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- INDIA
Of late there have been repeated efforts to stop screening of films that do not fit into its scheme of things. The most recent have been the attacks on venues and organisers screening the acclaimed film ‘Ram ke Naam’, by Anand Patwardhan. The most recent attack was at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune.
Prior to that the screening of the film was disrupted in Hyderabad, where it was those screening the film who were reportedly arrested. The screening of the same film was also disrupted in Kottayam in Kerala.
‘Ram Ke Naam’ - an important cinematic work in the context of the Babri Masjid-Ram janambhoomi controversy– is not the only film to have provokded right wing elements Barely a fortnight ago Tamil feature film ‘Annapoorani: The Goddess of Food’ that was also dubbed in Hindi fell victim to the phenomenon of ‘hurt religious sentiments’.
The film was in the news after being reportedly withdrawn by the OTT platform Netflix following protests about a reference to Lord Ram hunting and consuming meat while in exile.
Responding to the attack against the screening of this documentary at Hyderabad, Patwardhan stated in a social media post, “The film got a U Censor Certificate in 1992. It won a National Award that year and a Filmfare award and several international awards. When Doordarshan refused to telecast it, we went to court and won in 1997. Doordarshan was ordered to show the film at prime time.
“Over the years many screenings of this film have been attacked by right wing goons across this country. At times the police have helped the right wing. The good news is that late this afternoon after pressure from civil society all the arrested got bail. The even-better news is that not all the civil society in our country is fast asleep. My heartfelt thanks to all those who stay awake even though no nautanki master has come to open our eyes!”
“The Right-wing forces do not want history to be told to the people. They want only (Narendra) Modi’s activities to be propagated,” Patwardhan told ‘The Telegraph’ after the attack on the FTII students.
Another film that has rked the right wing lobby is ‘Final Solution’ by Rakesh Sharma. It deals with the anti Muslim pogrom in Gujarat.
But it is the attack against the film ‘Annapoorani’ that calls for a deeper understanding to the opposition as it largely deals with the concept of food politics. What annoyed the protestors was the central character Annapoorani from a strictly vegetarian Brahmin household.
The character, played by Nayanthara, is shown as being close to a Muslim named Farhaan. He is also her guide in the film’s storyline, something that fits into the Right Wing narrative of what has come to be normalised as ‘love jihad’.
The Right Wing were even more annoyed as the storyline revolved around the dreams of a girl to become a chef. She, from a staunch Brahmin family, takes to cooking and eating meat to stride towards realising her dream.
Observers see the developments around the film as the ‘bully having his way’. It is only on delving deeper one comes across the most important factor of food politics of polarisation at play.
This is the politics that has assumed centre stage for quite some time with politicians forcibly shutting down eating places selling non vegetarian food, and thereby robbing many of their only means of livelihood.
Recently Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Balmukund Acharya was filmed going around shutting meat shops even before he had taken oath of office after winning the recent elections.
He reportedly apologised for his conduct a day later.
“This type of bullying and then having their way culminates in self censorship where a writer or a filmmaker is not able to convey what he wants to in an honest manner. One has to draw an inference from the episode of noted Tamil writer Perumal Murugan announcing the death of his writing in 2015 after being attacked and harassed by right wing groups,” said Rajiv Sharma, a filmmaker based in Mohali in Punjab.
Adding to what he said, Dakxin Bajrange, a film maker from Gujarat pointed out, “Making a film involves a huge budget. When there is such bullying, a film maker resorts to self censorship that translates into a censorship of his thoughts. He is afraid to make a film around realistic issues.
“Previously the issues of censorship were often resolved either at the level of the government or through the courts. But now we are living in a time where even the offices of the OTT platforms are not safe and are often sites of violence.
“What all this translates into is the fact that we are living in a time where freedom of expression is conditional whereas our fundamental rights should be non conditional. We do not have any liberty in entirety. But resorting to such antics they are able to set and reinforce an agenda besides gaining publicity.”
“The current dispensation has brought the food to the centre of politics along political divisions around Ram Rajya and Ram. Food has always been a cultural thing where we have had people from Brahminical class in states like Assam, Bengal and Kashmir etc. being meat eaters with no one being bothered about what people were eating.
“Now we see politics around food to establish a vote bank. And this politics is ruthless. We have historical proof of people resorting to meat eating during famines while things were different at the time of abundance,” explained Paramjit Singh Judge, an expert in sociology based in Amritsar.
He explained the various dimensions of food and the politics that have come to surround it. Judge underlined how food habits have been governed by struggles within sects like Vaishnavism and Shaivism alongside advent of Buddhism, arrival of Islam, influence of Sufism etc.
In addition to this there have been contradictions like prescriptions about not eating certain food on certain days, some communities not eating Halal and some communities having Kosher. In addition to this were the factors that while the female of animal species that were domesticated were found to be useful, how were the males to be utilised, either for work or for consumption?
He also explained the dynamics around cultivation of the three grass varieties of wheat, rice and maize for consumption around the world, underlining that an acre of land under rice cultivation would feed more people than an acre of land under wheat.
“During my stint in Indonesia, which is a Muslim dominated, I came across many Muslims having names like Ram and Sita. At the same time I came across a Punjabi colleague who was born and brought up in Indonesia being a keen snake eater, something that is abhorred in our part of the world. Food is something determined by culture and cannot be imposed on anyone,” Sharma added.
Putting things into the present day political context Bajrange said, “By resorting to the politics of polarisation through food, the politicians of the day are just playing to their core vote bank. No matter whether he or she might have got the votes of a person selling or eating eggs or meat, the endeavour is to address the core voters who have been fed narratives around vegetarianism.
“How is it that a food that was good under one regime becomes bad under another? They are not ready to accept any logic around the majority in the world being meat eaters, food habits being determined by the economic conditions etc. All they are interested in is mobilising a vote bank for meeting their political ends.”
