Boycott Haider – A letter to Kashmiri Pandits
The
movie Haider, which claims to be made on Shakespearean theme, has raised quite
a lot of controversy as well as some support, not to mention measly earnings.
The '#BoycottHaider' was trending for considerable time in Twitter, and many were distraught
by the fact that such treasonous movie could ever have been passed by the
Censor Board.
It
is reported here http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/haider-1701975.html,
that Haider was the last film Rakesh Kumar, the suspended CBFC Chief cleared.
Another member, Nandini Sardesai, said “I don't understand why the revising
committee was not approached. That man (Kumar) was flouting rules."
Obviously, everything
was not above board and it is evident that the clearance given to Haider is
under cloud of suspicion hence there seems to be a need for review of the certification provided. I do not say
that to ‘Trojan Horse’ an intolerant view that a ban is in order. Rather, I
only point to the irregularity in certifying the movie, as raised by another
member of the CBFC board.
However,
there were many other aspects of Haider debate that needs ample attention.
First
of all, it is about the rule of jungle law the previous Government ran. All
posts were sold to the highest bidder and the successful bidder collected rent. I know from second hand knowledge, from a friend of mine
that PSU posts were sold by coterie of the Damad. It is only by providence the
Railway board appointment was exposed; most media behaved that they have caught
one exception in the system, the one transgression that besmirched the otherwise
unsullied reputation of the Government. Either they lacked the intelligence or
they were satisfied enough not to pursue the incident to find out if the
Railway appointment was a one-off incident or one of the many in the system. In all probability, it is both.
Second,
not in importance but in count, is the issue of ‘Freedom of speech’. I am a
strong supporter of free-speech. I
wrote here supporting Dr Frazer, http://notcovered.blogspot.in/2014/04/dr-frazer-gets-his-right-to-free-speech.html
and exercised my right to free speech.
Subject
to the possible illegality of obtaining Censor certificate, I have no problem
if people like Vishal Bharadwaj express their abhorrent views through such
movies. If audience wants to punish him, it should do so by not paying him
money for offending collective sensibilities. However I have a problem when
only Vishals get the benefit of free-speech while many other legitimate claims
are denied.
The
one thing that comes inseparably packed with free-speech is my responsibility
of restraint in the face of offending speech. Only truth can be the judge and
not personal views, even if supported by books written ages ago. However, the
Laws in India are loaded against free-speech, understandably because of possible
violence it results in violence.
If I
were to screen ‘Fitna’ in India, an emotive symbol that epitomizes the perils
of holding on to freedom of expression, will I be allowed? A movie that resulted
in brutal slaying of a director, Theo Van Gogh, is the ultimate symbol of
freedom of expression. Do you think anyone of our movie artists like Mahesh
Bhatt or Shabana or one of Dhimmi crowds
will come forward to screen ‘Fitna’, to stand with the freedom of artists to
express their views fearlessly? Buckets of tears were shed for M F
Hussein who fled to Qatar to avoid the cases filed against him in courts, condemning
the right wing fascists, who did not take law into their hands. It only seems
reasonable to conclude that these people shed tears for their own tribe under
the guise of freedom. It is not freedom that they love. It only seems to be an
honourable fig-leaf to cover the real intent.
Again,
in the case of #BoycottHaider, I was not in support of banning, something many
in Twitter were in support of, but countering it. We need to nurture a tolerant
temperament in India, a social aspect that Congress and Sickuliar Governments
have stifled in the name of secularism, to please minority, whose bulk voting
they depended on, so that they can continue to loot the nation at a cost of a
bone. I nurture a tolerant temperament that combines my right to freedom with
my responsibility not to be offended hearing to what I do not agree with.
Let
the market decide Haider's success. I am totally for bringing to
the notice of people the perverse ideology disseminated by such a travesty of a
movie and urging people not to see it. But that is only half the story. I
also urged the KPs, many of whom have the withal to pursue, to take Rahul
Pandita’s book, “Our moon has blood clots” and make it into a movie. But most
responses stopped at either boycotting or banning the movie or both. The will to fight seemed lacking.
Those
people who want the movie banned are those who want things to be delivered to
them at no cost. They want their problems to be solved by someone because it is
‘fair and just’. World does not run along those lines. If one is not willing to spend a
calorie of energy to defend freedom, has already lost it.
Those
who want others to boycott the movie are ‘political activists’ at the most. By
such campaign they bring awareness to public. They are able to prevent an
injustice from being carried out and in that they are defensive as well
reactive in their approach. Though they inflict damage, financial one, on
the makers of the movie, to some extent a moral victory, the story
does not end here nor is it as rosy as it appears.
The
resources at the hands of the movie makers is, apparently, much larger and
these kinds of damages do not hurt them significantly to stop them from trying
again. Those who boycotted the movie still do not know the answer. They have
been told by people they trust that the answer provided in the movie is the
wrong one. Nothing further.
It
is akin to keeping a shelf empty; it attracts things to be filled with.
The
prevalent sentiment in India is still reactive, but these sentiments are being heard only now, due
to the political changes that have taken place at the Centre. Yet, the new ideology
is not resurgent enough to make required impact. The right response would have
been, to fill that empty space in the shelf with the right and strong message,
as truthfully as possible, so that when spurious ideas of Haider variety
attempt to find place they find none. That positivism is still to translate into
actions on ground.
India
as a Hindu nation is an idea uninterrupted for about 8000 years, albeit with
glitches. The values imbibed are now almost genetically coded. The society
structure is built on tolerance from ground up unlike the West, where it
is imposed from top. As Sankrant Sanu said, it is in our Dharma, our gene, our
blood. Our history has, except for Kalinga, no instance of ruthless or mass killing of
the ‘others’. The wars had codes of conduct that is superior to what UN has now. These codes were not imposed but inbuilt.
One
primary reason why the highly developed culture lost glory was not because it
was won over by a superior culture. It was through violence of magnitude
unimagined. It was a black swan that stuck India. The people had never seen
such adharmic onslaught, violent
killings, greed accompanied by loot and the desecration of sacred. The laws
that held the society together was being broken with impunity and for those who
believed in those laws it was an age of despondency and defeat. The dark ages
and descended on them.
It
is the same theme that played havoc with the Kashmiri Pandits too. Though I would
like to use the adjective ‘stoic’ to the Hindus of Kashmir, I have a nagging
doubt that they are really not up to it to stand up to the adharmic aggressors.
Until
there is a change in Kashmiri Pandits' attitude to take the fight to the aggressors,
I do not see any possibility of retrieving their loss of home, pride and
honour. The fight has to be fronted by them and the rest of India will support.
But the rest of India cannot fight with sparse representation from the Kashmiri
Pandits. I am not for a moment suggesting that KPs should take law into their
hand. At the least, they can take on the propaganda war head on. And win. The
rest of India will support!
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