By Shailesh Kapoor
Four weeks ago, Sanjay LeelaBhansali’sPadmaavat (earlier Padmavati) released after a long-drawn and much-publicised controversy stemming out of politically-supported protests against it. Within days of the release, the entire controversy died down, with the film getting lapped up by audiences around the country and the world. Three BJP-ruled states defied Supreme Court orders and refused to release the film. One of them (Madhya Pradesh) finally released it in the third week.
The film has gone on to do excellent business, touching Rs 275 crore net revenue in India, despite Gujarat and Rajasthan being missing from its distribution plan. And as expected, the media has moved on. There have been no follow-up stories on Padmaavat, analysing the real reasons behind the controversy. It’s just not topical anymore.
But the Padmaavat controversy was never about one film alone. It was about the larger menace that it symptomised. That of political interference in art, to the extent of using art to create narratives to pander to specific vote banks. All political parties have done it in the past. But this time, it was more brazen than ever before.
Dangerously, the example set during Padmaavat will now become the accepted template. Padmaavat has become a proof-of-concept, that you can pick a film to drive a political agenda, and the filmmakers will be mere soft targets, helpless as they are, with only one thought governing their minds: to get their product out to the public.
So, we can expect to see more films being targeted in the days to come. The next certain target is the KanganaRanaut starrer, Manikarnika: Queen Of Jhansi. The first protests have already started, and as we get closer to the release, we may see Padmaavat Part 2 unfolding. Only the perpetrators will change.
The film industry remained largely silent through the period of the Padmaavat controversy, treading the fine line between supporting one of their own and staying in the good books of the powers-that-matter. But the Padmaavat experience will impact the industry in no uncertain terms. Historical and political subjects are being handled with kid-gloves now, with many studios simply refusing to even read scripts in these genres. In times when the industry needs big-screen spectacle films, crossing out a highly-lucrative genre is a big setback.
But the worry is larger. Disruptive tendencies have not been limited to a specific genre in the past. Films like My Name Is Khan, Wake Up Sid and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil faced their share of trouble before their release for reasons that didn’t emerge from their content.Buoyed by the Padmaavat precedent, political forces may pick and target films at will now, citing reasons that get become progressively bizarre, and protests that can become progressively unabashed.
This is where the media should have come in, by driving a public discourse post Padmaavat. But that would be asking for too much in today’s times, where adjusting microphone volumes of their debate panelists has become one of the more important skills for many TV journalists.
So, wait for a while. The next Padmaavat is arriving soon.