Editor,
One wonders why some crowd-pleasing film-makers feed their audience with trash. Nothing could be more disgusting than that we are being served with visual feasts that only hurt our hearts. Without a sense of guilt, the producers churn up a film in the name of creativity and put certain communities down, hurting their collective sentiments and pride.
Recently, Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma, who has produced a web series Patal Lok, streaming from Amazon Prime, has hurt the sentiments of the Nepali speaking Gorkha communities in India. What was offensive to the Gorkha people of Northeast India is that a Nepali-speaking female character in that series has been demeaned and hurled obscenities at. Many organizations immediately went up in arms against this sexually racial slur. Not just that, a Lawyers’ Guild from West Bengal immediately filed a suit against the producer. The situation is now very charged up. Two Members of Parliament from West Bengal and Sikkim have shot letters to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, New Delhi expressing deep displeasure and condemning the particular scene in the series. Congress MP from Assam – Gaurav Gogoi, son of former Chief Minister of Assam – Tarun Gogoi, in his letter to the Minister vociferously berated the show and demanded that he take prompt action. The Assam MP has aptly underlined the unmatched contribution of the Gorkha communities to the country, particularly in nation-building. Without any exaggeration, it can be said that even prior to India’s independence the Gorkhas were the most trusted warriors to fight for the country besides their predominant presence now in every segment of defence service in the country. Why do filmmakers only carry racial prejudices against the people bearing the chinky/mongoloid feature, particularly from Northeast India? Is taking delight in hurting other communities not a perverse act?
This apart, the film series has come as a shocker to the Sikh communities as well. Manjinder Singh Sirsa, the former Akali Dal political leader and Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak has also sent a legal notice to AMAZON Prime objecting to the contents and idea behind this show, as Sikh communities are outrageously stereotyped and shown in the bad light.
Visual fun and entertainment at the cost of social humiliation, and disrespect to any community should not be tolerated. People are not insensitive beings to consume whatever is put forth for commercial gains. They are human beings endowed with the good sense of differentiating between good and bad, love and hatred. So no film producer/director should serve perverse entertainment. People will not put up with cinematic feasts that hurt our pride and dignity.
Yours etc.,
Salil Gewali,
Shillong
America pays for racism
Editor,
Massive protests over the death of a black man in Minniesota has now spread to over 30 cities in the US and fires burned unchecked even while people ignore curfews and are engaged in large scale-arson. George Floyd, a black man was killed on Monday after one of the officers, who was responding to a call about an alleged counterfeit bill used at a store, knelt on his neck while he was handcuffed and lying face down on the ground. Unable to breathe, Floyd called out, “I can’t breathe,” but the police officer kept pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost eight minutes in a most cruel and sadistic manner. By the time the police officer released his knee, the hapless Floyd later died of in police custody. The officer, Derek Chauvin and the three others were fired the next day.
The police officer’s deliberate act of suffocating Floyd to death was captured on the cell phone by an onlooker and it soon went viral on social media platforms. Outraged at the way Floyd had been strangulated to death by the police officer, people flowed to the streets and mass protests were taken out. Protesters also started looting shops and malls and police started shooting. A police station was engulfed in a fire set by protesters. It is true that racial discrimination is still persistent all over the world to a lesser degree. Race has contaminated American solidarity, making it impossible for poor whites, threatened by job loss, globalization and the death of carbon-intensive industries, to make common cause with African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and immigrants.
The essence of American ethos is to be liberal towards African-Americans or other non-whites, so how did such a reprehensible thing occur? But this act of the white police officer was widely criticized as being based on racial discrimination. It is a mystery why the mindset of the white Americans is still espoused to racial supremacy when dealing with the problems of Afrcan-Americans. Whenever there is an instance of racial discrimination reported from outside America, we have seen Americans shedding crocodile tears. Paradoxically, now in their own country, a black man was strangulated to death by a white police officer in a petty case of fraudulence. Is America going back to 18th century when the black people were treated as slaves? It is indeed an affront to Abraham Lincoln who put an end to slavery in 1862.
Yours etc.,
TK Nandanan,
Via email
Time to open up
Editor,
It is very unfortunate that there is no roadmap nor planning for the last 63 days ever since the lockdown was imposed. There is a new notification published every week regarding activities and timings which are by and large confusing to the general public as some notifications contradict the others. People have many other requirements apart from essential items. Being locked inside our houses does not mean we don’t have other requirements. For example, people and hospitals who need beds and other furniture items can’t avail it as furniture shops are still closed, saloons are still closed, cobblers are nowhere to be found and the list goes on. There should be a standard operating procedure (SOP) and there should not be any compromise on safety, but it is of utmost importance to open other establishments. Not to mention that this will bring revenue to the state government which otherwise has been allocated a meager fund from the central government. Apart from excise revenue the businesses that have been allowed to open are not major contributors to the exchequer. Our state has very few cases as compared to the other states that have, incidentally, opened their markets, for the needs of their citizens and also to generate revenue. Work for the majority has to come to an abrupt halt. I hope and pray that good sense prevails.
Yours etc.,
S Sarkar,
Via email