All hail Marathi pride: Maharashtra govt's diktat a boost for tyranny in cinema halls

First you can’t eat beef. Now you must eat your peas…. er, as in watch a minute-long tribute to Dadasaheb Phalke at the movie theatre. There’s also the new rule that multiplex owners must now screen Marathi movies in prime time, but at least watching them will remain optional. But paying tribute to Phalke will be mandatory, according to state HRD minister Vinod Tawde: “The objective behind the decision is to inform people about the life of father of the Indian cinema and his contribution. The movie will be screened immediately after the national anthem.”

Maharashtra is rapidly turning into the ultimate nanny state with Devendra Fadnavis deciding exactly what we citizens need. (More parochialism, less red meat, apparently.)

Lets not pretend that entertainment has ever been a bastion of freedom. The government has always decided what we watch or not, from kissing to smoking scenes, from political satire to sexy romp. What is new is the emergence of the cinema hall as an Orwellian terrain enforcing norms of good citizenship.

Back in the bad old socialist era days, we also had to endure badly produced public messages (hum do, hamare do!), uncomfortable seats, small single screens, and an embarrassingly modest snack bar. No one, however, bullied us into listening to the national anthem. And certainly no one insisted we to jump to our feet and stand to attention during it. For some reason, socialist Big Brother didn’t think patriotism had to be forced down our throats as a mandatory price of entertainment. We didn’t first need to display our nationalist fervour to earn the right to watch Amitabh Bachhan play a permanently irate young man on screen.

But such leniency is now a thing of the past.

These days, the punishment for those refuse to jump out of their well-padded theatre seats at the first note of the anthem is swift and heavy. In Kerala, a philosophy student was thrown in jail for hooting . A young man was beaten up  in Mumbai because his South African friend failed to do the honors. Even Preity Zinta joined a jingoistic crowd to throw another such malcontent out of the movie hall.

All this fervour overlooks the fact that the Indian republic has tootled along rather well for a very long time without such compulsory displays of patriotism. The anthem diktat dates back to 2003, and the culprit is once again the Maharashtra government. To mark Republic Day, the NCP regime introduced a 1.45 minute national anthem sung by Asha Bhonsle with music by AR Rehman in all its theatres.

At the time, there was some grumbling and worry that people would not show appropriate respect to the hallowed song, as the Times of India records:

“According to INOX spokesperson Deepa George, the theatre will request people to stand up after the show, if a rule comes into force. ‘It is a sincere effort to evoke patriotism among people. But most of them are in such a tearing hurry to leave that many will just head for the exit. That will be very insulting,’ she says.

Agrees V G Vyavahare, manager for Rahul [theatre>, who believes that the Jana-Gana-Mana can be an enjoyable experience if everybody joins in. ‘When it was implemented in 1980, most of the viewers would just walk away without caring,’ he says.”

Yes, perhaps because in 1980, one was less likely to be torn from limb to limb for such presumption.

What is noteworthy, however, is the way in which a matter (standing up or not) that was once a matter of personal choice has now become an iron-clad rule, and for no constitutional reason whatsoever. As this Spike Magazine article reminds us, Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri won a case where the court determined that failing to stand up during Jana, Gana, Mana is not a crime under the Prevention of Insults to the National Honour Act of 1971.

And yet today, we all scramble to obey in fearful haste thanks to mob enforcement. The pattern is clear: the state makes an arbitrary rule, the sheep enforce compliance.

Back in January, I took my daughter early to the theatre to see Paddington Bear, and we spent much of our time in the lobby gazing at the face of Bal Thackeray. The reason: the release of a Shiv Sena-funded b iopic Balkadu . The hall had been turned into a giant tribute to the great man – posters abounded on every wall, as did screens flashing the movie trailer – a repellent exercise in sycophancy.

At the time, I shrugged it off as the price of doing business in Mumbai. But now I can’t help wonder if it’s a matter of time before we are forced to our feet by the sight of Dadasaheb’s face – or that of Shivaji or Balasaheb inevitably – because some parochial goon deems it necessary.

But who will stem this alarming slide down the slope toward movie hall totalitarianism? Certainly not the theatre owners who were pathetically eager  to embrace the national anthem rule to curry political favour. Certainly not the audience which stands by apathetically while fellow viewers are beaten up for daring to break arbitrary rules. We may have to wait, as we inevitably do, for a “five star activist” to prevail on the high court to order some democratic sense into this movie hall madness. Then the rest of us can celebrate it on Twitter.