Suhel Seth, Peter D’Ascoli, Tarana Sawhney and Dinesh Singh discuss art, literature, poetry and their power over guns
If Osama Bin laden had been exposed to all this poetry and all the art present in the room today, would he still have done what he didIJ” was the question that Dinesh Singh, former Vice-Chancellor, Delhi University set the ball rolling when he posed this question to the panelists at the discussion on Building Everlasting Cultural Dominance — Is Art, literature and Poetry More Powerful than GunsIJ Suhel Seth, Tarana Sawhney, and Peter D’Ascoli touched upon the different aspects of the issue during the half an hour long discussion.
Starting the discussion with enthusiasm, Suhel Seth, managing partner, Counselage India, said that he believed that scholarship and tolerance which emerges from scholarship have gone out of our lives. “Human beings are different from other mammals because of two unique qualities. We have the ability to learn and we can dissent. We incorporated the best of the Mughals and the English. Today, we are becoming a country that is reversing the prism of its identity absorption,” he said. Seth believes that any country that closes the doors on itself and on influences outside is in deep trouble. “The fact that there are the extreme Right and world leaders like Putin tells us that national identity is returning to the world because we are losing grasp of scholarship,” he asserted. And to illustrate his point he compared the two US Presidents — Barack Obama and Donald Trump. “Obama reads books while Trump watches Fox. Similarly, in Nehruvian times we had a Prime Minister who wrote books and essays rather than one who discussed what the Gandhi family did and didn’t do or who preached political discourse to reprehensible levels,” he added. Seth clarified that he hated all political parties as they had let India down.
Seth was also not too happy about the state of affairs in education. “If you ask the individuals running the education system in this country to spell Shakespeare, they would spell it without an ‘e’ at the end. That’s the problem that we have at hand. I think art and culture ultimately will replace guns. Guns in the short term will create a lot of noise but the substance will emerge from art and culture.”
And elaborating the point further Seth said that one cannot imagine an India of tomorrow if one didn’t understand Tagore’s words, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, into that level of freedom let my country awake”. He said, “I hope one day my country re-awakens to this glorious reality that India is not a country, it is a civilisation and at the heart of civilisations is civility.”
Next up was Tarana Sawhney, Tate, FICA and Khushii, who had a slightly basic point of view. “Art and culture get patronage in societies where there is stability and basic needs of people have been met.” She felt that Osama Bin laden would not have reacted the way he did in a peaceful atmosphere. “There was no terrorism when art and culture were at its highest point in history. In India, art and culture has become an option. In the West, the basic needs of roti, kapda, makaan have been met so common people can think of culture. We are young, we are together but what we’ve lost is that we believe that art and culture is a nicety. It is not. It is a necessity and the only thing that will bind us together.”
At this point Seth felt it was pertinent to make a few points. “It is untrue that people of letters are not going to take to arms. The Naxalite movement began in Kolkata in the late 60s at the Presidency College. People like Stalin and lenin unleashed havoc on the world and they were men of letters. Hitler wrote a book which many heads of states in today’s day and age could have written. It is not about what you are exposed to, it is about the environment that you wish to breed. Dictators rule by the sword because they are worried that letters can confuse. The difference between George Washington and Donald Trump is that one thought of the idea of United States and the other is building bombs.”
Peter D’Ascoli, designer and founder of Talianna Studio, a foreigner, had a completely different perspective. “We have to remember that Osama, the son of a billionaire, was well-educated and acquainted with arts and his misguided route happened despite that.” He felt that there are several reasons why guns predominate. “In a very practical way, temporal power has always been linked with arms and force. To Tarana’s point, the golden ages of civilisation and art have always been linked to affluent economic activities which typically are also linked to seizing of power through force. Historically, there’s a connection between arms and art. But in today’s world, to seize power and to hold on to it, we have to recognise the desire of the masses for freedom.” Talking about his own country, America D’Ascoli pointed out that it had gained power through arms but it has seduced the world through its art and culture. “The great aim for every government should be to increase the standard of living for the majority of people. I believe of the two, arms or art, the latter is stronger. Art and culture are stronger than arms which is evident in countries like
France and Italy. India is a sleeping giant,” he emphasised.
Seth replied, “In Bengal, for years, for centuries, we have jatra which is essentially folk theatre. Habib Tanvir’s activism was evident in his plays. We are not a sleeping giant. We are a giant who has forgotten its roots, temporarily.”
On a concluding note, Seth said, “It is about enabling the poorest of the poor to have access to art and art should not be in museums. India is essentially about freedom and absorption. India has never discriminated against Muslim art or Hindu art. We have only appreciated art that moves mountains and moves minds.”