TV actors miffed at the treatment meted out to cartoonist Aseem Trivedi

Political parties claim that Indian democracy and state institutions are under threat due to recent rise in mass protests and civil society movements. This fear reached to a new height last Saturday when cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was booked for sedition and hurting sentiments and was dragged to jail. Protests followed and subsequently this 25 year old Aseem was let off on bail and there is a strong buzz that sedition charges labeled against him might also be dropped. We understand that we cater to the happenings of the television industry and the issue we are talking about is out of the genre. But TV actors are very much a part of the society, and much opposite to the popular perspective, they have an apt understanding of the happenings around. Accordingly, we spoke to a few TV actors about what they felt about the entire Aseem Trivedi cartoon row. Gaurav Chopraa felt, “Times have changed. Government repeatedly tolerates the abuse of same laws by certain political party leaders who regularly spew venom and they go ahead to crack the whip on a soft target. It appears ridiculous.” He further added, “The babus always seem to adopt a big brother attitude, as if they know better. Like after declaring a film adult they still want to chop certain scenes. Do they think that adult public is not ready to watch sex? ” Amit Behl stated, “The Mumbai police officials were totally wrong for they deliberately arrested the poor cartoonist on a Saturday evening. So he had to spend the weekend in custody. Plus… you need to see the cartoons. He did not draw the real Ashok Chakra. It was a satire which is a cartoonist’s weapon.” Renuka Shahane also felt, “While the government gets hyper-sensitive about depiction of institutions, it does nothing about huge corruption cases like 2G and Coalgate where you can’t even count the zeros in the total amount of gapla. Did these cases of rampant national loot not harm the state’s prestige? ” Similar sentiments were also echoed by Harsh Chhaya who had protested strongly about this incident on his Facebook page. He stated and hoped that strong public protest would eventually force the government to revoke the British era law of sedition which also was the reason for activist Binayak Sen going to jail. Renuka further went on to argue, “While batting for responsible free speech, you can’t hurt anybody’s religious sentiments, but sedition charge against Aseem was downright wrong.” Here the talented actress went a bit further and said, “The government was trying to make an example of him and send a warning to those protesting against the recent scams.” Coming back to Gaurav, he also felt that, “Those people who were trying to clamp down on Aseem did appear weak.” Furthermore, Harsh who is an optimist averred, “I am happy at the way civil society and particularly the youth had protested against this unjust action. This outburst of youth action should be a wake-up call to the film marketing guys who always reject any script other that youth romance and sex on the grounds that more than 60% of population (youth) is not interested in anything else. These protests are a clear negation of the thought that today’s youth is not bothered about what happens in the country.” Finally, Renuka ended by stating, “Most of urban educated middle-class are arm chair politicians who only heap insults on the government but do nothing on voting day. Agreed the choice is not good, but we have to choose lesser of the evil. Just a cursory glance of income of those guys will be enough for us to see who we don’t need to vote for. This is not rocket science.” Quite strong words…it’s time to change for good…