[Reader-list] On Jodhaa Akbar (editorial from Hindu)

[TaraPrakash]

Hi all. The editorial published in Hindu is really commendible. I wish the 
paper had taken such a stand on Taslima's tormentors, including West Bengal 
and central government.


Culture of intolerance

If we are too easily offended as a people, then we capitulate even more 
easily to those who take offence. The suspension of the screening of 
Ashutosh Gowariker's
Jodhaa Akbar in Madhya Pradesh and two Haryana districts expresses the 
distressing tendency of governments and local administrations to appease the 
intolerant
by banning films or books. The Hindi film -- an extravaganza in which a 
marriage of political convenience between the great Mu ghal emperor Akbar 
(Hrithik
Roshan) and a proud Rajput princess, 'Jodhaa Bai' (Aishwarya Rai), develops, 
through many a fiery trial, into true love -- has evoked nasty protests in
some States. Cinema halls in Rajasthan were coerced into not screening the 
film following threats of violence; a low intensity bomb went off at a hall
screening the film in Maharashtra; and there has been some trouble in other 
States such as Gujarat, Bihar, and Delhi.

The trouble over Jodhaa Akbar ostensibly stems from 'hurt sentiments' the 
film's ahistoricity caused among some groups claiming to speak for the 
Rajput
community. There certainly "wasn't any historical character called Jodhaa 
Bai," as Irfan Habib, the eminent historian of Mughal India, points out; he 
clarifies
that while it is true that Akbar married the Amber ruler Raja Bharmal's 
eldest daughter, "her name isn't mentioned anywhere ... and she was 
certainly not
Jahangir's mother." (Some historians believe 'Jodhaa Bai' was emperor 
Jahangir's wife.) But then Jodhaa Akbar doesn't claim to be history and 
indeed its
director has described it as "70 per cent fiction." It is significant that 
there was no protest when K. Asif's 1960 classic, Mughal-E-Azam, drawing on
folklore and claiming no historicity, featured 'Jodha Bai' (Durga Khote) as 
the Rajput wife of Akbar (Prithviraj Kapoor). The involvement of 
politicians,
cutting across party lines, in the current campaign of protest and 
intimidation suggests, in addition to political opportunism, a worsened 
attitude to
freedom of expression. There is absolutely no warrant for banning films on 
account of a perceived or real threat of violence and thus flouting Article
19(1)(a) of the Constitution, which safeguards the fundamental right of 
freedom of expression. The principle that "freedom of expression protects 
not merely
ideas that are accepted but those that offend, shock or disturb the State or 
any sector of the population"; that law and order problems are no 
justification
for suppressing freedom of expression; and that succumbing to threats of 
violence is "tantamount to negation of the rule of law" was firmly laid down 
by
the Supreme Court in its landmark Ore Oru Gramathile judgment (1989). To 
suspend the screening of Jodhaa Akbar or turn a blind eye as bigots coerce 
cinema
halls into pulling out the film is to surrender to the culture of 
intolerance and dishonour the Constitution.