Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 3, 2006
For someone who first tasted success directing
two future MPs - Vinod Khanna to the right and Shabana Azmi to the left -
in Lahu ke Do Rang, Mahesh Bhatt has, appropriately, established himself as
a deft exponent of the "rent a cause" game. Most recently he has
jumped onto the Fanaa bandwagon and lent his name to a public interest petition
asking the Supreme Court to force the Gujarat Government to have the Aamir
Khan film screened in the state. The film has run into trouble in Gujarat
- with sections of both the BJP and the Congress, and of the multiplex owners'
association - calling for its non-release after its lead star made allegedly
disparaging remarks about the Narmada project. It is nobody's case that political
parties - BJP or Congress or, for that matter, the well-known moral policemen
in the CPI(M), who have most recently banned an anti-AIDS film in West Bengal,
calling it "inappropriate" - should don the garb of censors. They
have a right to call for a boycott, as every citizen does, but not to obstruct
a cultural performance with muscle-power. If the second occurs, it is the
duty of the State Government to check it. In Gujarat, pressure from political
and civil society groups - and perhaps strands of emotion in the film distributors
and exhibitors fraternity - has come in the way of Fanaa. There is no open
obstruction, no patent acts of violence. Given this consensus - across parties
and across sectional interests though admittedly born of varying motivations
- what can the Government do? A Chief Minister's job is not to ensure box
office success for Master Aamir Khan.
Bhatt, and other film industry "activists"
who have suddenly re-discovered the virtues of "free speech", can
be accused of being extremely selective. In the past fortnight, running parallel
to the Fanaa melodrama, has been The Da Vinci Code tragedy. A film cleared
by the national certification authorities has been banned, in State after
State, from Goa to Andhra Pradesh to Punjab, pandering to Christian radicals
who are, if anything, at least as intolerant as the Gujarat chauvinists Aamir
Khan claims to have taken on. Bhatt is not particularly concerned by prohibitions
imposed by Congress Governments. Indeed, in Pakistan a month ago - reacting
to a provocative remark made by a local master of ceremonies and directed
at movie star Manisha Koirala - veteran actor Feroz Khan defended the lady
and told his hosts a few home truths: Primarily that Muslims were better off
in India than in Pakistan. Mahesh Bhatt, who was also present at the function,
rushed to apologise to the people of Pakistan and more or less called Feroz
Khan an embarrassment. It's a wonder that he remains unwilling to stand up
for a dissenting individual's right to be heard in Pakistan, but insists on
nothing but utopian standards in Gujarat. This man is a strange mix of hypocrite
and publicity junkie.
