By Prasenjit Bhattacharya
The movie “Vishwaroopam” (Nature of the World), a thriller directed by actor Kamal Haasan, which is set to release in Hindi nationwide Friday, has become the latest in a growing list of creative works, and their authors, to fall afoul of India’s easily offended cultural and religious guardians.
The government of Tamil Nadu banned the film last week, ahead of its scheduled release in Tamil in the state Jan. 25, according to a report in The Hindu Businessline, a decision that was challenged by the director in court. A judge on Tuesday stayed the order that prohibited cinemas from showing the film, according to the weekly newsmagazine Outlook. But on Wednesday, the Madras High Court upheld the ban, according to the Hindu.
Several Muslim organizations have said the Tamil language film, which they saw in a special screening organized by the director, The Hindu reported, portrays devout Muslims in a poor light. The film, which is showing in other southern Indian states, and will open across the north on Friday, has not met with the same reaction outside of Tamil Nadu, although Malaysia’s home ministry has told theaters not to screeen the film.
“The ban has been imposed since my first and foremost priority as chief minister is to ensure public peace,” said Tamil Nadu chief minister K. Jayalalithaa at a press conference on Thursday.
Ms. Jayalalithaa suggested Tamil Nadu police were too short-staffed to take on the job of protecting the 524 cinemas in the state who were originally supposed to screen the film, and who might become the target of Islamic groups.
Protests against authors or paintings, as artist M.F. Husain had to face over some of his nudes, have been common for decades.
But the furor over movies is new and growing. And it comes in spite of the fact that Indian movies are already carefully vetted — and frequently censored — by the Central Board of Film Certification to make sure they’re in line with Indian law as well as political, sexual and religious sensibilities.
Mr. Haasan’s film, which has been approved by government censors, is about about a plot hatched by an terrorist kingpin, played by Rahul Bose, to bomb New York.
Mr. Haasan, who in addition to directing, plays the lead role of an Indian intelligence agent who is undercover as a teacher of classical Indian dance, can still petition the Supreme Court to lift the ban, but he hasn’t done so yet. Mr. Haasan couldn’t be reached for comment.
Mr Haasan told reporters at a recent press conference that the film was not anti-Muslim. “There is no difference between me and my Muslim brothers.”
Many people in the film industry criticized the decision to ban the movie, with several linking the move to an increasingly repressive atmosphere for cultural expression in India.
“I stand up for #kamalhassan right 2 show d world #vishwaroopam n let d people decide, especially after Censor Board has passed the film,” said film-maker Shekhar Kapoor on Twitter.
Tamil actor Prakash Raj, also on Twitter, said, “This cultural terrorism should stop. We should stand for the right to express. We are with you kamal sir.”
Novelist Salman Rushdie, who recently made a foray into the world of film as screenwriter for the film adaptation of his novel “Midnight’s Children,” is perhaps better placed than anyone to talk of Indian intolerance.
Last January, religious groups forced him to cancel an appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival. This month, he was supposed to visit Kolkata, as part of his India visit to promote the movie, but did not do so. An NDTV report said there were conflicting accounts of why that visit was called off, with several sources suggesting government officials and police were behind the change in plans. Government officials in Kolkata couldn’t be reached for a comment.
Mr. Rushdie used the term “cultural emergency” in a recent interview with an Indian television channel to describe the country’s growing tendency for violent protest against creative works that are not palatable to various ethnic, religious or political groups. The Emergency was the period from 1975 to 1977 when then-prime minister Indira Gandhi suspended democratic rule, censoring the press and arresting many opposition leaders.
“This is a different kind of emergency, it’s a cultural emergency in India. Culture is the new target and artists do not have gangs to defend themselves,” he told CNN-IBN.
At the Jaipur Literary Festival earlier this month, Ashis Nandy, a respected sociologist, had to face not only angry protest but also calls for his arrest when he made remarks that suggested that Indians from lower-caste and tribal groups were more frequently corrupt than other communities. The Rajasthan state police has registered a criminal case for making disparaging remarks against lower castes against him for his comments, according to a report in the Times of India. In a statement, Mr. Nandy said he was trying to make the point that corruption by such groups is more frequently noticed and criticized than corruption by the elite. He is petitioning the Supreme Court to have the charges quashed and his lawyer was quoted by NDTV saying his client said nothing derogatory.
The ban on “Vishwaroopam,” follows the one that was imposed on “Aarakshan” (Reservation), a film about affirmative action directed by Prakash Jha. It was banned by three states–Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab—in 2011, but the Supreme Court overturned the bans, ruling that the censor board is the final judge of a film’s fitness to be screened in India. All three states eventually allowed the film’s screening.
Before that, in 2010, Karan Johar’s film “My Name is Khan,” about an autistic Muslim man who wants to meet the U.S. president, ran afoul of the Hindu right-wing Shiv Sena in Mumbai. The groups disrupted screenings of the film not because of any objection to it, but because its lead actor, Shahrukh Khan, had spoken against boycotting Pakistani players from the Indian Premier League tournament in the wake of the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008.
In that case, the film was eventually screened in Mumbai after the Maharashtra state government said it would provide security to any theater that wished to show the film.
But states seem increasingly unwilling to take on offended groups in that manner.
“State governments these days have the increasing tendency to pander to any extremist group that protests against a work of art,” said commentator Prem Shankar Jha.
In this case, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister said on Thursday that it wasn’t possible for her to offer protection to cinemas in her state against potential attackers.
She said that more than 56,000 cops would be needed to provide security in and around the theaters as well as in areas where groups might protest, while the state government could at most spare 9,000 police personnel for this task.
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