India Today 4th December 2017 | Page 3

FROM THE www.indiatoday.in EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa EDITORS: Kaveree Bamzai (Special Projects), Ajit Kumar Jha (Research) GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR: Bandeep Singh MANAGING EDITORS: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha EXECUTIVE EDITORS: Damayanti Datta, S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan DEPUTY EDITORS: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop M umbai : M.G. Arun H yderabad : Amarnath K. Menon C handigarh : Asit Jolly SENIOR EDITORS: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair, J aipur : Rohit Parihar SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Kaushik Deka, Ashish Mukherjee M umbai : Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; p atna : Amitabh Srivastava ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha K olkata : Romita Sengupta; B hopal : Rahul Noronha; T hiruvananthapuram : Jeemon Jacob; B eiJing : Ananth Krishnan ASSISTANT EDITOR: p une : Aditi S. 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Reproduction in any manner is prohibited. l l Sub scriptions: Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited, 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana) and at A-9, In dustrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Aroon Purie. l in dia today does not take the re sponsibility for returning unsolicited publication material. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only EDITOR-IN-CHIEF W e behave rather strangely for a country acclaimed as the world’s largest democracy. We ban books and films before even reading or seeing them. In October 1988, India became the first country in the world to ban the import of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, within nine days of its rel ease in the UK and much before the rest of the world woke up to the perceived slight to Muslims for what they consid- ered to be blasphemous references. We had, unfortu nately, a role to play in it, carrying an exclusive interview with Rushdie and some excerpts from his book in the September 15, 1998, issue of india today. The initial attacks on the book came from the late Janata Party MP Syed Shahabuddin who alleged that the book was “a deliberate insult to Islam” while admitting that he had not read the book, only the review. Subsequently, there was a fatwa demanding Rusdhie’s head by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, which forced the writer into hiding for nine years. That drama has been replayed in In- dia again and again attacking a variety of art and literature, from Wendy Doniger’s books to Bolly wood films ranging from Jodhaa Akbar to Udta Punjab. With Padmavati, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s magnum opus dedicated to the mythi- cal Rani Padmini, the politics has hit a new low. Since work on the film started late last year, Bhansali has been slapped and shoved, threats have been issued to mutilate leading lady Deepika Padukone, and a bounty has been placed on both the director and actor’s heads. Power- ful chief ministers of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab have ban ned the release of the film in their states. Meanwhile, a little- known group, calling itself the Karni Sena, led by a former Union minister’s son, Lokendra Nath Kalvi, is making political capital from the so-called insult to Rajputs. Not a single one of them has seen the film. India has become a republic of “off- ended sentiments” in which one person’s freedom of expression ends where anoth- er person’s perceived honour begins. The postponement of Padmavati’s release underlines several disturbing trends. The most important is the absence of the rule of law. The state did nothing to book Kalvi for hate speech or to ensure that the Central Board of Film Certification com- pletes due process for its timely release. Then there is the question of artistic licence. The world over, filmmakers are making movies and TV series on living figures, such as Netflix’s The Queen, and recent history, such as Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Most of all, the politics of Padmavati has exposed the rampant desire under way in some quarters to reimagine our history in simplistic terms as valorous Hindus versus evil Islamic invaders. In such a charged environ- ment, facts don’t matter, emotions do. So it doesn’t matter that Bhansali’s film is based on a poem, Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Padmavat, written in 1540, more than 200 years after Rani Padmini of Chittor is said to have immolated herself to defend her honour against Alauddin Khilji. Based on the historical record, there is no evidence that Khilji attacked Chittor for Padmini rather than the mundane reasons of territorial conquest. Or indeed whether Padmini existed. But none of that matters to those who cannot see beyond their own agenda. Senior Associate Editor Suhani Singh who reported this story believes the postponement of Padmavati and Kalvi’s threat that he’ll ensure it remains in cold storage is a blow to filmdom. It’ll make filmmakers think twice before tac kling subjects out of the ordinary. There’s also deafening silence from some of the most powerful people in the industry amidst a culture of fear. “All their muscle-flexing is restricted to the screen,” says Suhani. The fundamental problem is that we still think in terms of caste and commu- nity and how we can further our self-int- erest. In a country beset with such serious problems as a slowing economy, crum- bling infrastructure, suffocating pollution, ailing healthcare and a pathetic education system, the national conversation is domi- nated by a mythical character. It doesn’t reflect well on us as a nation with claims to modernity and democracy. (Aroon Purie)