Is it worthy for Subodh Gupta to drag Emmanuel Macron to his art gallery?

French President Emmanuel Macron recently paid a visit to India as a businessman in order to negotiate the sale of fighter jets to India. During his visit, he took time to visit the studio of Subodh Gupta from Agra to Gurgaon, where all Delhi's art lover crowd were invited.   

This visit of Emmanuel Macron to Subodh Gupta's studio in Gurgaon was purely for personal reasons, as he is an art lover. According to photos from the occasion, Macron was among the parties youngest attendees, aged 40. Like his viewing of the Taj Mahal in Agra, Narendra Modes nighttime journey to Gurgaon was a private visit, which is not surprising given how little the Indian government now values either the Taj or modern art. If our ministers had their way, only Hindu temples and vegetarian restaurants would receive visits from foreign dignitaries. This is the usual practice when Narendra Modi spends the day out with visiting heads of state. The French government takes the arts and culture seriously, whereas the Indian government has long seen the job of culture minister as one of the least important.

The Monnaie de Paris will open a retrospective by the best-known Indian artist, Subodh Gupta, in mid-April. The world's oldest continually running mint will display Gupta's work inside its premises. Since the second half of the 18th century, the mint has been located in a neoclassical structure on the banks of the Seine. Some of its facilities are used for the production of euro coins, while the rest serves as a museum with exhibits of historical coinage and modern art.  

Gupta is not a politically involved artist because he has never made overtly political pronouncements in his work. One sculpture he created in 2007 called 1 KG War stands out as an outlier. It is made of 100% pure gold, instead of steel or iron, and has the same size and form as a normal measuring weight. It also states 1 K.G. WAR rather than 1 KG. Given the location of the exhibition, the sculpture was a natural choice for his Monnaie de Paris retrospective. George W. Bush imagined the struggle in Iraq dragging on for years after he declared the end of major combat operations while standing in front of a Mission Accomplished banner on an aircraft carrier. 

Back to India, as you all know, the conflict between India and Pakistan and China is fueling India's growing demand for major weapons, which it remains unable to produce itself. Furthermore, the visit of the French President to India proves that this is nothing but a deal of fighter jets that has been going on since President Francois Hollande came to Delhi in January 2016.  

Subodh Gupta considers a kilo of War to be a valued commodity that can be bought and sold. Although it is not the only perspective on conflict, it is one. Furthermore, it's just one perspective on art—not the only one. Emmanuel Macron arrived in India as a wealthy merchant from the standpoint of war as a business. He was interested in getting us to purchase several fighter planes. We may correctly state that he came to India as a warmonger, given that the word "monger" literally means a trader in a certain product.