The day that would live in infamy

It would have stumped Gandhi,
Nehru would have wept silly,
Patel would have hung his head in shame,
Bose...I wonder what Bose would have done...

It was the day when M.F.Hussein renounced his Indian citizenship and became a citizen of Qatar. I'm not sure that if any or all of the aforementioned gentlemen would have been fans of his art. But what I am sure of is that this is not the India that they had fought for, two of them had died for.

Hundreds of Sikhs were burnt in '84 but we tread on. Thousands of Muslims have been plundered and massacred many times since Independence, but somehow we still went on. Hindus themselves, have killed each other more than a thousand times in the name of caste since independence, yet we were able to go on. We have managed to carve out a political constituency and ideology on all sides of these tragedies. And our country has flourished under a veneer of democracy that we flaunt as a trophy at our lesser democratic neighbours. Flawed as this is, it only takes a cursory peek at our neighbours to realize how blessed we are.

Yet there is no solace for this 96 yr old man. There is no constituency that he could provide, that might interest anyone. Once upon a time, he was an interesting man to hate and whose art could be trashed with great media publicity. But now, that art of trashing has lost its media mileage.

Now he is just a sorry testament to what sometimes looks to be an oxymoron "WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;"

One man we fail and its a slap on my Indian face that he chose to find freedom elsewhere. Lets be upfront about this. Indian art is not going to die because MF Hussein decided to be a Qatari. Its not even a drop in the ocean that is India. Nothing died, except even if only by a little bit, the idea of India.