Priyanka Gandhi Vadra threw a veiled jab at the government on Thursday, a day after her artist and photographer son Raihan Vadra said the Bikaner House administration pulled down many of his pictures of the recent Delhi protests ahead of a solo exhibition.
"When someone with power becomes afraid of the expression of another, he doesn't know it, but he has already lost the very power he is trying to protect," the Congress MP from Wayanad wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
"You stand for what is true and everything beautiful will find its way to you. I am proud of you, always will be," she added,tagging her son.
Raihan’s show, titled ‘No Idea is Final’, was previewed on Wednesday and opens on Thursday.
Raihan said he was told at 3.30pm on Wednesday that if the images of the Delhi protests are not taken down by 5pm the show would be cancelled.
He said he had shared the detailed proposal and layout of the show well in advance with the Bikaner House management but Bikaner House took down some of the pictures.
Priyanka termed it ridiculous and "muzzling" of the voice of the youth across the nation.
"Today it's him, tomorrow it'll be another artist," she told PTI.
Bikaner House is under the Rajasthan government. A Bikaner House official told PTI they were not authorised to comment.
Two large rooms on the first floor of Bikaner House's CCA building were shorn of any activity as about 74 photographs were taken down.
Asked why the photographs were removed, Raihan claimed that the Bikaner House administration said "given the current context and political climate in India, this is not the right time to show those images".
He said none of the images "gave out any political message and only documented the protests over the last six months".
"I felt it is my duty as an Indian artist, not just because I am doing a show right now, but it is my duty as an Indian artist to document what is going on... They are censoring the work of artists, I don't know what they are scared of. They even went to the extent of removing the picture of the Indian flag," he added.
"So I made the argument that first of all, you can't say don't show political art because all art is political,” he said. “There is no art without politics.”