'Padmaavat' violence indirect contempt of court?

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After what happened in Gurugram on Wednesday, will it be too much to say that there is a stench of a well-orchestrated ploy? Not a direct but an indirect contempt of the court order?

A school bus ferrying students of classes Nursery to XII was attacked by supporters of a fringe group that wants a ban on the release of the film 'Padmaavat'. The attack came after the bus did not stop when asked to by the supporters of the fringe group. Enraged, the school bus was pelted with stones that left a few windows shattered and kids terrified.

Now, rewind your memories to a time when four states — Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat — had imposed a ban on the screening of the film. Citing law and order issues, these four states had banned the movie which was in turn challenged by the production house in the Supreme Court. Though the idea to ban did not work well, a plan B was prepared, or so it now seems.

A famous Hindi idiom ‘Agar ghee seedhi ungli se na nikle to ungli tedhi karni hi padti hai’ is apt for the situation. None of these four BJP-ruled states wanted the film to be screened indicating a complete Hindu appeasement policy. It is also shameful that the Prime Minister’s home state, Gujarat, banned the screening of the film. What’s more shocking is that the Prime Minister chose to keep tight-lipped about the protests against what logical brains call ‘artistic license’. However, when the apex court ruled in the favour of screening of the film, the plan B was activated. What was till the court order came being shown as a ‘possibility’, has now been unleashed to give it the shape of a matter of fact or to simply shrug and say “we had warned earlier”.

What is striking though is that the states in which troubles have started are these four along with the ones that had opposed the release.

In Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur, agitated members of a fringe outfit barged into a mall demanding a complete ban on the film.

“They tore film posters, damaged property and manhandled the mall staff”, station house officer (SHO), Kakadev, Ajay Kumar Singh said. In Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, at least 30 motorcycles were set on fire and several other vehicles parked outside three city malls were damaged by protesters opposing the release of the controversial film, police said.

However, the states have tactfully kept puppets in the forefront to talk as if the court order is sacrosanct for them. The Home Secretaries and the government officials in their Goebbel-istic manner are reiterating that they would try their best to maintain law and order. But the ground reality is completely different.

Isn’t this clear enough to understand the BJP’s agenda when it comes to Right-wing fringe groups? The four states that had banned the movie have one thing in common – A BJP government. Besides these four, two out of three states — Uttar Pradesh and Chhatisgarh — that had opposed to the release have BJP governments while the third one, Bihar, well!!! Nothing much has to be said I guess about this one!!!

Disclaimer: The views are solely personal and do not claim to be true. The piece intends to explore the other possibilities

Portions of the article have been taken from NDTV and livemint.