MF Husain Accepts Qatar Nationality Offer

Indian artists MF Husain, who has been living in self-imposed exile for almost four years due to a spat of cases over his controversial paintings of Hindu goddesses, has accepted Qatar’s offer to confer him nationality, said media reports.

Owais Husain, son of the 95-year-old artist, said that his father had accepted the offer and it was under process, said reports.

He made it clear that Husain didn’t ask for the Qatari nationality but it is the truth now, said reports.

“I respect his individual decision because somewhere as a son you have witnessed a range of emotions he is going through,” he was quoted as saying.

“He (Husain) got a lot of calls, some provocative ones at that, but he didn’t succumb to it and that goes to show his resilience at the age of 95.

“After all he is older than independent India,” Owais was quoted as saying.

He also noted that Husain was born in ‘one of the most holy places (Pandharpur – a pilgrimage site) of Maharashtra’.

He said that one cannot take away the Indianness that defined his father. “You can take a man out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the man.”

Owais, who is also working on a documentary on the life of Husain, said that his father has been extremely prolific as a painter in the past few years, said reports.

(Based on internet reports)