This refers to the editorial, “Remember Rajdharma” (January 26). Violent attacks by mindless vandals of the Karni Sena, including the pelting of a school bus ferrying kids from school with stones in Gurugram, to protest the screening of Padmaavat ‘to preserve Rajput honour’ appalled and angered the nation, and rightly so. It is a fallacy to say that children need to be protected because harm to them will damage our global image or shame us in front of the world or hit foreign investment. Children need to be cherished because they are children. Free citizens in a free country, which we believe India is, must be free to screen and watch a film cleared by the legally-constituted authority (in India’s case CBFC) without having to risk life and limb.
But the Karni Sena thinks otherwise and goes on declaring bounties, threatening self-immolations, torching buses, blocking national highways, setting cinema halls and malls on fire and vandalising public property on the pretext of ‘hurt pride’, albeit with the tacit approval and support of the State administrations in question. In letting things slide with an eye for the main chance, the State Governments abdicated their constitutional duty to abide by the Supreme Court order lifting the ban and enjoining them to maintain law and order. The stone-age Karni Sena appears to be less than sophisticated to discern that Padmaavat is a celebration of Rajput valour and pride. Whether the community deserves to be so glorified as in Padmaavat is a different matter. Nevertheless, with curiosity generated by the controversy, the Bollywood movie is all set to become a huge box-office success.