Have they come for you yet? They could be anyone. A new oraganisation committed to keeping women out of pubs, jeans, self-hoods and a sense of freedom. Khap elders calculating whether you can fall in love with a boy in the same village and if you do, whether you should be hung in public or hacked. Political goons who blacken faces of hand-holding lovers on Valentine’s Day. Religious leaders of any faith who think being a woman automatically disqualifies you from being human so you must be ‘taught” how to think, dress, behave, walk, talk. Goons of political leaders who are offended by films, books, paintings, even random Facebook posts and freedom of ideas. The last is the most dangerous animal in a democracy. We don’t really want people to say what they want, do we? It would mean that they can think whatever they want! And if they start thinking, oh, that would change everything, wouldn’t it? They would start understanding things they are not supposed to. Things like..how under the religious robe of every colour and most political agendas, there is duplicity, hypocrisy, disdain for the idea of a progressive,undivided nation, unafraid of its diversity or creative dissent because it is a democracy, remember? Or is it?
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So Ali J (an Evam Entertainment production and written by Shekinah Jacob), a play scheduled to be staged at Jagriti (the theatre and artistic space in Whitefield, Bangalore) from March 12 to 16, stands cancelled because of complaints from a Hindu fundamentalist group . Protests resulted in the shows being cancelled in Mumbai and Chennai. Bangalore could not have resisted the bullies beyond a point because previous shows of the play in the city were staged with the help of police protection and that support ironically did not come through this time.
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Fundamentalists come from the same place no matter which God they feign to love. They are divisive political opportunists who have little tolerance for thought-provoking art and when this interference wears a religious mask, gets the power to police what we watch, vandalise paintings, burn books and stop film and theatre shows, harm artists and activists who inconveniently advocate freedom of choice, of speech, of volition, we cannot look the other way and pretend it doesn’t concern us because it does.
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We are raising our kids in this country. Their secular genes and inclusive values may be too deep-rooted to be modified by intolerance but they will grow up in a country where they are in a minority. Where they will not be able to create, to opine, to show dissent fearlessly because they will be targetted and hushed up either by force or by fear.
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The managing, artistic spirits at Jagriti know this and they “were committed to staging the play and fought until “third bell” on the opening night of the play. However, pressure from the police resulted in the cancellation of that show.”
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There is a fundamental truth in this. Artists are not rabid. If they become so, they cease to be artists but in every chapter of history, they are targetted for saying the uncomfortable things, for shining light into dark corners of our psyche and our political and social realities by forces that do not like to be shown up for who they are. Cowardly bullies.
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According to a press release I got, “Jagriti and Evam continued to work with the police, the tehsildar and even engaged the Hindu fundamentalist group in discussion, but finally a senior official in the Home Ministry weighed in saying he is aware of the matter, and that any other time he would support the theatre, but given that it is election time, he fears that groups will use this issue to push their own agendas, resulting in chaos. While Jagriti staunchly supports the freedom of speech and expression and will do everything in its power to not allow hooliganism and fundamentalism to dictate its artistic offerings, it must carefully consider legal directives especially during election time.”
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Activist, theatre, cinema and TV artist Mona Ambegaonkar believes this is just the beginning and if we allow a religion driven political mandate to have its way, the arts and any kind of counter-view will be crushed even more blatantly and cites the example of dissenting police officers in Gujarat who are facing political persecution and are unprotected and vulnerable.
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Just like most of us are if we say, paint, write the wrong thing. We are up against any fundamentalist or political group that has the power and the freedom to muzzle us. And we are losing. Today it is Jagriti and Evam. Tomorrow, it could be you and me.
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And if we don’t speak up against the politicisation of art, we will pass on a dangerously intolerant country to our young adults who will have the freedom to think but not to articulate it.
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Reema Moudgil has been writing for magazines and newspapers on art, cinema, issues, architecture and more since 1994, is a mother, an RJ , an artist. She runs Unboxed Writers from a rickety computer , edited Chicken Soup for The Indian Woman’s soul, authored Perfect Eight and earns a lot of joy through her various roles and hopes that some day working for passion will pay in more ways than just one. And that one day she will finally be able to build a dream house, travel around the world and look back and say, “It was all worth it.”
