(This column by Anna M.M. Vetticad
was first published in The Hindu Businessline on July 5, 2014)
Headline: THE NATURE OF DISSENT
Introline: If
freedom of expression must include the right to offend, it must also include
the right to protest. But should it be at the cost of “self-banning” in films,
art, academia?
She: “Why didn’t you tell me you were in the
Sinhala Army?... My two brothers were killed by the Army. My parents brought me
here so that I wouldn’t get raped by someone like you…”
He: “I didn’t ask if your brothers were terrorists. I didn’t ask
anything about you. I didn’t tell you anything about myself, because it doesn’t
matter any more.”
She: “It matters to me. My brothers were not terrorists. They were
innocent schoolboys.”
He: “I didn’t kill your brothers. I was doing a job. Then I quit.”
Was it this conversation between a married couple in Sri Lankan
director Prasanna Vithanage’s With You, Without You that irked unnamed
groups in Tamil Nadu? We do not know. What we do know is that the critically
acclaimed Sinhalese-Tamil film — a cutting critique of the impact of war on
ordinary people — was withdrawn from theatres in Chennai this fortnight, after
threatening calls from persons claiming to represent Tamil interests.
The protests were bizarre considering that With You, Without You
leans almost entirely towards its female protagonist who is a Sri Lankan Tamil.
A representative of the film’s Indian distributor, PVR Director’s Rare,
confirms that the Chennai police refused to provide security to theatres
screening it and advised them to withdraw it. A letter from co-producer Rahul
Roy and others to Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has received no response as
this column goes to press.
This, of course, is now a familiar scenario — the collusion between
opponents of free speech, the police and politicians who side with them either
actively or through calculated silence. The message from the establishment is
clear: some subjects are best avoided. The result has been what Bollywood
director Shoojit Sircar describes as increased “self-banning”. Last year,
Sircar’s Madras Café starring John
Abraham was not released in Tamil Nadu despite being cleared by the Central
Board of Film Certification. Theatre owners were just too scared after Tamil
nationalist groups claimed it demeaned the struggles of Sri Lankan Tamils.
On the contrary, Madras Café was
a telling commentary on the futility of war. The “self-banning” didn’t start
with its release though. It began at the writing stage. The film is a
fictionalised account of India’s intelligence-gathering efforts and covert
operations involving the LTTE in the years leading up to former Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Recent history is such a hot potato in this
country though, that LTTE is called LTF in the film; and Rajiv’s character is
not called Rajiv, he is addressed throughout as just “ex-PM”.
Stage two of the “self-banning” happened when Sircar showed his script
around in 2006-07. Actors and producers were unwilling to touch it. “The first
actor I approached for John Abraham’s role said the subject is too sensitive,”
recalls the director who ultimately shelved the project till the end of the Lankan
civil war in 2009.
Let’s be clear here: this is not a column against protests. If freedom
of expression must include the right to offend, it must also include the right
to protest. Liberals in India are so disgusted with the repeated calls for bans
on artistic and academic works — often for mindless reasons — by political or
social organisations with a history of violence, that anger has become a reflex
reaction to all protest.
Protest, in fact, is invaluable because it generates debate. This
column is a protest. Reviews skewering books and films are a protest against
their quality or the positions they take. When reports emerged in 2005 that the
Eye Bank Association of India and the All India Ophthalmic Society had filed
PILs against the Urmila Matondkar-starrer Naina
— the story of a woman who gets a corneal transplant and is possessed by the
spirit of the donor — many of us laughed. I confess I did. Yet, reactions from
the doctors drew attention to the fact that superstitions and misinformation
are the reasons why many Indians don’t donate their organs, or accept
transplants.
Our opposition then can’t be to protest, but to enemies of a diversity
of opinions, and to implicit or explicit threats of violence. Do read that
again please: implicit or explicit threats
of violence. When Dinanath Batra of the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti sends
legal notices to publishing houses, he is within his rights to do so. Yet, two
major publishers while capitulating to his demands in the past year, have done
so publicly citing a fear of violence. Batra may not have made open threats to
either of them, but the track record of organisations he is affiliated to and
the open support he has from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad are enough to get any
ordinary citizen worried.
In the absence of protection from the State, most then feel compelled to give
in. In a nation of raw nerves, there can be no greater threat to art, academia
and a free press.
(Anna MM Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter:
@annavetticad)
Photograph
courtesy: PVR Director’s Rare
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