Apologise Aamir, or else...

(June 2006. Originally written for a periodical, this piece is yet to be published)

Nov 2005. Lowell, Massachusetts. Yet another screening of my film Final Solution on a university campus in USA. Minutes before I am to introduce my film, a portly, middle-aged, bespectacled man starts distributing a pamphlet. It calls my film "propaganda", accuses me of "defaming Gujarat", claims that I am a terrorist, caught casing tall buildings in New York 6 months earlier. Never mind that the New York Civil Liberties Union is suing the city of New York and NYPD on my behalf, for racist harassment. "We-are-keeping-an-eye-on

-enemies-of-Hindutva-within-and-outside-Bharat", tells me this corporate executive from Boston, while distributing his pamphlet to my audience. "Everywhere you go, we keep a record", he says. I tell him an easier way of tracking me - just check my website - www.rakeshfilm.com for screening venues and dates.

Outside the venue, a group of desis gathers even as the film starts. They are here to oppose the screening of my film at their university, without having seen it. I invite them, but most aren't interested. They await the Q & A session, where they plan to 'ambush' me. The 'ambush' is straight out of the Hindutva websites, an 8 point questionnaire for "enemies of Hindutva"; by now, I am a veteran of such ambushes. I know between 10 and 50 people will plant themselves in different parts of the audience, raise their hands as soon as the lights come on to prevent anyone else from asking questions. "How dare you call the Gujarat violence 'genocidal', thunders one. Far away from him, in another corner of the auditorium, another gets up to tell me - "The mobs did not kill anyone. All people died in police firing. And the toll is not over 2000. It is just about 100". "Why don't you make a film for Kashmiri Pandits", asks another, his friend wonders whether my heart bleeds only for Muslims. In the next few minutes, the focus is on films I never made - why not one on Jihadi terrorism? Hindu girls kidnapped by Muslims? Fundamentalist mullahs and their fatwas? Bombay bomb blasts and Lashkar or Hizbul or Al Qaeda?

"What about the burnt train", thunders a Gujarati NRI, "what happened was a reaction to Godhra". I pose a counter question - " Do you think post-911, every New Yorker should have gone out to on the streets to rape any Muslim woman, murder Muslim babies and kill old and young men? That New Yorkers should have burnt all Muslim cafes and shops, set fire to Muslim homes and that the NYPD should've helped them do it? That mobs led by local politicians should have ruled the streets of New York in the same way they did in Gujarat?" Like a proud American citizen, he recoils and says no.

I wonder why they try to defend such barbarism for India. Long distance nationalism? A mistaken notion of what India is and what it needs? Or an implied assumption that NY is 'civilised' while India is 'backward' and hence rape, murder and mayhem are acceptable consequences?" It is a question I have posed to many 'hostile' members of my audiences - usually they have no answers. Politics of hate and intolerance doesn't rely on reason; all it demands is faith. Just log on to hinduunity.org! Or browse any 'enemies of hindutva' blog or list!

It is not unusual for any of us raising uncomfortable questions to deal with attempts to intimidate. The hatemails. The late night phone calls. Promises to rearrange your limbs. Or anatomical conversations about your wife, sister or mother. Or, as Harsh Mander tells me about attending friends' parties in Delhi, disapproving shakes of the head, groups that dissolve suddenly as you walk to join them, with someone making just the right dismissive remark: "we-are-ashamed-of-you" or "as-a-hindu-how-can-you-criticise-Hindutva" ! As soon as Mallika Sarabhai speaks for peace in Gujarat, she transforms into a "human trafficker", with her passport impounded. Teesta Setalvad's landmark legal intervention in the Gujarat carnage cases is not because of her belief in justice and secularism, but because "she is married to a Muslim". R B Sreekumar is "an indiscreet madman" for confirming that the bureaucracy and the police machinery actively assisted its saffronazi masters during the 2002 genocide. Former BJP minister Haren Pandya is shot dead under "mysterious circumstances" some months after he speaks to the Citizens' Tribunal, even though their report does not name him. Lawyers battling the hindutva brigade in Gujarat courts speak nonchalantly of phonetaps and IB sleuths, almost as if it were an occupational hazard in Gujarat. A well-meaning IPS officer tells me to "be careful while travelling in Gujarat, especially after dark"!

Elsewhere too, interesting times await me. The Censor Board refuses to see Final Solution, instead sends me legal notices about customs and forex violations, when I carry a DVD to screen at a film festival abroad. Hindu Jagran Manch-affiliated members of CBFC threaten the theatre owner in Bangalore where my film is to be screened as the opening film for the Films for Freedom festival. Censor chief Anupam Kher calls up the Bangalore police commissioner, urging him to take action against the organisers, the film-maker and others including Anand Patwardhan. A day later, they ban my film formally. Next year, ministry officials prevent my film from competing for the National Film Awards; as per their rules, my film wasn't made during the year it won a dozen awards and had hundreds of screenings. First they delay my censor certificate, later they cite the same certificate to prove that the film was made the year after. Ministers from the 'secular' UPA government watch helplessly.

Welcome, Aamir Khan, to the world away from the arc lights. Are you surprised at the hysteria cutting across party lines? To see Congress and BJP youth burn your posters in tandem? Or Vaghela and VK Malhotra speaking the same language? Why don't you simply apologise - actors are supposed to be bimbos - just say sorry and all will be forgiven. Learn the virtues of silence. Take a lead from your own fraternity. Did Hema Malini oppose gangrapes in Gujarat? Or did Raveena Tandon speak of wombs slit open by swords during her campaign speeches? Did Vinod Khanna request Mr Modi to not recreate the horrors of the Partition violence that his own constituency, Gurdaspur suffered in 1947? Or did Shatrughan Sinha request his party's cadre to at least spare Bihari Muslims? Even Navjot Sidhu's verbosity was transformed into deafening silence - what's wrong with you, Mr. Khan? Why not be a Madhur Bhandarkar and make promotional films for the BJP? Or take some mediocre poetry into a recording studio so you can beam next to a Prime Minister or a President on Page 3? Don't you read the rightwing journal Panchjanya - don't you realise you have the wrong surname, that you must be even more careful than the regular Hindu Hero the RSS would rather have us watch?

Aamir, dance as much as you want. Sing whenever you like. But stick to the script. No spontaneous dialogues. Never express an opinion. Beat up as many baddies you want on screen. But, in real life, learn to touch their feet and seek their blessings. You might get one of the Padma awards, perhaps even a Rajya Sabha seat. Find a patron fast or learn to shut up. Even the Big B and Anil Ambani need an Amar Singh. Both the Congress and the BJP feel that you are just an actor. Both wonder - "why is Aamir talking politics"? If the ruling party and the opposition are united on an issue, can they be wrong? Talking about politics is the exclusive domain of the Raja Bhaiyyas and Sadhu Yadavs. How dare you first have an opinion and then have the audacity to express it?

Why can't you simply let the people of the Narmada valley drown? They are mere tribals and villagers - marginal people. Peripheral to our lives. The kind of farmers who commit suicides in high numbers and spoil our cocktail dinners. The kind who support naxalites. The type who demand reservations in jobs that rightly belong to the elite. The uncouth majority who can't distinguish a chardonnay from a chappal. The non-consumers, without disposable incomes. Many of them are mere freeloaders, demanding all kinds of rights when they do not even buy a bike or a computer to contibute to the glowing health of "our" economy. But for you, we would have happily underplayed them in our newspapers and TV news bulletins, like we ignored Medha Patkar and NBA activists for the first 8 days of their starvation but carried images of Modi's designer hunger strike in its first 8 minutes! Why did you have to play the spoilsport and draw attention to the issue? Why are you speaking of the Supreme Court, justice and equity? Grow up, Aamir, don't you know we are not a welfare state anymore?

Speak, but only to Stardust and Filmfare. Or at glittering awards nights. We need Mallika Sherawats and Rakhi Sawants, not some actor with a conscience. And should you persist, be ready to bear the consequences. Today, it is just a boycott in Gujarat. Tomorrow India. Then, the diaspora. Not to forget the income tax tribunals, FEMA and FERA directorates, privilege committees and censor boards. And by the way, endorse as much cola as you want, after all it has got pesticides supported by a swadeshi subsidy!

Swadeshi Fascism: Cracking da Code?

(June 2006. This piece was originally written for Times of India upon their urging. It was never published)

Soon after becoming the Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hilter called for fresh elections to the Reichstag - the German Parliament. On the evening of February 27, 1933 – six days before elections -- a massive fire broke out at the Reichstag. The next day, the Reichstag Fire Decree was signed which effectively suspended most of the civil liberties -- freedom of the person, expression, press, the right of free association and public assembly, the secrecy of the post and telephone, as well as the protection of property and the home.

Much in the same way that the Reichstag fire gave Hitler the opening to tighten his stranglehold and paved the way for the creation of Nazi Germany, the Sabarmati Express fire gave Modi the opening to revive the BJP's floundering electoral fortunes in Gujarat and legitimised the advent of the saffronazi.

The parallels do not end here. Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) and the 2002 Gujarat carnage seem eerily similar. Considered a turning point in Nazi history, the organized anti-Jewish riots in Germany and Austria were a forerunner of Endlosung or the Final Solution. Reinhard Heydrich (whose office oversaw the Gestapo, police and intelligence operations) sent a secret telegram to "all headquarters and stations of the State Police" with instructions for the immediate coordination of police and political activities in inciting the riots. "...the demonstrations are not to be prevented by the police... they are only to supervise the observance of the guidelines." The toll -- 36 Jews killed (some put this figures to 91), over 25,000 deported to concentration camps, 267 synagogues destroyed and nearly 7,000 Jewish shops, businesses and homes vandalized !

Closer home, survivors of the Naroda-Patiya massacre of Feb 28, 2002 recount the police reaction was far more direct, " Behnch**d, we have no orders to save you today." The Gujarat DGP P C Pande suffered memory losses while appearing before the Nanavati Commission, but an independent analysis of PCR wireless transcripts and cell phone records will confirm a chilling story of state complicity. Journalists and activists have repeatedly spoken of ministers leading mobs and supervising police operations. Hindutva mobs razed 270 mosques and dargahs, burnt and destroyed hundreds of Muslim homes and specifically targeted Muslim businesses like restaurants and timber marts in cities and petty businesses including Bohra traders' shops in villages. A Bajrang Dal activist succinctly sums it all: "The idea was to finish them financially, so that they are not able to rebuild their lives." Coincidence?

The womb-that-produces-the-enemy was repeatedly defiled, in a well-orchestrated campaign of sexual violence against Muslim women that saw similar modus operandi in Ahmedabad and Baroda, the tribal Panchmahals belt and in other remote villages of Gujarat. The carnage left in its wake 2,000 people brutally killed or "missing". (Some of them are now being found, through DNA analysis of hurriedly buried remains, like in Lunavada last week). Nearly 200,000 people were displaced, forced into relief camps and according to the Concerned Citizens' Tribunal report, the state denied them "even basic rights like water, sanitation and food supplies." Remarkable coincidence?

On March 23, 1933, the newly elected German parliament Reichstag met in Berlin and passed Hitler's Enabling Act, fortifying his position as the Führer. Formally called the Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich, it ratified restrictions on freedom of speech, press and demonstration, setting the stage for further revocation of rights. The Nazi Gleichschaltung now began a massive coordination of all aspects of life under the swastika. A week later, a national boycott of Jewish shops and department stores was ordered by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

The terror tactics intensified with the April 1 campaign. Nazi brownshirts and the SA storm troopers carried posters: "Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!" 6 days later, Jews were removed from all civil service positions under a new law that made "Aryanism" a necessary requirement - The Law of the Restoration of the Civil Service. Next, the Law for Preventing Overcrowding in German Schools was passed on April 25 that denied non-Aryans admittance to schools. During the next few weeks, Jews were prohibited from serving as patent lawyers, dentists, technicians and doctors in state-run insurance institutions. Few months later, Jews were formally barred from becoming university professors or lecturers, journalists or government employees. They were banned from all cultural and entertainment activities including literature, art, film and theater. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws denied Jews citizenship, leading to a time when a Jew would be forbidden even to sit with a non-Jew, let alone marry one. Because the German people still did not speak out, Hitler proceeded to prepare the nation for his Final Solution - total extermination. The Law for the Protection of the German People did more than restrict freedom of expression -- it actually paved the way for the Nazi concentration camps and the Holocaust.

However, in Modi's Gujarat, you don't need to create new, formal laws to do any of this. Just read pamphlets or hear speeches calling for an economic boycott of Muslims. Or talk to school children forced to leave the Don Bosco school in Ahmedabad. Just visit Hindu and Muslim ghettos in Ahmedabad. Or accompany Muslim villagers back to their villages. Or try to find them a job under the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. Or help them get a new ration card or treatment at a government hospital. Or attempt restoration of their homes and property taken over by the very people who killed and raped their families and friends.

The Supreme Court might be monitoring "riot cases" directly, but the saffron juggernaut rolls on in Gujarat. While upright police officers twiddle their thumbs in punishment postings, others like P C Pande survive and flourish. All critical voices are threatened, boycotted or labeled. Activist Teesta Setalvad and advocate Mihir Desai are labeled "enemies of Gujarat", Mallika Sarabhai braves harassment for speaking out and High Courts do not hesitate to formally make adverse comments, mercifully expunged by the Supreme Court. And now, it is Aamir Khan's turn.

Meanwhile, Congress governments bend over backwards to appease law-breakers. Illegal encroachments whether in Ulhasnagar or Delhi are regularized by ordinances. Yet it does not see any problems in evicting tribals and villagers from their homeland - the Narmada Valley - without making appropriate alternate arrangements. Its own Group of Ministers find rehabilitation to be woefully inadequate, yet the ex-World Bank official, now our Prime Minister, sees no cause to punish the guilty or announce a new package for the Narmada oustees.

Why not a new cess on those benefiting from the Narmada Dam so the people they have displaced are not forced to starve or migrate to urban slums. Why not ask the "5 crore Gujaratis" allegedly deeply offended by Aamir's remarks, to contribute Rs 10 each to create a corpus for rehabilitation? Or do they want watery graves to be the foundation for their own "progress"? Why don't the BJP Chief Ministers from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat sit together with their Maharashtra counterpart and sort out all issues concerning rehabilitation? Or is it too much to ask them to concern themselves with the welfare of the people?

BJP's youth leaders do not want Aamir's latest film Fanaa or any earlier film to be screened in Gujarat. Cinema theatre owners have "voluntarily" boycotted Aamir. Hema Malini and Shatrughan Sinha of BJP ask Aamir to apologize. It is quite another matter that they failed to appeal to Modi to protect innocent Muslim women and children in 2002, or as party MPs, failed to apologise for the carnage? NSUI - the Congress youth wing is busy burning posters of Aamir while waving coke bottles. Vaghela sees a plot hatched together - "a conspiracy by the Producer and the BJP" for publicity; his colleague Yogendra Makwana wonders why "Aamir is talking politics". Is the Congress in Gujarat the new B-team for the BJP? Really, why should anyone have a monopoly over politics of intolerance? Lets learn our lessons from history.

Golwalkar, the RSS ideologue once said, "The foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race; or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment -- not even citizen's rights."

So, no rights for non-Hindus? Are Muslims, Christians and Parsis reduced to second class citizens? And what about the rights of anyone speaking out against injustice? Or hate and bloodshed? Do they become "enemies of Hindutva or Gujarat"? Enjoy them while they last - you may soon have such rights in history textbooks, and that too, only till the saffronazis revise them!

But, till they do so, lets pay heed to Julius Caesar. "Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded patriotism will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."

Just substitute the term patriotism for Gujarati Asmita , Swaabhimman or Gaurav!

Boycott Aamir Khan?

(This piece appeared in Hindustan Times (Bombay) on May 27, 2006

Friday, May 26, 2006 is the beginning of yet another chapter in the history of Indian fascism. Aamir Khan is to be boycotted in Gujarat for expressing an opinion about resettlement of the Narmada oustees and the Vadodara violence. He is to be silenced into submission. Saffron-clad, trishul-wielding activists have been on the prowl 'peacefully', persuading theatre owners to not release the film Fanaa. As part of their responsibility towards "5 crore Gujaratis", they will leave no stone, sword or trishul unturned to protect their " swabhimaan and asmita". Just as they did in 2002.

It is not as if attack and intimidation are new tactics now being suddenly unleashed by the BJP. In 2002, NDTV's coverage of the carnage so angered Modi that he ordered a blackout of the Star News signal. Rajdeep Sardesai's vehicle was attacked minutes after he left CM Modi's home. On election day, a mob of party workers surround Barkha Dutt, right outside the BJP office. Two men standing next to my camera start chanting - "strip her, strip her". Barkha has the presence of mind to dash into the party office itself to escape the mob. Many others weren't so fortunate - many print media reporters get beaten up, a TV journalist has his arm broken, News channels have their outdoor broadcast vans ransacked. Their crime: they dared to report the truth as they saw it, refusing to buy the 'party line'.

Fascism feeds on terror. Create a fear psychosis and reap an electoral harvest. Terrorise well-defined targets and send out chilling messages. On Feb 28, 2002, two well-chosen Muslim targets were attacked. Ehsan Jafri, the Congress leader who had campaigned against Modi in Rajkot and Prof J S Bandukwala, noted civil liberties activist and a known critic of the politics of hate. Jafri was hacked to death; the professor somehow escaped, [though his home was destroyed by the very people who invited him to deliver the Savarkar Memorial lecture on Feb 26, 2002]. The message: If Bandukwala with his 'national and international' contacts and Jafri as an ex-member of Parliament with his 'Delhi' connections can't even save themselves, no Muslim is safe. Post-carnage, many in Gujarat raise their voice to appeal for peace and justice. Again a target is chosen - Mallika Sarabhai. The message: if old-money, connected families like the Sarabhais can be persecuted, don't you dare speak against us!

Post -2002 Gujarat is already witnessing segregation in schools. Women and schoolgoing children are afraid of crossing the 'border'. Ghettos have sprung up in cities, small towns and villages. Jobless youth often speak of how H-class gets all jobs while M-class (Muslims) don't. My film Final Solution records an impassioned pracharak exhorting the crowds - "buy only from Hindu shops and ride only on Hindu rickshaws". Non-Hindu police officers find it tough to get executive assignments; conscientious IPS officers who prevented bloodshed in their districts cool their heels in punishment postings. Hindu girls marrying Muslim men either get 'rescued' by Babu Bajrangi and his troops or get killed, like Geetaben or Bhartiben. VHP leaders suggest benignly, "Muslims are our younger brothers; they must respect the elders and then they will get their rights". Other hindutva activists are content with much simpler solutions - Muslims should have no right to vote, compulsory sterilisation of Muslim men at the birth of the second child, banning of Hindu-Muslim marriages, jail terms for the person converting to Islam and the Moulvi who aids him or the ultimate solution - Muslims must leave India and go to Pakistan. Echoes of Nazi Germany?

Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram symbolises the crisis of our times. In 2002, its gate were shut to Muslims seeking shelter. It is here that Medha Patkar was dragged by her hair, in full view of journalists and video cameras, in police presence, by a valiant youth called Amit Thakkar. Now, in his avataar as a BJP Yuva Morcha leader, he thunders, "Aamir Khan has insulted the five crore population of Gujarat by supporting Medha Patekar (sic)...Then he made nasty comments about chief minister Narendra Modi. There is no place for any anti-Gujarati in Gujarat". His national President, Dharmendra Pradhan is even more belligerent, determined to prevent any Aamir film, old or new, from being screened in Gujarat. BJP's national leadership declines comment. Says Arun Jailtley, "The party has nothing to do with the campaign.".He fails to condemn the politics of intimidation and fear unleashed by his own partymen in Gujarat. But, then, why should Jaitley, former Law Minister, stand up for Article 19 of the Indian constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech or Article 25 concerning freedom of conscience and free profession?

Enjoy your rights, but very quietly. Raise any questions and earn the sobriquet - "enemies of Gujarat or Hindutva "! Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels would have smiled in approval. Senator McCarthy would have chomped on his fat cigar to suggest a House un-Gujarati activities committee to investigate all the enemies of Gujarat. If Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Miller and Dashiel Hammet could be persecuted, why not Aamir Khan?

Manubhai Patel of the Gujarat Multiplex Owners' Association says, "There is no political pressure, we have done it voluntarily" Single-screen cinema owners issue ads in newspapers on May 23, promising a release of the film. By the evening, a TV channel reports that they too have 'voluntarily' joined the boycott. The Gujarat Druggists and Chemists Association wants to boycott all products being endorsed by Aamir Khan. Leaders from the Congress wonder "why is Aamir talking about political issues?" V K Malhotra and Shatughan Sinha of BJP ask Aamir to apologise.

Aamir's crime? He suggested that Narmada oustees must be rehabilitated. Is there anyone in India or among the allegedly deeply offended "5 crore Gujaratis", who believes that the people of Narmada valley have no rights? That their homes and livelihoods should be destroyed as soon as possible, without resettling them? That their villages and towns must be flooded immediately by raising the height of the dam so that the people of Gujarat can benefit? That the Narmada protestors can and must exchange their fertile lands for distant, barren plots? That their children can and should grow up in an urban slum of their choice? That their women have the option of working as maids, bargirls and prostitutes in any city of their choice within and outside Gujarat?

Imagine a government notification to set up solar power substations or rainwater harvesting reservoirs to meet power and water shortage in our cities, acquiring all of Greater Kailash in Delhi, Mylapore in Chennai, Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad, Vile Parle in Mumbai or Paldi in Ahmedabad. Imagine the furore. The 24/7 media coverage. The Residents' welfare associations demonstrating. The flood of court cases, frayed tempers and street-level skirmishes and finally, politicians making soothing noises. Do the people of Narmada valley not have the same rights as you and I in the urban middle class? Ironically, the state and central governments display remarkable haste in legalising illegal constructions in Delhi and Ulhasnagar through ordinances, bypassing the legal system completely. Should the State be selective? Isn't welfare of all its people its obligation? Why does it bend to accommodate law-breakers in our cities while ruthlessly evicting its villages and tribal hamlets? Should we raise our voice against such blatant and partisan injustice? If your answer is no, then we might as well toll the death knell of our Democracy. If yes, then that's precisely what Aamir has done!

Politics of intolerance marks Hindutva fascism, just as it did in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Attacks on intelligentsia, too, are another common ground. Stormtroopers vandalise libraries, institutions and art exhibitions routinely. Party members in censor boards merrily ban and mutilate films or harass film-makers. The BJP is only following a time-tested pattern - intimidate any independent voice into silence!

Though Hema Malini, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna and other TV or film stars within the BJP failed to speak against the Gujarat carnage, I hope they will at least respond to this full-scale assault on a Bollywood colleague. A suggestion already doing the rounds is for the entire film industry to stop releasing new films in Gujarat. Others caution about rampant piracy - with the State looking the other way; DVDs for Fanaa are already on offer for Rs 160 in Ahmedabad . Will the Shahrukhs and Hrithiks, Subhash Ghais and Boney Kapoors of the film industry stand up and be counted when it matters? Or is the Bollywood family just a big myth, concocted for money-spinning awards nights and glitzy extravaganzas on foreign shores?

Will we refuse to learn lessons from history and fail to protest? The Gujarat BJP's message is loud and clear - "shut up or else..."
Will you?
Should I?
Or Aamir?

Rakesh Sharma vs NYPD : NYCLU files lawsuit

On Jan 10, 2006, New York Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit. Their press release is at http://www.nyclu.org/sharma_pr_011006.html

Those who want to read the text of the lawsuit can go to http://www.nyclu.org/pdfs/sharma_suit_011006.pdf

I'd like to thank evryone who signed the protest petition as well as those who have supported the film.

Rakesh

Rakesh Sharma vs NYPD : News update

As you may already know, on May 13, 2005, I was harassed by NYPD while shooting in Manhattan. Some of you have already signed the protest petition as well (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/980334649?ltl=1118836819).

I filed a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), who have been conducting a formal enquiry. They have been able to locate most, if not all the police officers involved in the incident and have recorded their sworn statements. My affidavit has also been filed. We now await the results of their enquiry.

Simultaneously, NYCLU decided to take up the issue legally and we filed a notice for claim in Aug/Sept 2005. A preliminary hearing was held on Nov 10, 2005 in New York, where my sworn statement was recorded. We have now formalised our lawsuit and the various counts on which we are suing the city. We expect to file thelawsuit formally in the second week of January 2006. In addition to a claim for damages etc in the lawsuit, we are also exploring other related issues like infringement of free speech and vilolation of basic rights etc.

Thank you to all those who have lent their support to the campaign. Please sign the petition if you have not done it so far.

Gujarat 2002 : A turning point in modern Indian history?

(This was written for India Today's special issue : 30 Years : Turning points in recent Indian history. An edited, sanitised version appeared in the December 26, 2005 issue)

Imagine Gujarat in March 2002. What if the bloodthirsty mobs in Baroda had found Irfan Pathan or Zaheer Khan? What if Mohammed Kaif lived in Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad? Would there be a resurgent Team India now? Or what if Sania Mirza’s home was Gulberg society, where ex-MP Ehsan Jafri was not just brutally killed, but according to eyewitnesses, “even his body could not be found, just some bones and other parts”? What if Ustad Bismillah Khan was a resident of posh Paldi, home to the prestigious National Institute of Design and the ransacked Delite Apartments? Would his shehnai have been silenced forever and his home reduced to ashes? What if Ustad Zakir Hussain had a home in Gandhinagar? What if...

“We do not want the Muslims to shift to Pakistan. They can live here, as a part of our family, like our brothers, but like younger brothers. They must learn to respect us as there are 800 million of us and they are only 150 million” - Retired Professor Ghanshyam Joshi of the Pavagad VHP, swaying gently on his swing explains his final solution very nicely, during one of the many conversations I had with him in 2002 while shooting my film. Somehow his words are more chilling than the rabble-rousing speeches I first heard from Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Ritambara in 1990-91 and a decade later from the surgeon-turned demagogue Praveen Togadia. The next day, one of his party workers explains even more gently – “we just want these Muslims to first shift out of Gujarat and then we will see what to do with them”.

At the Don Bosco school in Ahemdabad, between 350-400 Muslim children are asked to leave. Their teacher, Pramod Kumar Kul, is very matter of fact – “they weren’t good students, just interested in somehow finishing school and then learning spray painting etc”, summarily dismissing all those young kids who had giggled and smiled the day before while talking to me about becoming a doctor or an engineer or a teacher. At the ‘National School’ inside a ghettoised part of the city, seven-year old Shahrukh Khan, though has different ideas – “ I will study and join the police as then I’d be able to help people during riots”. Little does he realise that in Modi’s Gujarat, you are most likely to get a punishment posting if you happen to discharge your constitutional obligations to try and curb the slaughter of innocent women and children. Ask R B Sreekumar or the SPs and DCPs shunted out of Kutch, Bhavnagar, Banskantha and Ahmedabad city’s zone 4. Innuendos and insinuations triumph – but isn’t anyone interested in giving us the truth behind the gory deaths at Godhra?

Much of the Gujarat violence is justified in the name of the 59 people who died inside coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express. But the late Jyotiben’s family - husband Bharat Panchal and daughter Shefali do not want any revenge to be taken in their name. Dr. Girishchandra Rawal, retired government servant, who lost his wife, tells me Godhra should not have been used during the elections - “Religion should never be mixed with politics, that’s the cause of our recent troubles”. He then asks me a question – “Railway is a government body. Wasn’t it their duty to protect passengers?” Certainly, Dr. Rawal, more so because media had reported trouble along the Sabarmati Express route a couple of days before the Godhra incident. The Faizabad-based daily Jan Morcha, specifically published a report about violence at the Rudauli station in UP. Intelligence agencies had echoed these concerns. Yet, Nitish Kumar, Advani and Modi failed to bolster security for the train and its passengers along the entire route. Reinforced RPF presence inside the train and on platforms would have helped save the 59 karsevaks who died and prevent the manhandling of Siddiq Bakar, the tea vendor and the 16-year old Sophiya Sheikh at the Godhra platform, the two incidents that triggered stone pelting at Signal Falia. Yet, does any of them emulate the former Railway Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, own moral responsibility and resign?

The Ministers and MLAs deny any involvement in the genocidal violence; yet their cellphones mysteriously make their way into Naroda Patiya and sites of other massacres. Senior Ministers are found directing police operations inside the Police Control Room to ensure their ‘mobs’ have immunity and in some cases, active help from the cops. The MP from the Gandhinagar constituency does precious little to contain violence in his own constituency. He also happens to be the Deputy Prime Minister and the country’s Home Minister at the time. On election results day in 2002, Advani looks into TV cameras and comments on the BJP election campaign – “I think it is unique that the party decided not to raise the Godhra issue...because we did not want to create that kind of climate...it is remarkable”. Just a few days earlier, I shoot a speech by Bhupendra Singh Solanki, the BJP MP from Panchmahals. Says he – “This election is not about development...the issue is Godhra...Everyone knows that even in America, England and Delhi!” The Congress remains silent, though there is both scope and precedent for legal action – after all, Bal Thackeray was disenfranchised on similar grounds! Hindutva ideologues first deny any horrific violence, then deny state complicity and finally deny their cynical exploitation of the Godhra tragedy for electoral gains. Haren Pandya, the only Minister from the Modi government to testify before the Citizen’s Tribunal provides some insights into the State’s involvement in the carnage. He is shot dead a few months later, under what can only be euphemistically termed as “mysterious circumstances”.

Report any of this and earn the sobriquet –“enemy of Gujarat” or “human-rightswallah-out-to-defame-Gujarati-asmita”! NDTV’s coverage of the carnage so infuriates Modi that he orders a black out of their signal for several days. “60 Hindu girls abducted from Sabarmati Express” headlines a prominent Gujarati daily on Feb 28, 2002, fuelling sexual violence against Muslim women, only to retract the report a couple of days later in a tiny paragraph buried in the inside pages. Modi personally expresses his high appreciation for the newspaper’s restrained coverage in the ‘best traditions of journalism’; Times of India, Indian Express and other national dailies do not receive a similar letter of commendation from him.

Prof Bandukwala, whose home was destroyed by the very people who invited him to deliver the Savarkar Memorial lecture on Feb 26, 2002, tells me – “Gandhi was an accident that happened to Gujarat”. I attribute it to anger and despair, but it sets me thinking – Would Bapu have embraced Modi as the “chhotey Sardar Patel”? Could the Mahatma have ever imagined that the gates of his Sabarmati Ashram would be shut to those who sought shelter at the height of the carnage? What would he have thought of his Congress – of some of its members equally complicit in communal attacks, of its president who failed to visit her own ex-MP’s home, the site of his brutal hacking or of the myriad ‘intellectuals’ who failed to raise their voice against Moditva? Would he have been proud of Vali Gujarati’s flattened mazaar or Ustad Fayyaz Khan’s desecrated tomb? Of the kathakars and Godmen who failed to condemn the killings and preach peace? Or of Mallika Sarabhai’s persecution? Or the Gaurav Yatra?

At the karsevak anniversary meeting on Feb 27, 2003 in Pavagad, the local leader exhorts the crowd – “Buy only from Hindu shops, use only Hindu rickshaws and raise saffron flags from your shops”. He has police protection! In village after village, Muslims are unable to return home, their shops and fields taken over by people who should’ve been behind bars for driving them away in the first place. In cities and towns, informal ghettos have sprung up, children speak of being afraid to cross the ‘border’ to go to their schools. Would Mahatma Gandhi himself have been safe in his own Gujarat?

So, who do the people of Gujarat turn to? A partisan Legislative? The Executive – IAS and IPS officers - intent on serving its political masters – the very same bunch of IAS and IPS officers who crawled when asked to bend, barring a few notable exceptions? Or that last bastion of hope - the state Judiciary?

According to the Editors’ Guild report on the Gujarat carnage – “Two serving Muslim Judges of the Gujarat High Court, Mr Qadri and Mr Akbar Divecha were threatened and had to flee their homes. The residence of one was attacked and burnt. A Hindu brother judge who offered him a safe haven in his own home was reportedly the recipient of threatening calls”. A senior lawyer insisting on anonymity speaks of hindutva in the Judiciary and cites examples of many BJP or VHP sympathisers appointed as public prosecutors or judges in the last decade! I attend a trial at the Godhra court – a courageous Muslim woman has decided to seek justice for the horrific rape and killing of her daughters. An ace lawyer, an ex-BJP MP, represents the accused. The Public Prosecutor, an erstwhile partyman, seeking justice on behalf of the Muslim woman as her lawyer hasn’t seen it fit to even meet her though she is a key eyewitness! Later, many of us read the Gujarat High Court’s remarks against Teesta Setalvad and Mihir Desai with a mix of horror and resignation; thankfully, the Supreme Court expunges them. Still later, the Zaheera Shaikh drama is played out, the SC steps in again and terms her a “liar”.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh created history by apologizing to the nation for the 1984 anti-sikh carnage during his speech in the Parliament. But, honestly, do you see M/s Sudarshan, Advani, Togadia and Modi apologizing for the genocidal violence in Gujarat? Instead, they speak of janadesh – the peoples’ mandate; Modi is now flying high on the back of his triumph in the Ahmedabad municipal elections and his earlier sweep of the Gujarat assembly elections. But does an electoral victory legitimise evil? After all, Hitler did win the German elections!

Former Prime Minister Vajpayee preached rajdharma to Modi, but himself shunned all advice to practice what he preached, deliberately ignoring counsel from the President of India. Said the late K R Narayanan in March 2005 in an interview to Malayalam monthly Manava Samskriti – “I met him personally and talked to him directly. But Vajpayee did not do anything effective…I feel there was a conspiracy involving the state and central governments behind the Gujarat riots”

Can politics of hate and intolerance be the basis for the creation of a harmonious society and a robust democracy? Is Gujarat 2002 a turning point in our recent history? You decide...

Take the scissors away from the Censor Board

Enclosed below is a piece I wrote for HT, for your information. Please sign our petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/MIFF/petition.html if you haven't already done so. Rakesh Sharma

Hindustan Times, Oct 29, 2005. Mumbai

Take the scissors away from the Censor Board

The Government of India thinks you are stupid, I am an imbecile, indeed each person who steps into any cinema hall is an idiot. The Government is deeply concerned about us, which is why it has appointed wise men to take care of us. Collectively, they inhabit this space called the Censor Board and toil day and night to keep us from plunging headlong into a life of sin. Their boss is usually a retired or out of work actor. He may have molested countless women on screen or she may have gyrated in a sequined bikini, but they discover hitherto hidden reserves of morality as soon as they are appointed to the Censor Board.

The Government does not always think of us as idiots. It has permitted us to decide whom to marry, though there are some groups of even wiser men who boycott or kill those marrying into other castes or religions. The government lets us decide our professions, even has employment guarantee schemes committing to us a minimum average income of five hundred rupees a month! And it has given us the right to vote - Pundits sing our praises and lively, colourful graphics analyse our wisdom in rejecting the politics of hate in 2004 or the politics of totalitarianism in 1977.

The government thinks we are capable of watching 20 news channels and seeing through all the chutneyfied headlines and 'breaking news' to get our daily dose of truth. It feels that we are capable of watching dozens of ads about soaps and shampoos and make an informed choice to acquire our own lather-generating agents. Curiously, it has no problem letting us watch nubile young women gyrating in virginal white garter belts or playfully caressing a bdsm riding crop to the tune of sainyaan dil mein aana rey on television! We can watch any serial or any television show, we can hear any radio programme and read anything on the worldwide web and remain wise. But cross the threshold to buy a cinema ticket and you and I suddenly transform into idiots. We need to be protected by the thought police.

Lets now take a look at the wise men the government has charged with the chest-puffing task of preserving our virtues. They normally sit huddled in small groups of three to five, intently scanning flickering images and sounds for any contaminant. They decide what you and I can and should watch and they do so selflessly, as an act of 'social service', without seeking any payment for their wisdom. They usually represent a wide cross-section of society – a Minister's girlfriend or his unemployed nephew, a local corporator's convent-educated wife, some MLA's campaign accountant who helped him hoodwink EC's regulations, a Jai Shri Ram chant-enthused party worker from the BJP/ VHP/ Bajrang Dal/ Hindu Jagran Manch/ Durga Vahini or one of Soniaji's Congressmen. As associates or chamchas of some politician, they have a rare intellectual depth, a deep understanding of culture and aesthetics and an even deeper understanding of the dark sides of the human soul. Since they also happen to possess expertise in constitutional matters, they can swiftly figure out whether a dialogue will cause a law & order problem and breach peace, faster than any court of law as they only have 3-4 hours to do so while any court can drag on a case for years! These wise men decide to remove words like Gujarat and Ayodhya from Govind Nihalani's Dev, set against the backdrop of riots. They readily send legal notices to film-makers but turn a blind eye to Praveen Togadia's Ramsevak Amar Raho VCDs sold openly over the counter at the VHP office! They brand Anand Patwardhan's cinema as dangerous, even though the Judiciary has never agreed with them! They decree that an anti-prostitution film like In the Flesh is derogatory to women or films like Parzania and Final Solution will lead to law and order problems, even though the Supreme Court has not just dismissed such insinuations in the past but also chastised the government severely - "…freedom of expression cannot be suppressed on account of threat of demonstration and processions or threats of violence. That would tantamount to negation of the rule of law and surrender to blackmail and intimidation. It is the duty of the State to protect the freedom of expression since it is a liberty guaranteed against the State."

Other such bogeys include "relations with foreign countries" – last year, CBFC's examining committee rejected Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 when it was playing to packed houses in USA; Dubya was yet to win his first legitimate election and daddy Bush, though he hated the film, could not prevent screenings, even under the Patriot Act. Yet our censor board sprang to their defence.

The crown jewel is the provision included in the proposed new policy aimed at tightening censorship even at film festivals. The bureaucracy would like to retain the powers to ban "any film that affects human sensibilities". So what happens to those of us making films in the fond hope of affecting these very sensibilities? Naturally, this provision will not extend to Guddu Dhanoa's Siskiyan (of the multiple rapes fame) or to the countless dubai-se-bhai-ne-supari-diya films! Not content with butchering documentaries and sensitive narrative features at the Censor Board, the babus now want to dictate what film-makers, critics, students and international delegates can watch in a film festival space.

Though the NDA government tried to introduce censorship for Indian films at MIFF 2004, it had to buckle under the pressure exerted by independent film-makers and withdraw the controversial regulation in the face of a boycott by Indian and international film-making community. MIFF managed to strike back through backdoor censorship – its selection committees found our films substandard. Films for Freedom, a collective of over 250 film-makers was born and an alternative screening space – Vikalp was created, which has by now held hundreds of screenings countrywide, even while facing police action at the behest of the Congress-led Ministry of I & B in cities like Bangalore and Chennai and extralegal censorship by rightwing goons. The 'liberal' UPA regime now wants to introduce tighter censorship at film festivals, something the BJP-led government tried and failed to do. Why should anyone have a monopoly over fascism?

At the recently-concluded Film South Asia, the Kathmandu declaration against censorship was signed by all film-makers, jury members and festival organizers. Last week, at the prestigious Yamagata filmfest in Japan, hundreds of delegates signed a petition to the Government of India urging the Indian government to remove the shadow of censorship at MIFF 2006 by removing the controversial clause 8 that empowers the Ministry to reject even those films that have been shortlisted for competition by a selection committee comprising eminent film-makers! But is this government listening?

On Oct 21, when President Kalam handed out the National Film Awards, perhaps the Minister and his officers did not tell him about the ongoing boycott for the last two years by over 200 film-makers, who have refused to enter their films for the Awards since the government insists that only films cleared by its censor board are eligible! The film-makers rightly point out that evaluation of artistic merit or cinematic excellence by a jury of peers can not have censorship as a precondition. Official minutes in sarkari files speak of censorship at foreign film festivals and awards to justify their new policies, but as a film-maker whose work has been screened at over 100 film festivals worldwide, I have never been asked for censor clearance nor have I been ever asked to delete a certain sound or visual by any film festival. Some totalitarian regimes may insist on such censorship in isolated pockets of the world, but surely, our 'liberal' rulers do not wish to cite those as examples to emulate.

Many of us believe that the main censorship law – the Cinematograph ACT of 1952 itself is archaic and needs a thorough review, especially in light of rapid changes in the last decade – the spread of TV channels and internet have led to a greater 'visual literacy'; cinematic images no longer need to be treated as extra-potent images capable of influencing gullible minds and hence subject to a more stringent regulation, which for decades has been the underlying assumption behind the administration and interpretation of the Cinematograph Act both by CBFC and the courts. Some of us argue that to curb hate speech or pornography and denigration of women, provisions of the IPC and the CrPC need to be made more stringent and enforced rigorously – a fine of a million bucks and a five year jail term is a greater deterrent compared to any action taken by a largely toothless censor board. Let the CBFC become a ratings agency and advise parental guidance, if necessary, but do not let it have the power to ban, mutilate or maim a film! If a film-maker violates the law, prosecute him! Further, let documentaries be brought under the jurisdiction of the Press Council of India; it is ridiculous that Togadia can reach millions through a live telecast of his rally but if a film uses a 45 second excerpt from the same rally, it gets banned! An NDTV 'special' or an Aaj Tak 'vishesh' are no different from a documentary – if they can go on air sans censorship, why should a documentary be subjected to it?

For the last few years, we have been suggesting that the law needs to be liberalized even for general public exhibition of all kinds of cinema; instead even the erstwhile censorship-free spaces like film festivals are being taken away! A war is now on. At stake is our freedom of expression and our right to information. The last time such a thing happened, it was called the Emergency.

Rakesh Sharma
www.rakeshfilm.com