Government sees threat to its power in alternative narratives

Jayan Cherian, director of the film ‘Pappillio Buddha,’ said that his movie and the latest ‘Harry Potter’ movie have been clubbed under the same category by the United States film rating agency.

 Jayan was in the city for the inauguration of a painting exhibition.

 ‘Pappillio Buddha,’ depicting the lives of a group of displaced Dalits in the Western Ghats, was refused certification by the Censor Board for allegedly denigrating Mahatma Gandhi and for portraying extreme violence and torture of women.

 But Jayan feels that all these are just excuses.

 “If more violence was portrayed in the movies of Mohanlal or Suresh Gopi, no one would bother.

 But here you have a bunch of Dalit actors, acting out a story based on real life incidents, and challenging the existing official narrative and it becomes too real for our establishment to accept,” said Jayan.

 He said that the film depicts the Dalit movement that had its roots in the ideas of Ambedkar who saw Gandhiji as a person who served the interests of ‘Savarna’ society.

 “The ideas go back to Gandhiji’s Yerwada Satyagraha, wherein he opposed separate electorates for Dalits.

 This was a time when Ambedkar termed fasting as a filthy exercise and corrosive act.

 The same movement continues in various parts of the country, with the Dalits converting to Buddhism to liberate themselves from the Sanathana Dharma in which they were enslaved for so long.

 That thread is continued here and it finds itself in the many Dalit struggles for ownership of land in the state in the recent times,” explained the director.

 “The official narrative on Gandhi does not gel with this narrative.

 While Gandhiji himself was a simple man the official version of Gandhiji is that of an embodiment of virtue.

 This has been consciously constructed by those who were to gain by his political legacy, by those who inherited his name.

 For these people, such narratives are a challenge to their power and hence such films are censored,” he said.

 “If the government is genuinely interested in free speech and expression of ideas, it should have clamped down on people who perpetuate violence, rather than prevent free speech.

 Here, it is in the interest of the government that people do not get access to alternative narratives, that people do not mature, for if they do, they will start challenging their authority,” Jayan said.