National Film Awards 2018: 60 recipients giving ceremony a miss is not a boycott, but a dismissal of rudeness

Let us shrink the picture. You are in school and are getting a prize on Annual Day. Your parents and family are in the audience. When it is your turn, the principal swans off the stage with a swish of his robes. The class teacher takes over. Would you not feel a little bit cheated. Actually, a lot bit cheated. [caption id=“attachment_4325439” align=“alignnone” width=“1200”]  Ram Nath Kovind. PTI[/caption] Now, enlarge it. So 50 odd recipients backed off the 65th National Film Awards ceremony in New Delhi on Thursday and only the fantasy XI were left. It is customary to label our cinema prima donnas as petulant and super sensitive. All too often, the criticisms fit. But in the case of 50 of them being denied that photographic right with the head of state and made to travel second class on a ride of their lives because they are not in the first eleven justifies their stand to a great extent. Hardly sporting. Why do we see it as a boycott and the use of this harsh word only because it sells better than softer equivalents? Why not give these 50 winners the benefit of doubt and say they respectfully declined the honour because they really did not wish to travel coach while a select few were up in first. When you get a National Award, there is no criteria in the presentation that calls for a change of the guest of honour mid-way. It is  not a presidential prerogative and one is hard placed to understand that if a president has ceremonial duties as ours does, and for which we keep him in regal and imperial splendor, why should he not carry out these duties? What is so onerous about standing up on stage and handing over a trophy and certificate to sixty people, and getting on with the basic job that you do? This is neither an administrative goof-up nor a deliberate slight. It is typical of us not to advise the top person rightly. The bureaucracy should have told the President this is bad form, please reconsider. Where is it written that the President can only do an hour of ceremonial duty? With due respect, it is not as if his calendar is chockablock and he is rushing from one vital assignment to another, and saving the world. If the question is of the length of time, and the President’s demand not to cross an hour had to be factored in, then give each recipient a minute and shoo them off the stage because even that awkward and clumsy goat-herding would have been preferable to being snubbed as not good enough to receive an earned award at the hands of the head of state. One shudders to imagine if this same logic applied here was to be the yardstick for awards for bravery and valour, in the face of hostility on domestic and national frontiers. Can you visualise the President suddenly leaving the stage as this erect soldier stands there and waits for number two to come along and finish the process. Do not laugh. The President’s one hour is up like the flight and duty time of airline crew who leave the passenger stranded, sorry you risked your life and all that, but 60 minutes is it. Truth be told, the President left the 50 winners equally stranded. Why would I go to an award ceremony where they do not think I am good enough to be in that first 11? (Also read: National Film Awards 2018 boycott ceremony boycott is an unwarranted response to trivial administrative goof-up)