DNA Edit: A Film & a Nation

Apparently, the Indian state can be held ransom in the name of a motion picture, provided a fringe group can muster enough money, muscle and political complacency to power its animus. How else can one explain the scale of violence that schoolchildren in Gurgaon had to suffer through? Over a dozen children who were on their way home in their school bus came face to face with the indelible trauma of being caught in the middle of a rampage.

A shocking video shot by someone within the bus has surfaced in social media circles showing the poor children hanging on for dear life. In the video, one can see bits of shattered windows strewn on the seats, children huddled low on the floor of the bus, a few rushing for the embrace of their teachers holding on for dear life. Also seen in the video is the charred skeletal remains of a government bus as if the Karni Sena is showboating — to the complete humiliation of the Haryana government — that public order and security are cosmetic trimmings that can be done away as and when they desire. 

This is but one vignette of the chaos that the Karni Sena has unleashed across many states in India. In Madhya Pradesh, foot soldiers of Karni Sena vandalised a school when the students there performed on a song from Padmaavat.

In Bhopal, the police machinery stood on the sidelines as anti-social elements torched cars and destroyed public property. In Ahmedabad, Gujarat, hooligans wrecked malls and torched 30 motorcycles before the police rose from its slumber. In Rajasthan, the fringe group issued a fiat that highways will be blocked. The Karni Sena’s founder patron also threatened that those “who want to watch (the movie) should leave the state”. They are in his esteemed opinion “not worthy of living in Rajasthan”. Meanwhile, multiplex owners across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Goa have refused to play the movie fearing for the security of their property and the safety of their patrons.

This is only fair given the abject failure of the police in quelling the spread of riots. That the police inaction was more at the behest of their political masters, and less a failure of internal efficiency is an open secret. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court last week struck down the ban imposed on the movie. Evidently, the writ of the Supreme Court will work only if the Executive sitting high and mighty in these state governments opt to enforce it.

After having its writ reduced to smithereens by the state governments, the Supreme Court will now hear contempt petitions on Monday seeking action against a number of state governments for failing to maintain public order.

However, this is, at best, a salve, that too an empty one, for the damage this batch of demonstrations have inflicted on the democratic fibre of this nation. Soon enough, the cases lodged against small-time hooligans of the Karni Sena will be derailed. Evidence would conveniently go missing and many would walk scot-free, all thanks to a political class that deems it wise to let a caste vent its angst.