Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Mob Censorship: What are we scared of?

Whenever a new movie dealing with a subject closer to reality comes, it gets into troubled waters. Political parties, activitists, so-called social groups wear the hat of moral police and attack the theatres. They justify this stupid act by saying that the subject of the movie is offensive to the Indian culture or the movie is based on incidents which are not true. But do they actually intend to safeguard the culture and society? I do not think so.

Any incident that occurs in India which attracts national attention, there would be someone or the another trying to gain mileage out of it. We can take the recent example of the movie, Parzania. Its a movie about the trauma a parsi family faces during the Gujarat riots. Now here is a movie based on true incident which people should know about. But still mobs attacked the theatres and banned the screening of the movie in Gujarat. The reason had nothing to do with culture or moralities. It was done to save the face of the state government.

A few years back, shooting for Deepa Mehta's "Water" met the same fate when Hindu activists destroyed the sets, as the movie deals with the sorry plight of Hindu widows. Come on.....What are we scared of? Are our roots so weak that a movie would shake them up? Moreover, where is our right to freedom of expression? And we take pride in calling ourselves the largest democracy!!!!!

We should get a chance to look at the various perspectives, to be able to judge and make an opinion about something. Who are these political parties and activists to decide whats good or bad for us? Somebody has made a movie; Go watch it if you want to or just sit at home. No one is compelling anyone. If I want to watch a movie like Parzania to get a flavor of the reality, I definitely deserve a chance.

1 comment:

Amit said...

Rightly said Mr Animesh but dont you feel that these movies show only one side of the whole situation.Now thats what we called 'Secularism' or 'Minority Appeasement'.Whether its indian politics or Media they dont want to show/support any reality related to the atrocities done on the majority community(read HINDU).Whether its godhra/mumbai riots or the situation of Kashmiri Hindu migrants, you hardly find any one raising his/her voice for them.The Kashmiri migrants are staying in slums and there situation is more like a refugee in his own country.You will hardly find any 'Human Rights group' coming in support for them.Human Rights in India means minority rights.If a militant is killed by our armed forces ,they come in support of that militant asking for compensation and inquiry for the killing but if some army jawaans or innocent non muslims are attacked you hardly find any support for them.