DUBAI // The controversial Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain will return home from self-imposed exile in Dubai after India's Supreme Court acquitted him of insulting the Hindu faith.
The Muslim artist, who turns 93 next Wednesday, fled to Dubai two-and-a-half years ago after an uproar among hardline Hindu groups caused by his painting of a naked woman in the shape of India kneeling.
Several legal cases were filed against him and after attacks on his work, some of which is worth millions of dollars to collectors, he sought safety in the UAE.
"At last, the dignity of the Indian contemporary art has been upheld by the Supreme Court as expected," said Mr Husain, dubbed the 'Picasso of India', whose works command the highest sums among living Indian painters.
On Monday, three Supreme Court judges described his painting as a work of art and rejected a petition by the complainant Dwaipayan Vekateshacharya Varkedkar for his prosecution for offending Hindus.
After the accusations in 2006 he publicly apologised for the Mother India painting and promised to withdraw it from a charity auction. Right-wing groups have also condemned his depictions of nude Hindu gods. He told the UK's Guardian newspaper last month 3,000 legal cases had been lodged against him in the last eight years.
His son, the Dubai restaurater Mustafa Husain, said his father intended to gauge the reaction of his countrymen before returning to India. "He is very keen and he was trying to go back but we have to wait and see the reaction," Mr Husain said.
"We are very happy about the judgment. It is a victory for Indian contemporary art, so we are definitely very happy. The only thing is the common man is more worrisome," he said.
"The judgment is excellent though, and with that he might even think of going back very soon." He said his father had enjoyed Dubai, despite missing India.
"There are no restrictions here, he loves this place. After India, this is the place he could do so much in and he was very happy to be here. He has missed the normality of India, meeting people, going to small tea shops.
"He loved going to small tea shops. People said he was too big for that but he was more comfortable there," Mr Husain said. "The whole of the country is the same for him - it's one for him.
There are no differences between the cities he loves, as such. He loves the whole country," he added. The artist, a self-confessed fan of the Indian actress Madhuri Dixit, has made two Bollywood movies - Gaja Gamini, which starred his muse, and Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities. The industry considered both flops.
MF Husain is currently working on projects in Qatar, Dubai and London. He plans to reveal one of his latest paintings on his birthday at a show in the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank building. A Hindu expatriate at the Dubai-based Indian Association welcomed his return to the country.
"He is the number one painter in India," she said. asafdar@thenational.ae
