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Congress leader Pawan Khera on Thursday questioned the government's stance on artistic expression amid the controversy surrounding the removal of photographs from an exhibition by Raihan Vadra, son of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and businessman Robert Vadra, at Bikaner House.
Speaking to ANI, Khera said that artists should be allowed to express themselves through their work and questioned why the government was against such expression. "Raihan Vadra is an artist. We can't understand why this government is against the expression of art by an artist. Every day we see examples of how this government is against the youth voicing their opinions using different mediums, including art," Khera said. The controversy erupted after Raihan Vadra alleged that the management of Bikaner House had objected to photographs depicting protests and youth movements in Delhi and had instructed him to remove two images featuring the Indian Tricolour from his exhibition, titled 'No Idea Is Final'. Speaking to ANI, Raihan said the management had approached him around 24 hours before the scheduled opening and informed him that some of the images violated its policy. He said he did not hear back from the management until the following day, around noon, when the Deputy Resident Commissioner asked him to remove the photographs, which depicted youth movements in Delhi over the past year. "I said that I shared the layout a week earlier. Why didn't you bring it up earlier? They said we couldn't see the layout. So I said, you still had one week to tell me you couldn't see the layout, I would have sent it. We could have had this discussion earlier. Now in four or five hours, what am I going to do?" Raihan told ANI. He also said that any curtailment of freedom of expression and artistic freedom was wrong, alleging that the objections were raised just hours before the exhibition was due to open. (ANI)
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