Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'The uproar over 'Sarkar'' that was published in Newsband

The uproar over 'Sarkar'

The AIADMK in Tamil Nadu has forced the makers of the Tamil film Sarkar to cut a scene and mute some dialogue, ostensibly because they are critical of government policy or offend their sensibilities. AIADMK supporters went on a rampage in cinemas that screened the film.

This film has become an easy target for the AIADMK dispensation, as it is critical of welfare schemes for which the State is renowned. Part of a woman character’s name will now be muted to avoid any impression. Images of people throwing into the fire mixers and grinders they had got from the government have also been snipped. The legal position that there should be no further enforced censorship once a film has been certified by the Central Board of Film Certification has been wilfully ignored.

Producers are frequently forced by the politically powerful to compromise. These politicians should understand that films will and should make comments on issues of social importance. They have no right to take the law into their hands. What provoke them is the fact that there are films which depict governments, policemen, doctors, teachers and even judges as criminals.

Cinemas have an unusual influence on voters in TN & that treatment of political issues in Tamil cinemas can mislead the gullible public. It is true that the movie makers should desist from the temptation to take the easy route for a commercial success by stoking controversies without a proper understanding.

It is not AIADMK or BJP alone, who will be averse to criticism, but all political parties whether big or small had thrown their weights and created ruckus at different points of time in the past for objectionable scenes in the movies. Sometimes it appears that democracy is being protected from a corrosive polity with barely a wafer thin coating of law and order. Political thuggery and vandalism doesn't belong to this century, especially when it aims to stifle people's fundamental freedoms enshrined in the constitution.

Films make deep impact on society. That is why rulers are afraid of films that question their policies. They try to stop such films. One of the ironies in Tamil Nadu is that sometimes serious social issues are debated more in commercial cinema than in the political arena.

As much as films and newspapers have right to comment, those who are hurt and oppose those comments have right to protest without violence and take every step law provides them too. It is not one way street.