Movie Murmur

Amulya's photo from her social media wall One of Amulya Leona's social media posts explains how wishing good for any other country does not mean that you wish your country bad. In that post, she had raised the 'long live' slogans for all the neighboring countries; maintaining that such slogans would not take away her duty to respect her own nation. A few days after the post, in a protest rally against CAA-NRC in Bengaluru, Amulya probably wanted to explain this aspect to her audience. In what looks like a penchant for a 'bang on' opening remark she - almost sensationally - started of her speech wishing 'Pakistan' good, saying 'Long live Pakistan'. She could have started off by wishing well to say Bhutan or for that matter to India, as she did it on her social media post. Unfortunately, she didn't. It was Asaduddin Owaisi's reaction that first did her in. He wanted Amulya to stop her speech then and there for raising that slogan ...

  Gandhi arrested under Sedition Laws Section 124 (a) of the Indian Penal Code deals with Sedition. It states - Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards,   the Government established by law in   India, shall be punished with   imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine. This section gives three explanations. Explanation 1.—The expression “disaffection” includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity. Explanation 2.—Comments expressing disapprobation of the measures of the Government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means, without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, do not constitute an offence under this section. Exp...

Over the last few years some of us, in our honorary capacities, have off and on been involved in the selection, script and rough cut evaluation process at Films Division, India's prime organisation that makes documentary films. In this process we have been active witnesses to many a concept being turned into insipid movies. I mainly fear that this is primarily due to the fact that we have a default form of building up a documentary movie imbibed into our blood streams - the one that has a 'god's voice' of a narrator guiding us in a predetermined manner or off late the one that endlessly 'observers' and 'follows' the main characters at times to their death bed. Yet, a few of the documentaries commissioned by Films Division had stood out to me for their sheer brilliance of form, ie... the innovative way in which the content has been narrated. I would mention a few made in the last two-three years that were experiential in nature; and have also bro...

The amendment to the Indian Citizenship Act 2019 lets minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to become Indian citizens. While justifying the Indian Citizenship amendment Act, it is often sad that the three countries are theocratic states and that because it is so it is assumed that the 'minorities' are persecuted. This assumption might be flawed. The "honorable" theoretical assumption that the Constitution of Bangladesh does not treat all religions equally on effect of the state having its own stated religion is far from truth. Clause 2A of the Constitution of Bangladesh states: The state religion of the Republic is Islam, but the State shall ensure equal status and equal right in the practice of the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and other religions. Further Part 2, Section 12 is on Secularism and freedom of religion. I t states: The principle of secularism shall be realised by the elimination of - (a) communalism in all its forms ; (b) t...

On an apparent level CAA seems to be independent. It wants convert Hindu, Parsi, Christian, Buddhist and Jain (and not others) illegal immigrants / refugees from the Islamic states of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan into Indian citizens with a 2014 cut off date. The National Population Register (NPR) is a list of usual residents in India (people who have been residing in India for six months or those who have intention of staying). The National Register of Citizenship (NRC) is a list of all citizens of India. The law says that to have the NRC, the basis of it will be NPR. In the process of making NPR / NRC there will be lakhs of names that will not get into the list because of name mismatch, lack of documents etc. rendering genuine citizens of India nation less. I would assume the CAA would facilitate the hand picked Hindu, Parsi, Christian, Buddhist and Jain (and not other) settlers from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan among those identified as foreigners, to become I...

Article 14 of the Indian Constitution deals with equality before law. It states " The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth ." This does not mean that a classification or division cannot be made amongst the people in the process of making any law. We can, for example, make a law for only for the Hindus, like the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) Act and make it not applicable to a Christian. Article 14 does not allow what is called 'Class legislation' - which means that you cannot apply the HUF Act to all Hindus who are having five children and not otherwise. While presenting the Citizenship Amendment Act in the Loka Sabha, Home Minister declared that the classification or distinction made amongst the people for the purpose of the bill is - paraphrasing him - "Religiously persecu...

Girish Karnad Girish Karnad made his documentary film 'D R Bendre' (Da. Ra. Bendre) in the year 1972, fifty years after Robert Flaherty made one of the first long documentary narratives in USA called 'Nanook of the North'. Flaherty's silent film had, over an entire season, captured the life of Nanook and his family in the hostile terrain of the arctic. The film claimed to be anthropological in nature, shows us the 'reality' of the Eskimo community. But it is obvious that events shown in the film were staged, not by using professional actors but by deploying 'real' life characters and 'real' locations. Forty three years before Karnad made 'D R Bendre', Dziga Vertov filmed 'The Man with the Movie Camera' in the erstwhile Soviet Union, portraying a day in the life of a city. This silent film is a representative of what is called the 'Kino-Pravada' group of films made by Dziga Vertov and his associates. In Russ...

The cover page of the Draft of National Education Policy - 2019 The Draft National Policy of 2019 on Education was released by the Government of India on the 31st of March 2019, a day after the election results were announced. Here is a montage of a few paragraphs nested under a  subsection of titled ' Education in the local language/mother tongue; multilingualism and the power of language ' - and some reflections on them. Page 81 of the Draft Education policy echo these words, " Children learn languages extremely quickly when immersed early, and multilingual children in studies around the world have also been found to learn faster and be placed better later in life than those who are unilingual ....... A multilingual India is better educated and also better nationally integrated .... ''. These words embody the noble intentions of the policy which clearly asserts that the exposure to multi languages early in life would be beneficial to the individual ...