New Delhi: A painting depicting "Mother India" as a naked woman by veteran artist M F Hussain, was pulled out from an online auction after protests by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal activists in Mumbai.
Hussain, who was booked by police, for allegedly hurting sentiments of people by painting gods in nude, had apologised and promised to withdraw his artwork.
The painting was on sale by the Apparao Art gallery for raising funds the South Asian earthquake victims and was immediately removed from the sale list after the protest.
The canvas called Bharat Mataor Mother India with a reserver price of Rs 7 lakh showed a bare-chested woman whose form represented the outline of India with names of major cities written on her body.
Reacting to the incident, Hussain said:
"Not that I love art less, I love humanity more. Whatever i have done, i have done it with conviction and respect. And in the process, if i have hurt anybody's feelings, I apologise," Hussain said.
Sharan Apparao, Curator of Apparao Galleries in Delhi where the painting was to go into auction tomorrow, said she had been receiving numerous calls regarding the painting with people demanding its withdrawal.
"There were many calls, mostly from Maharashtra. Some of them were using abusive language which I think is not acceptable," Apparao said.
"But, basically some of them were saying remove the nude painting. Don't sell India, why is Mother India being shown nude," she said.
Hindu Jagriti Samiti (HJS) had filed a case with Mumbai and Thane police and appealed to President A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take action against such "anti-national and perverse attitude of the great artist".
The outfit had held demonstrations against Hussain in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
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