Indian artists must get ready for a new freedom movement. Ashok Vajpeyi’s rallying cry

Poet Ashok Vajpeyi delivered the lecture ‘Our Arts: Our Society’ in memory of Kapila Vatsyayan, the grand matriarch of cultural studies and a preeminent practitioner of the arts in India.

Poet Ashok Vajpeyi delivering the second Kapila Vatsyayan Memorial Lecture at IIC, Delhi | Photo: Krishan Murari | ThePrint

New Delhi: Poet Ashok Vajpeyi has called for a new freedom movement for Indian arts and issued a rallying cry for artists: satyagraha, savinay avagya, and swaraj.

Speaking at the commemoration to celebrate Kapila Vatsyayan’s contributions to the arts, Vajpeyi said that art cannot be obedient. He emphasised the strong tradition of questioning in India, tracing it from the Vedas to the Upanishads, which economist Amartya Sen called the beginning of Indian scepticism.

“Arts have to be in our time, Satyagraha (civil resistance) and Savinay Avagya (civil disobedience). We shall be disobedient citizens. We have to insist that there is swaraj (self-government) in literature, in arts,” said 82-year-old Vajpeyi, a poet, cultural critic, and eminent arts administrator. It is in the very nature of art to question, he added.

Vajpeyi delivered the second Kapila Vatsyayan Memorial Lecture titled “Our Arts: Our Society” at Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC). He was joined by former Jammu and Kashmir governor NN Vohra and Kapila Vatsyayan Memorial Committee convenor Suhas Borker. Among the audience were social theorist Ashis Nandy and former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.

Vatsyayan, who died in 2020, was the grand matriarch of cultural studies and a preeminent practitioner of the arts in India.

“IIC was her karmabhoomi for 32 years. We are honouring an institution within an institution today,” said Borker, gesturing toward a photograph of a smiling Vatyasayan adorned with tuberose (rajnigandha) in the corner of the stage.

A civilisational enterprise

Vajpeyi said that the arts grew and developed through vaad-vivaad-samvaad (debate and conversation). He noted that India is the first in the world to write detailed texts on Natyashastra (theatre), Panini’s vyakaran (grammar), and Kamasutra (sex). For him, civilisation in India is one, yet it contains many cultures.

“India is a civilisational enterprise,” said Vajpeyi during his 50-minute lecture, adding that all the arts have been nurtured by plurality, though most religions—especially Hinduism—are avoiding their own plurality these days.

He remarked that not long ago, classical music and dance of India served as a form of resistance to the colonial mindset.

In the Hindustani music tradition, many bandishes (musical composition) were created in praise of nawabs and kings. “But there is no bandish in praise of the British,” said Vajpeyi, and the audience erupted in laughter.

Nawabs and kings gave patronage to classical arts in India, but after Independence, state patronage disappeared, creating a crisis for classical music. To some extent, Akashwani stepped in to support musicians post-Independence, providing them with some means of livelihood.

“Unfortunately, television did not play such a role,” said Vajpeyi.

Arts reduced to secondary position

During the freedom movement and into the first phase of democracy, politics and culture coexisted with a degree of distance and mutual respect.

“In recent decades, particularly the last decade, politics has become so dominant and it is reducing everything [else] to a secondary position,” said Vajpeyi.

He not only blamed the state’s politics but also the artist community. “The arts remain the last ramparts of courage, creativity, and conscience. We would be, as artists and writers, failing our traditions, failing our heritage, failing democracy,” said the poet, who has been vocal about the decline of institutions in India. In 2015, Vajpeyi returned his Sahitya Akademi Award “in solidarity with writers and intellectuals being murdered in broad daylight.”

Vajpeyi then regaled the audience with a story about a king and a poet, showing the tradition of dissent that is lacking today.

Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh’s Bundelkhand was once a literary centre. There was a king who gifted his court poet a house, pleased with his poetry. But the house was poorly constructed and leaked during the rainy season. The poet then wrote a verse taking digs at the king.

While praising the king for his kindness and generosity, he quipped, “Jo ghar barse ek ghari lo, to ghar barse chaar ghari lo” (If it rains for one hour, then the house leaks for four hours).

“So, it was possible for even a court poet to have a dig at the king, and he did not throw him out. But that kind of dissent or dissonance is now being criminalised,” said Vajpeyi.

(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)