Police curbs on Kak’s film kick up storm

Police twice stopped the screening of Jashne-e-Azadi, saying it was inflammatory and radical in drift and content

In what is set to snowball into a major national controversy over the freedom of expression, the Mumbai police may soon find itself on the backfoot for twice “arbitrarily” stopping the screening of a documentary on Kashmir by award-winning filmmaker Sanjay Kak.

The police stopped the screening of Kak’s documentary Jashne-e-Azadi (How we celebrate freedom) last week and again on Monday on grounds that the documentary — portraying what Kashmir’s struggle for azadi really implied — as out-and-out inflammatory and radical in drift and content. However, the Campaign Against Censorship — a Delhi-based forum (with local chapters in cities, including Mumbai) fighting for free enterprise and artistic freedom of expression of documentary film makers — has already “taken up” Kak’s case, as one which smacks of “local thana censorship” above anything else.

A large section of writers, painters, film makers and other intellectuals too have come together — mostly in Mumbai and Delhi — to protest against police highhandedness. Murmurs of protest, condemning the police action, were heard across some Mumbai colleges.

Kak, who has gone back to Delhi, told DNA on Wednesday that Mumbai police lacked discretion and the men in khaki had done a great disservice to society by gagging freedom of expression and free artistic enterprise by stalling the screening of his film twice.

Surprisingly, the two Mumbai police stations perceived to be “in the eye of the storm” — since they were instrumental in stopping the screening — refused to explain if their officers had the proper “mandate” from their superiors to interfere, the way, they did on the two occasions.

One theory, however, said the police had got an email from a film industry insider expressing reservations about the film’s content. “We had our own reasons to stop the screening. Our decision was well-thought out, which has mostly to do with the timing of the screening,” said a senior official who didn’t want to be named.

Kak, in fact, claimed that even if one tries to defend the police acts in the light of the larger political context and turmoil within Kashmir, it is absolutely ridiculous that the Mumbai police should feel jittery over a series of happenings in the city (the 1993 blasts verdict and framing of charges in 11/7 case).