National

What's Burning?

Audiences love it, Indian censors clear it, but Shiv Sainiks are determined to fight this 'Fire'

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What's Burning?
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A screaming bunch of frenzied men and women converge upon a venue screaming religious slogans. They proceed to tear papers, terrorise people, vandalise buildings. Then they disappear, but not before threatening to return "if you do anything that goes against our culture". Medieval Inquisitors? Hitlerian SS troopers? Ku Klux Klan-ites? No. Just Shiv Sainiks, their legislators and members of spiritual sister concerns Bajrang Dal and Patit Paavan Sangathan rampaging across movie halls, disrupting screenings of the controversial film with lesbian content, Fire, in Bombay, Delhi, Surat, Pune last week. Demanding a ban on a film that's bagged 14 international awards, two best actress awards for heroine and Parliamentarian Shabana Azmi, received standing ovations in Toronto, London, New York and, despite its radical theme, recorded 80 per cent collections in theatres Indiawide in its three-week run. From hushed, appreciative native audiences who reacted maturely to a mature film. No catcalls. No voyeuristic giggles even from frontbenchers who watched attentively, reacted sensitively. Obviously Fire struck a chord with audiences.

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Not with Mumbai's Aghadi Mahila Samiti chief Meena Kulkarni though. Who, after leading her storm-troopers through cinema halls, petitioned Maharashtra culture minister Pramod Navalkar: "If women's physical needs get fulfilled through lesbian acts, the institution of marriage will collapse, reproduction of human beings will stop".

Not a supreme tragedy, wisecracked wags, in a nation of 950 million! Surat Bajrang Dal chief Ashwin Modi, who led his rioting mobs through the Raj Palace theatre, thundered the "depiction of characters was inconsistent with normal behaviour and morals". Kul-karni seconded that, adding, "a majority of women in our society don't even know about lesbianism. Why expose them to it?" But lesbianism does/did exist, say detractors. Who hasn't seen Khajuraho that depicts every aspect of the sexual spectrum; who hasn't read Ismat Chugtai's much-feted lesbian love tale Lihaaf; not heard of the two women constables that married, lived controversially ever after? Kulkarni's response: "Everything that happens in society shouldn't be shown. Do you give out prostitutes' addresses because you know where they live?" Alka Pande, president, Mumbai's Agni Shiksha Manch, screaming for Azmi's resignation from Parliament, was beside herself with rage. "We would've blackened Mehta and Azmi's faces when they were here promoting Fire if we weren't otherwise occupied." Her stance found vociferous support from state chief minister Manohar Joshi. "What's depicted is against Indian culture; I'm against such forms of art." So will the State dictate parameters for art? His response: "Culture is more important than glorification of art."

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 It's a stance that stupefies the film's director Deepa Mehta. "Which Indian culture is being discussed? Is loneliness alien to our culture? Are two women turning to each other for comfort culturally alien? Are the freedom of choice, tolerance, compassion alien to Indian ethos?" she asks. "Intolerance, Salem-style witch hunts, medieval mindsets when you're approaching the millennium are anti-Indian culture. Not Fire," she flashes. In any case, she asks, how would Indian censors pass a film without a single cut if they found it culturally antipathic? "I laud the censor board for its maturity and wisdom in not only passing but praising the film. Audiences love it if crowds and collections are any indication. A minister here, a mob there don't represent the populace. Only petty personal prejudice."

At week's end the film industry rallied in support of Mehta. Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, himself caught in the censor crossFire over his communally-sensitive film Zakhm, vented despair, saying the oppressiveness he'd been sensing for a while was in fact a "cultural emergency". He raised valid queries. "Is stopping cricket matches, banning films all we do? Are there no other pressing issues?" Fire's second-lead actress Nandita Das was despondent. "Here's a film about choices and people are being denied the choice of seeing it. Why discount the maturity and intelligence of the audience?" Javed Akhtar, who wrote the Hindi version of the film, is indignant. "This isn't some cheap B-grade film but an internationally-lauded one." Censor board member and film journalist Bhawna Somaya agrees. "Not lesbianism. Fire is about female loneliness, bonding." Parliamentarian Kuldip Nayar too joined cause strongly protesting state sponsored/condoned "cultural goondaism" even as Shabnam Hashmi of Delhi's Sahmat condemned the "forcible disruption" of its screening. Even as fellow Rajya Sabha member and Senaite Pritish Nandy usurped high moral ground, sniped it wasn't the government's function to glorify "lesbians", colleague Azmi offered poised riposte—"Who's talking about immorality? Those indulging in rioting and destruction?"

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For once the industry united. Bhatt, playwright Vijay Tendulkar, actor Dilip Kumar, director Yash Chopra shot off a petition to the Supreme Court Chief Justice demanding he guarantee protection for the film screening, condemn Joshi's open condoning of the Sena's mob actions. The fallout was swift. On December 3, Delhi police arrested Sena joint secretary Dhruv Chand Pathak who led the attack on Regal. The next day, Jai Bhagwan Goel, Firespewing local SS chief, was also arrested. Meanwhile in Bombay, Santosh Singh Jain, who's leading a Film Federation protest delegation to Thackeray and Joshi, pleaded for sanity, pointed out that if the Maharashtra government persisted in its bigotry, in tacitly supporting the demand for a statewide ban on Fire, the state might well lose valuable revenue, lose its status as India's film capital as beleaguered directors/producers would shift business to more congenial climes. "People will invest in a film only after it's certified by the censors. Tomorrow you'll have a situation where Maharashtra might clear a film but Rajasthan might ban it. There's no end to this. Where does this leave investors? A group of people can't stand for an entire state. The UP government is luring filmmakers, offering 50-75% tax exemption if the film is shot there. Such initiatives may make tired filmmakers move out of Mumbai."

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That fiscal argument seemed to have registered with the Sainiks. On December 3, Thackeray asked his followers to exercise restraint while agitating for a ban. There was small consolation there though for Bombay distributor Shyam Shroff who has put his money where his mouth is or for audiences demanding autonomy over their own minds and preferences. "A lot of women have loved the film. Who's going to speak for them? I'd understand if someone goes to court demanding a ban; why use force?" That question, posed by both outraged audiences and the film fraternity, was still hanging Fire last week as Fire screenings remained suspended and it was referred back to the Censor Board for "re-examination". Together with the Indian citizen's right to choose. 

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