(The Asian Age
26 March 2007)
Gujarat's theatre of the absurd
By Pawan Khera
Another move by Bajrang Dal to assert themselves, another meek acceptance by the people of Gujarat. And yet another, hopefully the last, question mark added to Narendra Modi's much-touted Gujarat ka gaurav.
The ban on the screening of Parzania by the multiplex association of the state, reportedly under pressure from the Bajrang Dal, raises serious doubts about the fragility of the gaurav of the state - especially so when this pride seems to be under threat from every free expression of speech or opinion in various forms of popular culture.
Parzania is an emotionally powerful film with a potential to shake if not stir and thus depolarise the Gujarati society ahead of elections this year. That is the worst fear of the Bajrang parivar.
The bullies of the Bajrang Dal shall do what is their wont, only some have the suicidal courage to fly in the face of history asking it to repeat itself. But the docile acceptance of the decision by the people may not be healthy for the people themselves in the long run. It is bound to further embolden such elements in our society that use fear to suspend the fundamental right to choose.
Fear as an instrument to get institutional legitimacy is not new to Gujarat, or to any part of the country where submission to such tactics has been found easy. But Gujarat has the gaurav of being one of the states with the largest number of NGOs and activists. Then why does its civil society repeatedly fails, and only sporadically succeeds, in showing the way how to win these crucial conflicts?
On the face of it, the villains of the piece are the Bajrang Dal and the Multiplex Association of Gujarat. Not on the face of it, however, not in the same order. By now, even the most uninitiated would not be surprised at the Bajrang Dal and its various country cousins following their brief. As theatres are meant to be vehicles of expression, outfits like the Bajrang Dal must find it irksome to let them do their job unhindered. The fact that they hinder the job so often, and so successfully, should worry everyone interested in freedom as a concept. We must believe that democracy as a dream is close to being lost when fear, coercion and perhaps even political pressure take precedence over free voice. The threat to democracy appears fatal when one finds the elected chief minister of Gujarat totally helpless to the diktat of the Bajrang Dal et al.
Surely this isn't good news for the kind of no-nonsense image the CM has so carefully cultivated, nor also for the kind of confidence he would want investors to have in the institutional stability of the state. Not many interpretations are possible for his silence over the matter. The only one which is evident does a serious damage to the pride of the state he heads. His silence certainly lends sanctity to the bullies.
There have, however, been other silences which are more difficult to fathom. For instance, the silence of the other stakeholders of the system, particularly the media, on this issue is deafening. Those loud votaries of "freedom of expression" ought to know there is buried somewhere in this entire din, the right of people to be able to see cinematic expressions that have been duly cleared by the Censor Board. Will any of these so-called "fearless" television channels show the courage to air the film across the state? This would be the most befitting riposte to both the Bajrang Dal and the Multiplex Association. At best the channel would be forced off the air from the state for a while. Imagine what such a ban can do to the TRP of the daring channel!
When all other institutions, including the worst critics of political institutions, fail to deliver, the onus of restoring the rights of the people comes back on a political party. Recently, the Gujarat unit of the Congress party has decided to hold special screenings across the state. For those of us who can afford the commonplace luxury of cynicism, we may dismiss it as a political stunt. But what else is a political party there for, if not to lend legitimate political muscle to those who are held to ransom by anti-Constitutional and anti-social ideologies and organisations? Unlike other institutions, including the otherwise vocal civil society, that abdicated their responsibility in this case, the Congress showed the sensitivity towards the cause of the people.
And what are the MPs from the film industry doing? Will Ms Hema Malini, Mr Dharmendra, Mr Navjot Sidhu, Ms Jaya Bachchan, Mr Vinod Khanna, Mr Govinda, Ms Jaya Prada and Mr Shatrughan Sinha rise up to the occasion and speak for the industry which has given them all that they deserve, and much more?
It was the same multiplex association of the same Gujarat which had refused to screen Fanaa last year fearing attacks by angry groups reacting to Aamir Khan's support to Medha Patkar on the Narmada issue. By failing to protect the freedom of speech and expression, the state government has supported the culture of intolerance towards voices of dissent.
Even the most illiberal societies like Saudi Arabia do not disallow broadcast of the Radio Sawa or the Al-Hurra TV - both supposed to be vehicles of American propaganda targeted towards Arab youth.
The aggressive media campaign by the United States in West Asia in the form of the Hi magazine in response to the anti-American sentiment following its Armageddon in Afghanistan and Iraq, has not been blocked by local governments, even if it is offensive to the cultural and also political sensibilities of West Asian societies. The Hi Magazine is sponsored by the US state department.
There have been powerful depictions of emotive issues. Fearing their disruptive potential the state often banned them. Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, although banned in Nazi Germany for fear of evoking revolutionary zeal, was considered by Joseph Goebbels as "a marvellous film without equal in the cinema… Anyone who had no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film."
At the end of this debate, unlike other such similar ends and similar debates, one needs to look for the reason for the insecurity that forces films like Parzania off the screens. It must be to make sure that the issues the film raises, the emotions it kindles, the humanity it questions are kept beyond the realm of a common Gujarati, so that he or she can continue to feel the gaurav they have been promised.
An entire state's political thought, manoeuvred into position of power after an infamous bloodbath, cannot be allowed to delve into the cinematic expression of a true story of pathos of a Parsi family that lost its child in the riots. For those who deal in numbers, what is one missing child? Parsis are a dwindling race in any case. After all, the rioters did not have time to find out whether Azhar was a Parsi or a Muslim. Will be more careful next time around, with the religious census in place now…
Until then it is Bajrang bully ki jai in Gujarat: Victory to the bullies of Bajrang Dal.
Pawan Khera is political secretary to the chief minister of Delhi
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