Thank God! It’s finally over?

The crisis over the much hyped PADMAVAT MOVIE seems to be over to some extent with the police of various states having shown extensive vigilance and interest in registering cases against hooligans and anti social elements including the Karni Sena volunteers for their involvement in rampaging and destruction of vehicles, properties and even putting the school children at risk in various states and parts of the country, particularly Gurugram, Haryana.

But one thing which, infact is making the people of the country worrisome is the fact that in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and even UP the police authorities had not exhibited enough interest to curb the riotous situation and the burning of public properties when hooligans and volunteers of Karni Sena were involved in open violation of the law and order situation by resorting to destruction of public properties and vehicles.

The situation had gone worse to such an extent that some of the bigots have even fixed prices for beheading of the producer and other actors of the film, never ever expected in a civilized society like ours. And what was more shocking is the fact that this destruction and hooliganism went on for days together giving an unambiguous impression that either there was no law of the land due to total police failure to curb this uncontrolled spree of violence or they were deliberately lacking the will and guts to counter the anti social elements perhaps knowing well that they were being allegedly patronized by the political powers at the helm in these states.

However it was finally the apex court of the country whose directives accompanied fruitful results and the police came into action. Had there been vigilant police action earlier as was shown after the Supreme Court’s orders, the situation would have been quite different in various states of the country. The point here is, when the Central Board of Film Certification, the constitutional body of the government dealing with film censorship had given a clear cut green signal for the release of the film after changing its few objectionable scenes and name from Padmavati to Padmaavat, what was the point to continue the violence and put the people and life of the citizens to jeopardy.

Shame on our political parties and their leaders who for the sake of votes and polarisation forget their moral, ethical and constitutional duties to maintain peace and tranquility in the country.

In the case of Padmaavat while no leader of any political party has come forward to speak against Karni Sena due to the apprehension of losing the votes of the Rajput Community which comprises of the major chunk of the entire vote bank, the ruling party BJP in four states , has even after the clearence of the film from censor board refused to show the film in the theatres of their respective states where spree of violence too continued shamefully, finally warranting the intervention of the Apex court of the country. Thanks to our Supreme Court of India that finally they were compelled to give up their orthodox stand on the movie Padmaavat and allow the film’s exhibition in their respective states.

Even leaders of two different parties BJP and Congress – state external affairs minister VK Singh and Digvijay Singh had similar views on the movie as both belonged to Rajput community whereas in actuality both of them could not see each other, eye to eye. Conclusively, we can thank God and our highest court of the land for finally bringing things under control and closing the protracted chapter of destruction, animosity and division of our otherwise peaceful and tranquil society.

One more thing, the Bollywood film Industry was also conspicuous by its absence in supporting Bhansali during the entire episode. I think this was for the first time that the iconic personalities of Mumbai film Industry didn’t come forward in solidarity with Padmaavat cause for the reasons best known to them.

The day since Bhansli was slapped by the Karni Sena Chief and the sets of Padmaavat were destroyed a year or two ago not a single icon of Bollywood has come forward in defence of the movie nor its producers and actors which unambiguously speaks of the fact that its today PADMAAVAT, tomorrow it may be someone else of the industry.

SUNIL NEGI, PRESIDENT UJF