24 Film Makers Return National Awards

24 Film Makers Return National Awards

By Countercurrents.org

06 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

Twenty-Four members of film fraternity returned their national awards to protest against “the threat to the academic culture at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII)” and “the horror at people being attacked and killed for their beliefs”. The decision was announced at a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday.

The statement said, “We carry a sense of hurt and outrage at the events unfolding around us. We are concerned citizens of this country, whose work has been recognised by the Government of India. That is a great honour for us, and in returning this award, we are not rejecting the recognition that the jury has bestowed on us. Neither are we belittling the honour given to us by the people of our country in the form of the National Award.”

Along with Kundan Shah and Saeed Mirza, the letter was signed by Virendra Saini, Arundhati Roy, Ranjan Palit, Tapan Bose, Shriprakash, Sanjay Kak, Pradip Krishen, Tarun Bhartiya, Amitabh Chakraborty, Madhusree Dutta, Anwar Jamal, Ajay Raina, Irene Dhar Malik, PM Satheesh, Satya Rai Nagpaul, Manoj Lobo, Rafeeq Ellias, Sudheer Palsane, Vivek Sachidanand, Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti, Dr Manoj Nitharwal and Abhimanyu Dange.

On 28 October, ten film makers had returned their awards. That list included Anand Patwardhan, Dibakar Banerjee, Lipika Singh, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harsh Kulkarni and Hari Nair.

Four Padma Bhushan Awards, 3rd highest civilian honour in the country, 40 Sahitya Academi Awards given to eminent literary personalities, 36 National film Awards were returned to Narendra Modi Government as a protest in just 18 months of BJP rule. The award returning movement is dubbed as 'Award Wapsi' echoing the Hindutva ultra-nationalists’ movement called 'Ghar Wapsi' (home coming) by which people of other faiths are forcefully converted back to Hinduism.

Recently three writers were killed by fascist forces. Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M.Kalburgi were killed in cold blood and none of the culprits were arrested so far.

A hysteria has been unleashed by Hindutva forces over beef eating habit of vast majority of Indians. Three people were killed over this hysteria recenlty. Mohammad Aqlaq was lynched to death in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, on the mere rumour of storing beef in his house, which later turned out to be mutton in forensic examination. Then Noman was beaten to death in the presence of police in Himachal Pradesh over the rumours that he was transporting cows. Lastly Zahid Rasool Bhat of Kashmir was killed in a petrol bomb attack over the rumour of cow slaughter.

Recently, Kerala house was raided by police in New Delhi over an allegation that the restuarant in the house was serving beef in blatant violation of the laws, including the federal rights of a state of the union of India. Although beef (especially cow meat) is banned in most of the states in India, beef is not banned in Kerala, West Bengal and several North Eastern states

On 2nd November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) threatened to behead Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah if he “dared to eat beef”. Shivamogga district level leader of the BJP SN Channabasappa also said that he would “play with his (severed) head”. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had said that he would eat beef if he wished, and that the BJP did not have the right to question him on it.

Popular Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was asked to go to Pakistan and also alleged him to be a Pakistan agent by several senior leaders of BJP, when he said that there is “growing intolerance” in the country and nobody can question his patriotism.

BJP MP Yogi Adityanath compared him to Pakistani terrorist and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, and said he is “welcome” to go to Pakistan. BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya said the actor lives in India but his “soul (aatma)” is in Pakistan .

The FTII strike began with the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as Chairman of India’s premier film institute. He is best known as Yudhishthira in the popular Mahabharata TV series. Chauhan has appeared in television serials, generally of inferior quality, and several ‘B’ grade Bollywood films, some of them can be termed as semi-porns. He is an active member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He extensively campaigned for the BJP in Haryana during the Lok Sabha elections last year.

FTII panel also was reconstituted with four of the eight members aligned with the ruling party. Some call them propagandists of BJP and its parent organisation Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sang(RSS). These include Anagha Ghaisas, who has made several documentary films of Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Narendra Pathak, a former president of the Maharashtra ABVP; Pranjlal Saikia, an office bearer of an RSS-linked organisation; and Rahul Solapurkar, who is intimately associated with the BJP.