I usually do not watch news on the television. I’m quite happy to wait for my morning newspaper or whatever I find online. News channels are so heavily polarised they leave me confused and utterly frustrated. I already have the twins who do a fine job of that, so no TV for me thank you.
But my parents were here and the evening news is their daily fix. So we sat around the telly and we watched. We watched a mob on a vandalising spree. It burnt down vehicles (about 200 odd), looted mobile phone shops and smashed glass facades of multiplexes protesting against a film. I sat there wondering why people would destroy multiplexes which had already agreed to not screen said film.
Do you hear me now when I say news is puzzling?
Meanwhile elsewhere in the country, protestors ran amuck brandishing swords, burning tyres, stopping trains, setting fires to buses and blocking roads.
One man tried to immolate himself in Varanasi.
Someone announced a reward of 1 crore to the person who could chop off the lead actress’ ears and nose.
Some others decided to pelt stones on a school bus full of children, the youngest of whom was merely four.
All for izzat, honour.
I flipped channels to land on another visual of Rajput women, heads covered, izzat fully in place, saying nothing mattered more to them, not food nor drink, but their honour.
And all of that honour was centred on the non-release of this one film. A film about a woman dead for countless decades. A film none of them had even watched. A film that the Censor Board as well as the Supreme Court, had watched, had gone over with a tooth comb over and over and over again and found alright.
So you see, this izzat is a strange thing. It gets tarnished rather easily – by a book, a story, a dialogue, a film, by a piece of art or fiction. And then it forces people to take to the streets to restore it.
At other times however, it proves to be unbelievably tenacious remaining clean and intact even when these same people make, watch and share suggestive videos or gyrate to provocative songs. It remains untouched when they line the streets and pass lewd comments. It isn’t sullied when they pull out women from cars and rape them or when they throw out their infants to die on the streets.
Strange thing, this izzat.
What’s even stranger and utterly disappointing is the reaction of the people in power, the administration.
Rather than resolving to make sure peace prevails, they choose to turn a blind eye. They looked the other way as a 2000 people strong crowd gathered and charged the multiplexes. They made sure police arrived just as the mob had done its bit and had dispersed. Bollywood style.
Four states went on to ban the film.
The Deputy CM of a state advised people to not watch the film in order ‘to maintain law and order’. Nope, it isn’t his job to ensure that. It is ours. And so we stayed away from the film, away from malls and multiplexes. And even though I’m not a mall person that irked, because this isn’t the country I was proud of, the country I taught my children to be proud of.
I’ve always chosen to be upbeat and optimistic. But this Republic Day I feel only lost and disheartened. Even as I dress up my daughter in the traditional sari for celebrations at school, I cannot find it in my heart to celebrate. How can I, when I see my freedom erode, bit by bit right before my eyes. And I wonder how many more liberties I will have to give up for ‘maintaining law and order’, for protecting the izzat of God knows who.
