Hema Upadhyay murder case: Contemporaries, friends shocked at Chintan’s arrest

Some of his closest comrades vouched for his innocence

Artist Chintan Upadhyay’s arrest on Monday night on charges of murder, conspiracy and destruction of evidence has come as a shock to his close friends and contemporaries. Some of them, who have known him for over 20 years, have strongly vouched for his innocence.

In the art circuit, Chintan was often called a “provocative artist”, a tag he embraced willingly. The baby which he chose to call “Ganda Bachcha” has been a leitmotif in his works. There were several rumours about Chintan and his wife Hema’s personal lives, following a very public separation. Some even insinuated that Chintan’s preoccupation with the baby in his works might have had something to do with Hema aborting their child, without his consent. The couple’s friends however are certain that there was no connection between the two.

Artist and writer Sanjeev Khandekar, who knew Chintan both personally and professionally said, “In 2003, when medical techniques like In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), genetic modification and artificial insemination started developing, that’s when his works tried to explore these ideas in the form of the baby. I don’t think the baby is in any way connected to his personal life.”

About one series in particular titled “Designer Baby”, Mr Khandekar said that it was a cry against female infanticide and foeticide which Chintan had found to be a rampant practice in his home state of Rajasthan. “The demand for a male child and its delivery through medical science and genetics by charging huge price in terms of money and resources might have made him create a beautifully ugly and mechanically insane unending narrative of a male Designer Baby.”

Delhi-based artist G.R. Iranna, who knew Chintan and Hema for 20 years, right from their college days, echoed Mr Khandekar’s views that the baby series was Chintan’s statement against infanticide. “Yes, he was very disturbed over the past two to three years. He was a very peace-loving person, who would get disturbed by incidents of violence. And that anguish could have found expression in his art — these things are hard to pinpoint. But it has no connection with his immediate personal life. The night Hema was murdered; he was having dinner at my place. I can say for a fact he has got nothing to do with her murder. He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. This is a false allegation,” said Mr Iranna.

A senior art critic and curator who did not wish to be named, said, “If you are going through the turmoil of losing a baby, why would you use the term ‘Ganda Bachcha’ I was also told that he had gone to stay at a place where a number of children were killed. The artist with whom he had stayed at that time, told me about it. It is after their stay that they brought out the series. So, I don’t think it has anything to do with abortion.”

“Everything that he did, his works, what he said, his Facebook posts... were provocative. I think that maybe in that relationship, it was Hema who always got more attention. So, he must have been an attention seeker. I think there’s something very morbid in what he did. I have never written about Chintan because I have felt that his works are very disturbing and when I am disturbed by a work, I don’t write about it because I feel that I am going to touch the surface of something that has a lot going on so I’d rather not step into it,” the critic said.