Yet another creative venture in celluloid has been sunk. Thanks to political and ideological intolerance, a canker that has been eating into the social fabric of Tamil Nadu, Santosh Sivan’s latest Tamil film, Inam (Race), has been withdrawn from movie halls abruptly. Though some Tamil activists groups did raise a banner of revolt against the movie—a poignant portrayal of the plight of some survivors of the war in Sri Lanka—it was Vaiko, the founder-leader of the political party MDMK that is now part of the NDA in the state, who ensured that the film was pulled out of theatres once and for all.
Back home, not many eyebrows are being raised in the state. For one, the Sri Lankan Tamils issue has a quintessential sensitivity that can land creative artistes dabbling on the topic in the firing line of one or the other defender of the larger Eelam cause. Two, such extra-constitutional bans after the Central Board of Film Certification has cleared a movie for public viewing have become such a regularity in the state that people are only surprised when a film is released with no one wanting its withdrawal.
The demand for ban of films has a chequered history that dates back to Parasakti, the launch pad of legendary Tamil film icon “Sivaji” Ganesan. Then, the ideology that the movie sought to profess was anathema to some powerful elite. In recent times, films like Madras Cafe, Thalaiva, Vishwaroopam and Dam 999 faced protests for various reasons. Another film, Sindhu Samaveli, was opposed because its “immoral” storyline—a woman having an intimate relationship with her father-in-law—was not acceptable to those who swore by Tamil tradition and culture. It is a different matter that the 2010 film is freely available in the Internet for anyone to watch. Now, Inam has fallen a prey to growing intolerance in the state, where film-making involves less of creativity and more of not unruffling the feathers of rabble-rousers.
