Freedom of expression is slightly more than scribbling poems and tucking them away in your closet, or giving a small, inane speech at a party you might be hosting in your kitchen garden. It is also about putting across a point of view. And it is also about accepting someone else's point of view, however, obnoxious or virulent it might be.
The attacks on Biharis, among others, in Mumbai by chauvinist Marathis, and the subsequent display of primeval sentiments by political leaders of Bihari ostensibly as a reaction to the former are both parochial manifestations of divergent points of view.
In this backdrop comes a Maharashtra governmental ban on the film called Deshdrohi that purportedly depicts atrocities on North Indians perpetrated by chauvinists in Mumbai, and a Congress leader's call for ban on a play about the Shiv Sena's point of view about the migrants issue in the state capital.
The Vilasrao Deshmukh regime's ban on Deshdrohi is both short-sighted and juvenile at the same time. If the Censor Board has passed it and the film is being shown in all other states, whether the film is shown in Maharashtra or not becomes inconsequential. It is not going to make matters worse in the state. Or does the government think that Maharashtrians/Marathis will take umbrage and give vent to their ire in some form or the other? So, is it because the government had not actually taken cognisance of the feelings and opinions of the "real" people of the state all this while?
If anything, the ban has made a star of a non-actor called Kamal Rashid Khan. And it has made a blockbuster of a third grade film that plays only to the galleries of the BIMARU states. The volatile situation exists not only in Maharashtra, but outside as well. So the Deshmukh government should have foreseen the reactions on other states and acted accordingly. In other words, a bit more responsibly.
Hundreds of Lok Janshakti Party workers went on the rampage inside a cinema hall in Ranchi yesterday to stop the screening of Deshdrohi. Not the right and civilised way to defend freedom of expression, one might say. But right now, that is beside the point. If any, the point is that the Maharashtra government could have acted a bit more sensibly and desisted from aggravating the anti-Marathi sentiments in other states that are being fomented by myriad political interests.
The film, in itself, is just a filmmaker's point of view. If you don't like the idea behind the narrative, don't see it. But don't stop others from seeing it either.
The same logic would apply to the Shiv Sena-organised play as well. It is a point of view of the rightwing organisation. No one is imploring or coercing you to go and see it. The Shiv Sena has not really dropped in from the skies. If you accuse it of exploiting people's sentiments and dividing the people, you ought to realise that there is fertile ground for the Sena to exploit.
Rhetoric subnationalism and jingoist claptrap is not going to get us anywhere as a nation. And clamping down on people putting across their points of biew, however crass or nefarious, is not the right way of doing things either.
