The Hindu : Playing into the Sangh's hands

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Saturday, Aug 24, 2002

Opinion

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Playing into the Sangh's hands

By Kalpana Sharma

The Sangh Parivar's strategy of scotching efforts to expose its communal character is working beautifully in Maharashtra thanks to the police and the State Government.

A PRIVATE screening of Anand Patwardhan's significant documentary "War and Peace" is cancelled. A meeting on peace and communal harmony is denied police permission at the last minute. A poster exhibition on the Gujarat violence is disallowed. The local police stop a screening of two documentary films on Gujarat and the films are temporarily confiscated. All these incidents have taken place in Mumbai in the last three months, in the capital of Maharashtra, which is ruled by a Congress Government.

If you look at them separately, they might appear isolated incidents. But seen together, they add up to a disturbing pattern of state intervention that disallows legitimate and democratic discourse on important developments in the country. Even though the Bharatiya Janata Party does not rule Maharashtra, the long-arm of the Sangh Parivar seems to be ensuring that even here criticism of its actions in Gujarat is not voiced.

The last of the above-mentioned incidents, in particular, is worth noting. A private college in a Mumbai suburb had agreed to screen two recent documentaries on Gujarat — Gauhar Raza's "In Dark Times" and "Junoon Ke Badte Kadam" — for its students. A student group, the Satyashodhak Vidhyarthi Sangathan, was also bringing along a poster exhibition on the Gujarat violence. The principal of the college knew about the screening and had agreed to it. Incidentally, these films have already been shown in many parts of the country and in fact the Congress used them as part of its election campaign against the BJP in the recent Goa elections.

When the organisers of the film show arrived at the college in a taxi, the police were waiting for them. The films were confiscated, and the organisers and the taxi driver were asked to go to the police station. Here a senior police officer told them that he would have to view the films before they could be shown and that the entire process could take up to three to four days. He also told them that he was doing this because "in the State of Maharashtra, we have decided not to have any riots".

This intervention was not the work of an overzealous police officer. It was prompted by a complaint registered by the student wing of the BJP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, that had got wind of the plan to screen these films. And the police, because they had been instructed by the Government not to allow any situation that could result in a conflict, decided to stop the screening altogether. It is extraordinary that it did not occur to the police that the students were not committing a crime and that the job of the police in this instance should have been to ensure that the screening of the film went through without any disturbance.

What this incident illustrates is that the Sangh Parivar's strategy of scotching efforts to expose its communal character is working beautifully in Maharashtra thanks to the police and the State Government. All they need to do is to be alert, raise objections and register complaints, and their job will be done. No one can blame them. The ire of the organisers of such events will necessarily have to be focussed on the police and the Congress Government.

A similar strategy was used to have Mr. Patwardhan's film cancelled. Someone from the BJP alerted the Censor Board that the film was being shown. It had not yet received a censor certificate but as the showing was for a private, invited audience, it did not need to have a certificate.

In any case, Mr. Patwardhan's film had been screened publicly and had already collected two awards, including at the Mumbai International Film Festival. Despite this, the Censor Board called those who managed the hall where it was being screened, and said that it could not be shown. And the film was cancelled.

In Kerala, too, a showing of Mr. Patwardhan's earlier film, "Ram ke Naam" which deals far more explicitly with communalism than "War and Peace" was also stopped from being shown by the Collector of Malappuram district. However, in this instance, the local people who demonstrated were vociferous in voicing their objections to the ban, did street plays on the "Ram ke Naam" theme and ultimately succeeded in getting the film screened. This film, incidentally, has a censor certificate, has won a national award and after a court battle, was finally screened on Doordarshan.

In the case of "War and Peace", Mr. Patwardhan is still fighting to get a censor certificate. The first examining committee demanded six cuts while the second screening committee demanded 22 cuts. Mr. Patwardhan has not agreed to any of these. So the film now goes before a tribunal. In the meantime, a new chairperson has taken over the Censor Board. He is a former BJP MP from Gujarat, Arvind Trivedi Lankesh, who incidentally played the role of Ravana in the TV serial "Ramayan".

In the past, too, the threat of creating trouble has often worked in favour of the Sangh Parivar and in Mumbai, the Shiv Sena. People in Mumbai have not forgotten the hesitation on the part of the Congress Government to arrest the Shiv Sena leader, Bal Thackeray, during the 1992-93 riots because they were told that if this was done "Bombay would burn". No one in the Government was prepared to test out the proposition.

In fact, giving in to the Shiv Sena has become the norm in Mumbai. As a result, successive Congress Governments have contributed directly to the strength of the Shiv Sena, at least in its ability to bring the city to a standstill.

Unfortunately, once again the Maharashtra Government led by Vilasrao Deshmukh appears to be allowing the Sangh Parivar to get its way. Gujarat has a close relationship in particular with Mumbai. Something that happens there is bound to have repercussions in the Maharashtra capital. But the desire to prevent the communal virus from spreading southwards from Gujarat does not mean the Government should stop all discussion on communalism and suppress the voices calling for harmony and peace. On the contrary, these voices need to be encouraged and heard.

The task of a Government is to uphold the values in the Constitution, and support those who also believe in these values. Instead, the Maharashtra Government and the police seem to be inadvertently encouraging those who go against the spirit of the Constitution. It is also setting a dangerous precedent by equating legitimate democratic activity with actions aimed at inciting communal hatred.

Is it not ironic that in Ahmedabad, the entire police force is called out to ensure that the annual Rath Yatra, a constant source of tension between communities, is allowed to go through peacefully while in Mumbai the police will not permit people to organise meetings calling for communal harmony? It is time members of the ruling party in Maharashtra realised that if this State follows in Gujarat's footsteps, a good part of the blame will rest on their shoulders.

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