Mohammed Yusuf Khatri, an award winning artist known for his craft of Bagh print wants to leave India.
Coming from a small district in Madhya Pradesh named Bagh, Yusuf has been mastering this craft for 40 years now. During the course of it, he won 8 national awards and 7 UNESCO awards. He even featured in the Republic Day parade in the year 2011.
The reason for leaving the country – his family was attacked by a bunch of people and a section of his work place was set on fire by them. He tried going to the police, but apparently no action was taken.
This was the news I stumbled upon while watching television last evening.
He now wants to go to USA, I guess Georgia (as he said in the interview), and settle down there.
It’s great if he thinks his art will grow, he will get more exposure and eventually flourish there. But if he comes up and says that the country is not meant for him, and he can’t live here, then yes, I do have an issue.
He has been working here for 40 years. He won prestigious awards. Got the recognition he deserved, and established himself to the level where the whole world identifies him as an ace craftsman. No doubt, he deserved every bit of it, but saying that the country had no role in his success defies all logic. And that’s the principle argument which I see missing whenever it comes to debating about intolerance.
The country has a very important role to play whenever it comes to the success of any artist, sportsperson, actor, doctor, engineer, businessman, etc. I can say all this because my country has given me a platform to express my views without any fear or inhibition. Some will agree with me and some will criticize, and that’s again their freedom.
If a person is unsatisfied with the government or the administration, he has every right to criticize and raise his/her voice against it. But coming out and blatantly saying that India is not a place worth living has an enormous deterrence to the country which is clearly overlooked.
With such statements flying around every now and then, the global image of the country is being portrayed as that of any middle-eastern nation where people have to live within many constraints or else the consequences are sever.
Modi is no fool going around the world from country to country. He is not going out for holidays, as many consider it to be. He knows the importance of International relations and why it is essential to bond with the powerhouses of the world like USA and Japan. If it is shown to them that India is a country with immense internal unrest and disturbance, naturally they will be reluctant to invest in us. By investment I don’t mean money necessarily.
What happened in Syria? Why wasn’t any country interested in taking it’s people or help them out in other ways? It’s because no one wanted put their hands in a place which is so messed up, and neither did it have strong allies which could have openly supported them. I am not comparing India to Syria. It’s just a reference which I want you to look at.
It’s the same reason why we look up to the western democracies in Europe with a sense of respect and superiority, and perhaps not the same in cases of South American countries.
Coming back to Mohammed Yusuf Khatri, he may be genuinely scared, but the method chosen to show his disapproval for the country and the way it is further taken up by the media houses is something which needs to stop immediately.
You cannot shrug off the place which has given you everything just because that is the trend currently. As a citizen everyone has some responsibilities towards the nation. It applies to everyone, and if you are a celebrity or hold a position of power then that responsibility is even more, because people look up to you.
Maybe we don’t realize it, but our constitution does give us some privileges which many others don’t. And they should be respected, not exploited.
