On 24 July, the Mumbai court disposed of a writ petition against a prayer of a complainant, who asked the court to direct the police to register a case against the artist under Section 153 A and 298 A of the Indian Penal Code. The order in the Delhi case is pending.

Some of these complainants said they were perturbed by looking at picture that appeared in a magazine advertisement. Others said they saw the painting while surfing the Net. But if Husain did not, who named the painting? According to Sharon Apparao, owner of Apparao Galleries, she “cannot remember”. “There were a lot of people there when we named it. I don’t remember who named the painting Bharatmata,” she said over telephone.

New Delhi-based Arun Vadehra substantiates what Husain stated, but denied knowledge of how the painting got its name. “Like many artists, Husain did not title many of his works. He did not name this painting (Bharatmata) either,” he said, adding that most of the time paintings were titled for archiving purposes. Husain’s works first came under public attack in 1996, after an article was published in Vichar Mimansa, a Bhopal-based magazine.

Titled Husain: Artist or Butcher?, the article had sketches of several Indian deities by the artist, prompting a series of private criminal complaints to be filed in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Gujarat.

These cases were transferred to New Delhi’s Patiala court in February 2000 by a Supreme Court order. After four years, in April 2004, the Delhi High Court quashed these complaints.

... contd.