World Socialist Web Site issues appeal: Oppose Hindu extremistattacks on

To all list members,

The World Socialist Web Site has launched an international
campaign in support of Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, whose
latest film, Water, is currently being attacked by Hindua fundmentalists. 
Enclosed in the text of this e-mail message is the full appeal published
by the World Socialist Web Site. In addition, at the end of this
e-mail message there are links to further articles published by this web
site on this matter, including an interview with the filmmaker. I urge you
all to read this material and respond to the calls for support on this
most basic question of democratic rights. If you could also forward this
e-mail message to others, this would greatly help in spreading the
campaign and gathering the support of prominent scholars and
intellectuals. 

Sincerely,
Andrea Grant-Friedman
President, Students for Social Equality - Rutgers University


World Socialist Web Site issues appeal: Oppose Hindu extremist attacks on
Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta
By the Editorial Board
28 February 2000

The World Socialist Web Site denounces the Hindu fundamentalist campaign
in India to stop production of Water, Deepa Mehta's latest film, and calls
on filmmakers, artists, intellectuals and workers internationally to take
a firm stand against this attack on democratic rights.

Mehta was forced to suspend production of Water after a sustained campaign
of violent attacks, bureaucratic provocations and physical threats against
the film's cast and crew by a coalition of Hindu extremists aligned with
the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP). The BJP is the main party in India's
coalition government and holds power in several Indian states.

Water, which dramatises the plight of poverty-stricken widows at a Hindu
temple in the 1930s, was due to commence shooting in Varanasi, in the
state of Uttar Pradesh, on January 30. On that day rioting by Hindu
extremists led by local BJP politicians destroyed the film set, causing
more than $650,000 damage. They claimed the film would denigrate Indian
widows and was part of a Christian plot against Hinduism.

Mehta withdrew from Uttar Pradesh on February 6 after the BJP state
government blocked the film twice in seven days, saying it was provoking
civil disorder. While Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee claims to
support Mehta's right to produce her film, he has done nothing to stop
this attack, which is being orchestrated by the state government working
in league with communalist forces.

Vajpayee and Home Minister L. K. Advani are life-long members of Rastriya
Swayangsevak Sangh (RSS)an extreme right-wing formation involved in the
1948 murder of Mahatma Gandhi. Heavy Industry Minister Manohar Joshi is a
leader of Shiv Sena, a fascistic organisation, which is an ally and
coalition partner of the BJP. Advani led the campaign that resulted in the
destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, which produced
the worst communalist violence since the 1947 partition of India. A
judicial commission of inquiry found that Joshi's Shiv Sena used the
Masjid issue to foment and organise riots in Bombay in January 1993,
resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Muslims.

Shiv Sena and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Forum) have vowed to
drive Mehta out of India and some communalist groups have threatened to
kill or be killed in order to prevent Mehta's film being produced.

Mehta, whose previous films Fire (1996) and Earth (1998)have brought her
into conflict with Hindu extremists, has declared that she will not be
intimidated by these threats and described the campaign as pre-production
censorship imposed by thugs. She told one newspaper that if the film were
blocked it would represent the end of democracy in India.

These warnings should be taken seriously. The campaign by the Hindu
extremists to stop Mehta's film is not an isolated incident, but part of
efforts to impose a right-wing nationalist state ideology in India based
on aspects of the Hindu religion. Under conditions where the living
standards of the vast majority are deteriorating and the social chasm
between rich and poor is deepening, the BJP has been in the forefront of
whipping up communalist sentiments to divide the Indian masses along caste
and religious lines.

Cinema plays a powerful role in India. Hence the BJP and its Hindu
extremist allies have increasingly targeted filmmakers who have in any way
critically examined aspects of Indian society.

Already under existing Indian law, foreign-funded filmmakers seeking to
make films in India must submit their scripts to the central government
for approval. If the film is approved, the government appoints a special
liaison officer with wide powers to monitor all aspects of the production.
The liaison officer can shut down the film if the director is deemed to be
departing from the approved script.

Restrictions on artistic expression are not just limited to foreign
filmmakers. Indian filmmakersincluding Mani Ratnam, Mira Nair and Shekhar
Kapurhave also been subjected to government censorship and extremist
rioting during the production or screening of their films. Nor are such
attacks confined to filmmakers. The campaign against Mehta is one of a
series of attacks on the democratic rights of creative artists and
intellectuals that have escalated with the rise of the BJP over the last
decade.

Violent protests have been organised against artists, the most recent
against M.F. Hussein, one of India's leading painters. Hussein was charged
with obscenity for his nude paintings of Hindu goddesses Saraswati and
Draupadi. At the same time, BJP forces in state and central governments
have demanded that the education system be Hinduised and have forced
changes in school curricula and textbooks.

In mid-February, just days after the communalists drove Mehta out of Uttar
Pradesh, BJP-RSS forces dominating the Indian Council of Historical
Research ordered that the publication of two volumes of Towards Freedom, a
projected multi-volume collection of historical documents of India, be
stopped. The two volumes in question were edited respectively by leading
historians, Professor Sumit Sarkar and Professor K.N. Pannikkar.

The author of Modern India and numerous other historical monographs and
articles, Sarkar is arguably India's leading historian and an intellectual
of international stature and acclaim. He told the media that the BJP was
attempting to refashion the past to suit its fascist agenda and that it
constituted a move towards the elimination of democracy in India.

Pannikkar, who is chairman of historical archives at Jawaharlal Nehru
University, warned that the BJP was attempting to restructure India's
entire educational system and control its syllabus.

Political intimidation of artists and intellectuals by governments and
extremist forces is not unique to India, but a graphic expression of what
has become commonplace throughout the sub-continentthe whipping up of
communalist forces to silence political dissent.

Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen is described as an enemy of Islam in
that country, where her books have been banned. The exiled author faces
blasphemy charges and has been threatened with death by Islamic
chauvinists. Last year Islamic extremists almost succeeded in
assassinating Shamsur Rahman, one of Bangladesh's leading poets. Rahman
was attacked with an axe.

Indian-born, internationally-acclaimed author Salman Rushdie still faces
fatwa, a decree issued 11 years ago by Iranian cleric Ayatollah Khomeini,
urging Moslems to kill the author over his satirical Satanic Verses.
Khordad-15, an Iranian fundamentalist group, has offered a $2.5-million
reward for the death of Rushdie.

In Sri Lanka, the government is so fragile that it cannot tolerate any
criticism. Death threats, house bombings and bashings have been launched
against musicians, actors, artists and intellectuals opposing the ruling
Peoples Alliance government.

Attacks on freedom of artistic expression extend into the advanced
countries, where Christian fundamentalists and other conservative lobby
groups exert their influence. Last September in the US, New York Mayor
Giuliani attempted to close Sensation, an exhibition of British artists at
the Brooklyn Museum, claiming the art on display was Catholic bashing and
anti-religious. A few weeks later in Michigan, authorities closed an
exhibition of contemporary art at the Detroit Institute of Art.

In late November, the National Gallery of Australia cancelled its
scheduled exhibition of Sensation after the gallery's director received a
few letters of protest and discussed the show with the conservative Howard
government. In Australia filmmakers have also had to confront government
moves to impose a stricter film censorship code.

Last year in Berlin police raided and confiscated films from a video
rental company that specialised in classic and art house cinema.

Why is artistic freedom of expression under such serious attack? It is
connected to the increase in social tensions produced by the growing
disparity between rich and poor on a global scale, and the necessity for
the ruling elites to silence those exposing this reality.

The most serious filmmakers and artists deeply explore the world around
them. This creative process poses a danger to the powers-that-be because
all honest artistic work forces its audience to more carefully examine
social reality and its contradictions. Creative freedom, the basic
democratic right to artistically explore any phenomenon, is a threat to
those attempting to impose their own retrogressive political and social
economic agenda. A conscious population aware of its own history and
social rights is a stronger political opponent than a superstitious or
confused one.

The current fundamentalist campaign against Deepa Mehta in India recalls
the methods used by Hitler's Nazis in the 1930s, when fascist thugs burnt
thousands of books deemed unacceptable by the regime. As the 19th century
German poet Heinrich Heine prophesised: Where they have burned books, they
will end in burning human beings. The fundamentalist mobilisation against
Mehta poses the same dangers and demands a determined response.

The World Socialist Web Site calls on all those in the film industry, all
artists and writers, and all working people to take a stand in defence of
Deepa Mehta and oppose this escalating attack on democratic and artistic
rights. If the Hindu fundamentalists' campaign goes unchallenged, it will
embolden extremist elements elsewhere. Just as scientific research cannot
advance if its work is restricted by political interference or determined
according to government policies, so genuine artistic creativity cannot
develop without full freedom of expression and investigation.

Letters of protest should mailed or faxed to:

Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Prime Minister of India
South Block, Raisina Hill
New Delhi, India-110 011
Fax: 91-11-3019545 / 91-11-3016857

Shri Ram Prakash Gupta,
Chief Minister,
Uttar Pradesh 5,
Kalidas Marg Lucknow, India
Fax: 91-522-239234 / 91-522-230002
Email: cmup@upindia.org & cmup@up.nic.in

Please send copies of all statements and letters of protest to the WSWS
at: E-mail: editor@wsws.org

Links to Other Related Articles:

News Article
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/film-f12.shtml

Interview with Filmmaker Deepa Mehta
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/meht-f15.shtml