Why God Gave Me Two Hands (But We Still Can't Make It)

Should Jesus Christ be depicted on the cross, urinating into a toilet?

My questions here are, what amounts to a breach of public solidarity--an affront to civil harmony--on the one hand, and the rights of individual self-expression--even the very need for a healthy society to permit "offensive" self-expression--on the other hand?

The recent incident at a university in the Indian city of Baroda makes me glad that I have two figurative hands. Since my work is in the field of Indian religion and I admit to a Hindu bias, I was interested to see what Indian Christians--strange bedfellows with their Hindu brethren in this particular case (as when religious Hindus, Muslims, and Christians joined with Indian feminists to protest female beauty pageants)--were so upset about.

I could see how someone could feel offended by the Christ piece, which is why I only linked to it. Someone might find this strange for a guy who posted a Jesus Elvis, showing the King to be divine and human at the same time. I posted that one because I was not offended by it. I found the Baroda Christ to be offensive at least because it seems to me, offense is the intention of the artist. India's religious and political climate is so charged and ready for violence that I believe it is rather irresponsible to exhibit such art at this time. And Dr. Bharat Gupt (University of Delhi) is correct to point out that the incident says much about the struggle for political control of India.

I can understand Gupt's broad-scale observation when I consider the extreme nature of all of this. First of all, I must affirm the universal right of individual self-expression as a core principle, to be dispensed with only in the most dire of emergencies. On the other hand, the intent of the Baroda art students to bait Hindus and Christians into such an extreme as closing down an art exhibit and jailing an art student, is plain.

I see my children do this kind of stuff all the time. I usually tolerate it and occasionally intervene, sometimes coming down on one side or another if I can figure out whose rights are being trampled the most, but since these kiddie battles are only part of larger kiddie wars, this is usually impossible.

Fixing the blame in the Baroda case is similar to the stickiness of the battles I witness daily. The best way to resolve it would be to make it so that the Baroda artist is freed from jail immediately, and mildly compensated (he does not need a huge compensation, since his work will undoubtedly be in demand from now on), and then make it so that artists everywhere no longer deliberately try to get themselves arrested...in countries where such acts are like a match to dry tinder, and far more is at stake than a few people's artistic freedom. They could (and should) be allowed to have private showings of anything at all. Perhaps I value non-violence too much?

But, you can't make these things turn out the way you want them to...even though both the left and the right in India like to play with fire.

That's another reason God gave us two hands...to put out fires.