Sex and obscenity in art: Why is India so afraid to talk?
In 1957, Allen Ginsberg, published a long poem titled "Howl". Divided in three parts, the poem describes the alienation of a human being in modern world and rages at the trappings of conformity and censorship. The poem, that literally started the "beat movement" in American literature, however, raised the calls of obscenity when it was released.
In the trial that followed challenging the publication of the poem by the publisher city lights (also portrayed in the movie Howl (2006)), an extended discussion of vulgarity versus literary merit took place. After an extended discourse, the judge Clayton S Horn declared the poem "not obscene". The judgement was a sure win for literature and art.
Similarly, Ulysses by James Joyce, deemed one of the greatest novels ever written, went through a similar trial in 1959. The judge John M Woolsey presented a nuanced view of the book declaring it in the end not pornographic. Instead, he recognised the fundamental contribution the novel made to the world of literature and to that of human ideas. Judges in the trial "United States vs one book called Ulysses" concluded that the work should be judged as a whole, and the material contextualised. Moreover, in a landmark statement, the judge Augustus Hand noted: "Art certainly cannot advance under compulsion to traditional forms, and nothing in such a field is more stifling to progress than limitation of the right to experiment with a new technique."
But why must we care about these trials that occurred in the last century in another nation?
We must care for this, and other similar trials on ban on artistic works, because we in India are going through that critical period of deciding what is obscene and what is not. Moreover, our discourse on art is at stake. If we continue to see and judge creative works as merely simulacra of reality, and deem them inappropriate based on a muddled moral code, we are doing injustice to our intelligence and our identity. The lesson from past discussion on vulgarity and art is that a nation's discourse cannot be restrained based on a few individuals whose feelings might be hurt or who are unnaturally susceptible to depraved thought.
These landmark judgments urge us to elevate the discourse of censorship. Instead for opting for blanket bans or random cuts, India needs to have a discussion on literary merit versus obscenity. As a budding nation it is a fruitful exercise to identify positively what the nation needs in literature and creative enterprises to move forward. The ensuing dialogue might enable us to isolate the concepts of sheer vulgarity from portrayal of human condition for improved understanding of ourselves. Random cuts in a piece of work lead to a jarring narrative insulting both the viewer's intelligence and defeating the intentions of the creative work.
Moreover, a discourse on what we mean by art might lead to another meaningful exercise: to discover what it means to be Indian. After all, is there a consensus yet on what is meant by the terms sanskar or sanskriti.
For a nation as old as ours, disambiguation of terms in relation to art and ourselves is certainly not an easy endeavour. But must we let ourselves be intimidated by the demands of this task and let the current environment of ignorance prevail? If we were to begin with Mahabharata and Kalidas, many of our current notions of vulgarity might come under the scanner. Anyone who has read Kalidas' sensual descriptions of "Shakuntalam" will be on a shaky ground to label modern day erotica as anti-Indian. Even in ancient temples, sex meets spirituality hints on a meaning we cannot fathom in our cocktail of Victorian code of conduct and personal convenience.
An unfortunate current view when we talk about Indian history of art is that we must focus on the objects instead of the process or atmosphere that may have given rise to them. Mahabharata has survived the test the time not because it has Indian characters, it is because even today, a writer may find in it techniques useful for a postmodern narrative. It is an avant-garde piece of work that survived centuries of free speech and may still be an immense source of inspiration for an aspiring artist. What we need now is a focus on that creative spirit, not on ossification of artistic creations of the past. That is how we may still hope to produce another Mahabharata like work in terms of the literary impact that it made.
On the other hand, if we must, let us discuss obscenity. Obscenity is defined to be any statement or act that strongly offends prevalent morality of the time. Then surely, sexually rapacious imagery of several hundred men groping a semi-clad woman as we see in multiple item numbers in Bollywood should be considered obscene. Shouldn't men dressed as women or men laughing at women, transgenders, homosexuals, and obese people be termed vulgar? But our censorship devtas seem uncomfortably blind to such things. Art is depiction of reality in a way we are forced to see it afresh. Seen within a context, both the scenes where the camera lustfully floats over the female body and an image of self-contained nude women might be considered art or be vulgar. What is more demeaning: two people kissing, regardless of their gender, or a man slapping a woman's buttock?
If we were to discuss freely, within the context of the work, we may arrive at a certain meaningful way to differentiate between art and obscenity. Regardless, it is hard to argue in favour of current blanket censorship that seems to be based on an outdated view that is stripping us of our dignity and discourse. More than any other time, today there is a pressing need for a discussion on how India may consume creative works.