When Supreme Court’s ruling on the release of The Kerala story is the vindication of Mamata’s authoritarianism seeking to usurp the freedom of expression by banning the movie, The Kerala story.
Vivekanand Jha Ranchi: Indeed Supreme court has become assertive; it has returned to do what it is empowered to do best: enforce the right of the people to view the movies or read books which is their fundamental right, yet are purportedly snatched from them because of the sense of arbitrariness imposed upon them by their rulers. Significantly, till India was under the overwhelming influence of secular perfidy overshadowing the nation’s conscience, the freedom of expression, despite being the fundamental right of the citizens of India, regrettably felt casualty to the then whims and fancy of the rulers. Stepping into my adulthood in Calcutta, I still vividly recall those halcyon days of mine, much like Apur Sansar of Satyajit Ray, I was discovering and dissecting the intrinsic spirit of the great metropolis. Significantly, one evening, as I was about to cross Mintu Park in South Calcutta, lo and behold! the aggressive procession of gesticulating men, exhibiting Islamic caps, were vociferously shouting the slogan for banning the book Satanic Verses. Those were the days Communists were ruling Bengal, which were always on the backfoot the moment Islamist fundamentalists would take to streets. Satanic Verses, the book of Salman Rushdie was released which, barely into few days of its release, had picked up the storm of Islamists: There was an increasing chorus to ban the book. Unequivocally, West Bengal government invariably chickened out: The book was banned in no time. In fact, the same degree and magnitude of protests Islamists engendered in the wake of the book Lajja, which too fell casualty to an immediate ban for no legitimate reason; the book, rather succinctly depicts how Islamists had unleashed terror upon the Hindu girls and women in Bangladesh. Nonetheless, the government capitulated before this overwhelming odds stacked against it: The monolithic vote bank of Muslims was the irresistible temptation which Communists could seldom think of alienating and, therefore, the ban was the first step towards buying peace and consolidating the Muslim Vote bank. The moribund Hindus, as if they had no tangible existence, far less any say, in the whole sordid bans, took the arbitrary decisions of the government with the head bowed down.
2014, despite its myriad omissions and commissions, had a historic overtone to it: The hibernating Hindus began waking up; their Hindu consciousness which perpetually remained in the state of dormancy, began exhibiting an activation: The arrival of Narendra Modi was a blessing in disguise for Hindu consciousness to gain currency and, that too, for the first time in the post- independence phase. India is their land of birth, their motherland, began resonating with Hindus far more formidably than it ever did. If Vivek Agnihotri could dare make a movie on the inglorious atrocities inflicted upon Hindus, it was all because the Hindu nationalism face of Narendra Modi had arrived in India. Small wonder then, the traitorous voice of Communists began orchestrating a chorus of fiction being masqueraded as facts. This was the perfidious attempt to deny the reality of Hindus from Kashmir being brutally traumatised before being evicted from there. How come the Communists deny the posters circulating in Srinagar, asking Hindus to leave Kashmir, while leaving behind their women. Worse still, Rohingyas Muslims being driven out of Myanmar, dared not enter into China, barely few kilometres away from Myanmar, yet made a beeline to inflitrate India, with wholesome support from Muslims here backed up by the dubious Communists.
The Kashmir file was the depiction of the stark reality staring at the people of Kashmir. In recent years, Kerala too has begun hurtling towards Kashmir, followed closely by West Bengal. Incidentally, both Kerala and West Bengal have the secular governments to deny the ground reality. Unequivocally then, The Kerala story is the story of the unfortunate Hindu girls who fell to Islamic conspiracy to convert into Islam. This, in fact, is the stark reality which is nakedly staring the nation at its feet. Whereas the movie, The Kerala story was realised at the different parts of India, Mamata Banerjee had unilaterally announced its immediate ban, lest the playing of the movies in different cinema halls will offend the sentiments of Muslims, her milch cow.
Apparently, the announcement which appeared whimsical as well as arbitrary, smacked of the voice of authoritarianism seeking to usurp the constitutional rights of the inhabitants of West Bengal. In fact, why should Mamata Banerjee, our elected representative, decide what I should see or read, was the question which deeply perturbed me? Likewise, the banning of the documentary on Modi, too, was arbitrary and whimsical. Why should prime minister decide what I should see, was the question which tormented me then. If someone’s sentiment gets ruffled by the stark depiction of truth, so be it! My fundamental right to watch the movie cannot be strangled by the chief minister of the state. Evidently, the apex court has very rightly set right the wrong wrought on the people of West Bengal by the chief minister which, thankfully, is set right now. Bravo! the Supreme Court for taking the legitimate steps for restoring our constitutional rights which intermittently is coming under the severe strain. Hence against this backdrop, I can only say as the citizen of India, ‘ Thank you My Lord, for restoring the rights to freedom of expression’
Vivekanand Jha
Author, Academician and a Public Intellectual. He is the Convener of Education pe Charcha.
