Destruction of Bangabandhu's sculpture 'Mrityunjaya' at Bijoy Sarani
‘সুতনুকা নাম দেবদাসিকী তং কাময়িথ বালানশেয়ে দেবদিন্নে নাম লুপদকখে!’
“Sutanuka by name, Devadasi. The excellent among young men loved her, Devadinna by name, skilled in sculpture” is the translation of the aforementioned line in the Magadhi Prakrita language of the ancient age India and inscribed upon the sculpture of a temple-based artist (in terms of singing and dancing) cum courtesan. Once celebrated Bengali novelist Narayan Sanyal, who is still evaluated within the critics, had authored a complete novel (সুতনুকা একটি দেবদাসীর নাম) on basis of this one single line inscription on the sculpture in the cave temple of Ramgarh mountain in Madhya Pradesh, India. A more loose and easily comprehensible Bengali translation of this line in Magadhi Prakrita goes on like: ‘সুতনুকা নামে এক দেবদাসী, তাহারে ভালবাসিয়াছিল/ দেবদিন্নে নামে এক রূপদক্ষ। ’Generally the sculptors were termed as ‘রূপদক্ষ’ in Sanskrit which reads as ‘লুপদকখে’ in Magadhi Prakrita and ‘ভাস্কর’ in Bengali.
Michelangelo Buonarotti, one of the greatest sculptors of all ages, thus depicted his perception about sculpting: ‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.’ The creator of ‘David,’ ‘Pieta,’ ‘Sistine Chapel’ and so many other monumental art-works further narrated sculpting as ‘In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.’
Actually, how much civilized is a nation can be well measured by its intellectual properties as reflected through literature and culture, music and poetry, paintings and sculpture. Every nation which is a connoisseur of paintings and sculpture, protects its heritage with utmost efforts and their celebrated painters or sculptors are recollected through ‘larger than life’ novels and movies. Remember how Akira Kurosawa paid his tribute to Vincent Van Gogh in one of his movies or Irving Stone’s novel ‘Lust for Life’ on Van Gogh or recent novel by Stephanie Storey ‘Oil and Marble’ on rivalry between 50-years’ old, established painter Leonardo Da Vinci and 25-years’ old Michelangelo Buonarotti in the 16th century Florence? Or even in Bengali language, we can recollect the one thousand pages’ long but still incomplete biographical novel on sculptor Ram Kinkar Bej which the author Samaresh Basu could not complete for his sudden death in a cardiac arrest! And we?
Since the color revolution of the last July and August and particularly the foreign power-backed overthrow of the pro-1971 Awami League government on August 5th of 2024 that by 21 August of last year around 1,500 sculptures and murals were destroyed across the country, according to a report of the Daily Prothom Alo, let alone counting the number of damaged and destroyed Hindu temples or Sufi shrines. Those (destroyed temples and Sufi shrines) are beyond counting!
The report narrates: ‘After the fall of Sheikh Hasina government in the face of student-led mass uprising on 5 August, about 1,500 sculptures, relief sculptures, murals and memorials have been vandalised, set on fire and uprooted all over the country.
Most of the sculptures and murals were of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and about the liberation war. Plus, the statue of ‘Venus’ at Shashi Lodge in Mymensingh, the statue of ‘Themis’ at the Supreme Court and the ‘Duranta’ sculpture at the Shishu Academy have also been demolished.’
The report clearly states that just within 16 days of the Yunus regime that 1500 sculptures and murals were vandalized. And it has surely become just double or triple in number by now.
Very recently the ‘far right revolutionaries’ of the ‘July movement’ have destructed even a sculpture of a ‘hasta mudra (hand motion)’ of renowned Kaththak dancer Munmun Ahmed in the Kazi Nazrul Islam University premises of Trishal, Mymensingh. Sculptor Manindra Paul made it and the sculpture was entitled ‘Anjali Laho Mor’ from a celebrated song of Nazrul (Anjali Laho Mor Sangeet e- Take my offerings through songs) as a token of tribute to Nazrul. Interestingly enough, Munmun Ahmed herself has been and is still a supporter of the July movement. So we have nothing except to remember and recite that much reverberated lines of the German Pastor Martin Niemöller :
‘First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.’
What is sculpture? Is it forbidden in Judaism and Islam?
According to Wikipedia, ‘Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving (the removal of material) and modelling (the addition of material, as clay), in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been almost complete freedom of materials and process.’
The wiki further informs that sculpture has been central in religious devotion in many cultures and whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, as well as many in Central and South America and Africa.
‘The Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith. The revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelo‘s statue of David. Modernist sculpture moved away from traditional processes and the emphasis on the depiction of the human body, with the making of constructed sculpture, and the presentation of found objects as finished artworks,’ wiki adds (Ibid).
But sculpture is ‘forbidden’ in sternly monolithic faiths like Judaism or Islam. In fact, I had no idea about prohibition on sculpture even in Judaism before starting to write this article tonight. But yes- the second commandment states: ‘’ Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and Orthodox Jewry has been known to use this as a restriction against all forms of creating and enjoying statues in various forms. This view derives from a fear that statues are a gateway into idolatry, a severe sin in Judaism. Artistic displays of statues, however, are often viewed differently by other Jewish denominations.
The irony is whatever antagonistic Jews and Muslims may seem in context of today’s global geo-politics, both the faiths are ‘closest brothers’ in terms of different issues from halal/kosher food up to male circumcision while Christianity, the rest one of the three faiths of the Abrahamic school, had taken a lot from Greco-Roman up to Indian treasure troves of art and sculpture, paintings and colors.
And how strict is the injunction against sculpture in Islam? We see the struggle between a liberal Sultan’s endeavors to introduce occidental, three -dimensional art and rigid opposition from the Islamic clergy in medieval Turkey in Orhan Pamuk’s magnum opus ‘My Name is Red’ which ultimately results in series of assassinations of Turkish painters in the middle age who ventured to embrace new, western techniques of painting rather than following the same routines of calligraphic painting. Vivid descriptions of those killings in Pamuk’s novel will remind you of series of blogger killings in Dhaka of during 2013-16.
Then what’s the actual provision of Islam regarding sculpture? According to internet, ‘the Quran itself does not prohibit visual representation of any living being. The hadith collection of Sahih Bukhari explicitly prohibits the making of images of living beings, challenging painters who “breathe life” into their images and threatening them with punishment on the Day of Judgment. Muslims have interpreted these prohibitions in different ways in different times and places. Religious Islamic art has been typically characterized by the absence of figures and extensive use of calligraphic, geometric and abstract floral patterns.’
But still there are lots of sculptures in a number of Islamic states. There is the statue of Ferdowsi the Poet who wrote ‘Shahnameh’ to archive the glories of their fire-worshipper forefathers in even today’s clergy dictated Iran. I got stunned seeing a sculpture of Goddess Athena in the Istanbul International Airport in this very regime of Erdogan. But Turkey is basically the ancient day Troy of ‘Iliad’ the Greek epic and they have not erased the past history of their ancestors.
Hefajat-e-Islam demand to stop ‘idolatry’ through sculpting in 2013 and Awami League’s relaxed stance: Could it ultimately save everything?
Now a little introspection and self-analysis will be needed. We recall that how Hefajat-e-Islam, in its 13-points’ demands, clearly articulated in point no. 5 to ‘stop turning Dhaka (the city of mosques) into a city of idols and setting up sculptures at intersections, colleges and universities and the then Law Minister Shafique Ahmed reminded that ‘Sculptures exist in a number of Muslim countries. Besides Articles 23 and 24 ensure the proper conservation of our historical and archaeological heritage. Bangladesh is also a signatory state to the UNESCO Convention.’
Although our the then Law Minister replied so to the Hefajat demands, we watched in utter pain the ‘soft and relaxed compromise’ by the Awami League (AL) government to Hefajat demands like covering with a piece of cloth the statue of Greek Goddess Themis/Justitia in the High Court premises of Dhaka – the iconic image of impartiality of the Goddess of Justice who seems to be blinded with a piece of cloth on her eyes and holding scales and a sword in her hands. Introduced by Roman Emperor Augustus, Goddess Justicia strikingly resembles with the image of Gandhari, the ancient Afghan princess and queen of the blind Indian prince Dhritorashtra, who voluntarily blinded herself for life after her wedding as a token of sharing the same fate with her spouse. Gandhari, the epitome of righteousness in the epic Mahabharata could not support the corruption, vices and mobocracy of her own sons. Is there any universal conception of justice to stay ‘blind’ as a metaphor of neutrality to the parties in a court, lawsuit or everyday war of our lives? Who knows! But the fact is even the ‘best government’ of Bangladesh had to ultimately compromise with the hardliner Islamists but that stance did not ultimately save us!
Wish to finish this long and ‘boring’ write-up again through quoting from the Prothom Alo (English version) write-up of August 21 of 2024:
‘Correspondents of Prothom Alo after investigation have found information of 1,492 sculptures, relief sculptures (figures curved on a wall using ceramic or terracotta), murals and memorials being vandalised, set on fire and uprooted in 59 districts between 5 and 14 August. Most of the vandalism and arson incidents occurred on 5, 6 and 7 August.’
Apart from sculptures of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujubur Rahman, freedom fighter and artist Shamim Sikder’s sculpture titled ‘Swadhinata Sangram’ is located at capital’s Polashi intersection with more than 100 small and large separate sculptures, sculpture ‘Duranta’ in the Shishu Academy premises (destructed on August 8), the statue of Themis in the High Court premises (demolished on 7th August), sculpture of ‘Venus’ in Shashi lodge of Mymensingh, the bust of Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin in placed in front of the Zainul Sangrahashala (though later restored), relief sculpture of seven Birshresthos in Gazipur (destroyed on 5th August) were demolished, according to the Prothom Alo report. The toll has definitely multiplied over the last 11 months.
Today the concept of ‘cultural genocide’ is getting included within the orbit of the term ‘genocide.’ Not only mass killing or extermination, but a nation can be also doomed or destroyed through annihilation of her historical and archaeological installations, monuments and artefacts, sculptures and paintings, songs and poems too.
In the decades of nineties, we have witnessed with moist eyes that how the reactionary forces in ex-Soviet Union have demolished statues of Lenin and today we do haplessly watch the demolition of statue of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with the four iconic leaders of our Liberation War. When will our next generation come back to its human senses and return to the aura of light from the infinite darkness of the Middle Ages?
