FICCI FRAMES 2013: Let's stand up for the artists and give them freedom

If day 1 at FICCI began with a packed house, day 2 ended with a packed house. People started trickling in to hear our panelists talk on ‘The Gag Orders: Are we Stifling Creative Expression?’ FICCI roped in prominent industry representatives such as Mr. Kamal Haasan Actor & Filmmaker, Producer & Director Mr. Mahesh Bhatt, Actor & Activist Rahul Bose and Hon’ble Member of Parliament,  Lok Sabha,  Mr. Jay Panda to enlighten us with their views. The session was moderated by Shoma Choudhary, Managing Editor of Tehelka Magazine.

Answering Shoma’s question on whether he would curb anyone’s freedom, Kamal Haasan replied that “ I believe curbing the freedom of expression or speech is not a dignified thing. I believe that the only way to stay young is to be immature, so even as a a father I wouldn’t try to curb my daughters’freedom. Even as the captain of the ship for my movies, I do not believe in curbing my actors ‘freedom of opinion’or coercing them to change their opinions. The thing that I might do is talk to them and try to convince them but curbing is never an option.”

Jay Panda’s stand on this was that he was an advocate of complete freedom of speech to all, however he believes that the best guiding principle in the matter of freedom of speech is the Constitution of India and the Suprepme Court. However Supreme Court’s directives fail to be implemented in India as the High Court is seen to over rule the directive of the Supreme Court on many occasions. It is sad that a Supreme Court ruling allowing Censor Board to be the authority on certifying movies are defied by various State and High Courts It’s also a shame that Supreme Court’s rulings are defied by High Court and State Govt who always cite a law and order problem as the reason to curb the voices of individuals.

Rahul Bose shared his thoughts on the same and said, “There is a grey area in the definition of freedom of expresion in the Constitution. We need to safeguard the definition of this and the exceptions  to this law should be used only in the rarest of rare cases. Art has the power to make people think,  influence people. It could lead to protest, but will get people to think.”

Shoma then rightly put forward the question, how do we arrive at a situation where are compatriots do not remain timid? Jay Panda here observed that we need political reforms. The parilament today works on laws that were made in 1919 28 years before independence, these are laws that were made in respect to the British sensibilities as the British then was in no mode to allow the Indians absolute freedom in  their country. So the govt then had introduced a veto which is still prevalent today.

He cited an example of freedom curbed in the parliament by party leadership and then went on to say that if the Parliamentarians do not have the freedom to speak inside then expecting them to speak about absolute freedom outside was diffcult. Jay expects that in the next decade or so the middle class will become very active on social issues. They are a group large enough and active enough to bring about political reforms. However Mahesh Bhatt diasgreed on this and said that middle classes are responsible for the mess India is in today. They do not have the power to bring about a change.

It now seemed more of a discuusion on middle class than the creativity and freedom and Jay further went on to say that it is the middle class who are asking for judicial reforms. We need to understand the lynch mob mentality. It is the years of pent up anger that we saw in December. If we see the scenario in India today it has a parallel with the Gilded Age in US. Rahul Bose remarked that the middle class is happy to move out of the staus quo and question things, however the people that we saw outside the Prime Minister’s house in Delhi was an occasional happening for they are not concerned about the larger reality of things happening in other parts of India. Outrage can be successfully channelised if peace is allowed to be put up.

The panel concluded they need to create a pressure group from within the domain of artistic fratenity, that will articulate the need to change the rules. This pressure group will  lead the change and require political representatives to  take the collective voices  to the parliament. More than censorship, personal discipline should drive the content which is affected by cultural sensibilites that are represented by the commercial success of the art.