It has been difficult not to be reminded of Satanic Verses since news items started trickling out —first, a few days back, about demands for a ban on Aarakshan and then, even more bizarrely, about actual bans being imposed in UP, Punjab and now AP — ruled respectively by the BSP, the Akalis and the BJP, and the Congress.
No one is questioning the right of these groups to be concerned about the political content of Aarakshan. But when the freedom to express this manifests itself as mob fascism, and there is no quick and effective statutory response to it, then filmmakers will be left at the mercy of any group that chooses to threaten a film’s release on the pretext of being apprehensive about its politics. Unless the state, the film industry, artists, thinkers, and civil society formulate a decisive response to it, this danger to everyone’s freedom of expression will only escalate.