Amid Bollywood's silence on CAA protests, Shabana Azmi's 1989 video criticising govt for Safdar Hashmi's death emerges

A video from 1989 has surfaced on Twitter, which sees Shabana Azmi take the stage to criticise the Congress-led government over the death of Safdar Hashmi.

As protests demanding the withdrawal of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens continue to soar throughout the country, Twitterati have called out many Bollywood biggies for maintaining a stoic silence on the current political scenario. In the midst of all the silence, a video, dating back to 1989, has emerged on Twitter, in which veteran actress Shabana Azmi she calls out failures of the state machinery over the murder of communist playwright and director Safdar Hashmi. Azmi, who was in attendance at the 12th International Film Festival of India held in New Delhi, took the stage to chide the then-Congress government following the murder of noted poet, playwright and theatre personality just days before the event. “We register our protest against a system that, on the one hand, claims to promote creativity and, on the other, connives in the murder of cultural activists,” she declared, as the auditorium erupted with slogans. Check out her speech here

In January 1989, exactly a week after #SafdarHashmi’s death, @AzmiShabana read out a note in protest of Comrade Hashmi’s killing from the stage of the International Film Festival of India in New Delhi. #Sahmat #Janam pic.twitter.com/mWjutDU1h6
— Md Salim (@salimdotcomrade) January 1, 2020

Azmi’s fiery speech stands out in contrast to the current lot of celebrities, who have been dubbed “spineless” on social media for their stony silence on CAA and NRC. _Read: Amid nationwide CAA protests, Bollywood stays mostly mum: It's time to move from reel posturing to real action_ Hashmi, who was staging a play called Halla Bol, which was critical of the government, was attacked on 1 January, 1989. He succumbed to his injuries two days later. On 1 January, 2020, Shabana Azmi shared a note on Twitter recounting Hashmi’s death. She also posted a picture of the cover of Sudhanva Deshpande’s book, Halla Bol: The Death And Life of Safdar Hashmi. Check out her tweet here