Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Haider - not a review

I've read a lot of reviews of the movie Haider - more than I normally read for any movie. The thread is the same. It showcases the Indian Army as a villian, is totally anti-Indian in its sentiment, not a true depiction of the Kashmir problem at all, completely ignores the Kashmiri Pundits extermination from Kashmir and so on and so forth. Yet, in one or two reviews, folks have mentioned, that all that said, they would not call for a ban of the movie since it works against freedom of expression and/or the era of censorship is so outdated.

What most people seem to have missed (especially chest-thumping anti-BJP folks) is that this movie was let release and run in halls without any kind of state intervention and censorship from the government of any sort. And that, when a man hailed as the devil himself is at the helm of affairs in the country. Either we are too pathetic and don't care about any kind of nationalistic spirit or we are a tolerable species inherently. (It is no secret, Hinduism has time and again proven to be the most tolerant of all religions) More importantly, here is a state which is not into stifling freedom of speech/expression unlike what most people predicted and proclaimed it would be!

Sadly, most missed this point.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about peepli live and mehangayi daayan and the then cong govt allowing its release?

DivSu said...

Well, no one scrutinized Sonia Gandhi's every move (that seems laughable almost) and called her "Maut ki Saudgarni" so the comparison is not even fair. And neither is the subject - Peepli Live was a satire on our rotten media - this, a lot more serious. That was indeed a true story, this a total lie ignoring to capture completely, the PoV of the second side. I confess I have no idea about Mehengayi Daayan..

Anonymous said...

If you want to praise Namo or bjp, that is completely a different thing. This movie didn't have anything to do with the Kashmir conflict. It was set amidst that situation and that's it. The director chose to go with the narrative more in line with his story. Indian army's reputation can't be maligned with what was shown. Can we agree that there's always going to be the ugly side to everything in a conflict. And it wasn't even shown completely, only references seem to have ruffled some sensitive feathers??

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