Debutant director Divya Bharathi said after the release of the documentary in Chennai on February 26, the police has stopped the screening in Kanyakumari, Coimbatore and Madurai districts.
In yet another incident of attack on freedom of expression, the screening of ‘Kakkoos’ (Toilet), a hard-hitting documentary portraying miserable lives and working condition of manual scavengers in Tamil Nadu, has been stopped by the police citing that it would create law and order problem in three districts.
Debutant director Divya Bharathi said after the release of the documentary in Chennai on February 26, the police has stopped the screening in Kanyakumari, Coimbatore and Madurai districts.
“Without issuing any blanket ban on screening the documentary, the police is preventing its screening in every district. We have got a written order from the Madurai police banning the screening on March 9. They say that they have got inputs from intelligence wing about the screening of the documentary without police permission and they cannot allow its screening as it will create law and order problem,” Diva told DNA. The Kanyakumari police prevented the screening citing lack of certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification, she noted.
Strangely, she said that several documentaries are being screened without the police permission and the CBFC certification. “But why are they targeting us alone?” she asked. She said that the attack on us was more to do with the contest of the documentary which depicts the life of manual scavengers and so-called conservancy workers employed by the private contractors of local bodies who were in a way doing manual scavenging.
From the toilets overflowing with faeces to workers removing faeces with their bare hands, the visuals appear in the documentary may make one uncomfortable. As the documentary progress, the disgust turns towards the collective failure of the society for not ending the inhuman work.
Divya who is a member of CPI (ML) Liberation, said that her intention of making the documentary was to initiate a public debate against the manual scavenging but not for getting awards in film festivals. “This documentary will be our weapon for the fight against the inhuman work,” she said, pointing out that the documentary would expose how the government has falsely enumerated that there were only 462 manual scavengers in the state. “For this documentary, I had travelled across 25 districts and met over 1000 manual scavengers,” she said, adding that the documentary drives the home point that the definition of the manual scavenger in the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 was inadequate.
Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association president S. Tamilselvam said that as per the Cinematograph act, all the films including documentary and short films should get the CBFC certification. “However, that all does not guarantee that the police will allow the screening of the documentary. Several documentaries including Anand Patwardhan’s National award winning documentary ‘In the Name of God’ were not allowed be screened by the police in Chennai last year. Political documentaries attacking the government and the communal forces were not being allowed to be screened by the police,” he said, adding that his association has decided to screen ‘Kakkoos’ across the state.
A senior police officer in Chennai said that they would not ban screening of the documentary if they had taken police permission for the public screening and got censor board certificate. “We will not allow public screening of the films or documentary without the censor board certificate,” the officer said. When asked about past incidents of the police stopping the screening of documentaries with the censor certificate, the office who not wanted to be named, said that it could because of any law and order issues.
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