4 min readVadodaraMay 6, 2022 01:45 AM IST
First published on: May 5, 2022 at 04:04 PM IST
Protests broke out at Maharaja Sayajirao University’s Faculty of Fine Arts in Vadodara on Thursday afternoon after right-wing groups, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, objected to a series of artworks that were to be displayed before the public at the faculty’s annual exhibition on Friday.
The artworks were “distasteful and hurtful to religious sentiments”, the outfits claimed, holding the dean responsible for breaking the ‘resolution’ passed in 2007 when a similar incident had occurred, involving a faculty student.
The protesters objected to two artworks: one, an art series with newspaper reports of crime against women and cutouts of gods and goddesses, and the other, a photo collage with the Ashoka pillar positioned in an “obscene manner”.
The large group barged into the exhibition hall that is yet to be opened to the public and cornered dean Dr Jayaram Poduval, who denied that the frames were part of the exhibition. “We do not know where these frames have come from. They were not part of our evaluation submissions…They have been planted here and this protest is a conspiracy against the faculty,” he told the media.
However, the protestors insisted that the faculty must initiate action and prove that the frames did not belong to its students.
While the staff of the Faculty of Fine Arts defended their exhibition, protesters vandalised some office furniture. Even as police arrived at the spot to disperse the crowd, protesters chanted slogans, calling faculty students “separatists” and warned of consequences for “disrespecting culture and religion”.
“I went there as an ex-student leader of MS University…We are against disrespecting any religion. This faculty should stop creating controversies over religion. If they really have talent and artistic minds, they should come up with something more interesting rather than tainting the image of the university time and again… We do not condone such artworks belonging to any religion,” advocate Niraj Jain of the Hindu Jagran Manch told The Indian Express.
Jain was the complainant in a 2007 case against faculty student Chandramohan for his alleged objectionable artworks, in which groups of a minority community had also protested, taking out a rally in the city. “When the controversy erupted in 2007, a resolution was passed that the dean of the faculty would check and approve all the pictures before opening the annual exhibition. The dean today claimed that the pictures displayed in the hall were not part of the exhibition so what were they even doing there,” he asked.
M S University Registrar Krishnakumar Chudasma remained unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, Vadodara city police deployed two units of personnel to maintain law and order in the faculty.
Chandramohan was a recipient of the Lalit Kala Akademi National Exhibition award in 2006. His masters’ degree in visual arts has been held up since 2007, following a university decision to withhold his evaluation after protests over two artworks. On February 2, 2018, he was arrested for setting fire to the university vice-chancellor’s office and later released on bail. Chandramohan also faces a 2007 criminal case under IPC Section 153A for “hurting religious sentiments” over two artworks.
the protestors insisted that the faculty must initiate action and prove that the frames did not belong to its students. (Express photo) 
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