his brilliant work will remain, long after the silly controversies disappear. It is fashionable to say that his post-1990s work is indifferent; perhaps it is, though there was never any dearth of buyers. Yet he had more style, more talent and more humanism than most of India’s artists and creative souls and will always remain one of the greatest painters India has produced. It is a pity that he had to leave his homeland in the last few years of his life; that reflects badly on us as a society. But he will always remain a great son of India.