Knee-jerk Banning

The rendra Modi government seems to have caught the disease of banning first and thinking later, which had afflicted earlier governments at the Centre too. Recently, the Central government took the bizarre step of offloading a Greenpeace activist from a UK-bound flight, to prevent her from testifying against the government’s economic agenda before British parliamentarians. The Delhi High Court criticised this action as ‘ippropriate’, but now the Centre has decided to dig in its heels and justify it in ‘tiol interest’. Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai however went on to make her presentation over the internet about how the Central government is ignoring the interests of forest dwellers and other stakeholders while pushing the Mahan coal mining project in Madhya Pradesh. And now the Central government has banned Leslee Udwin’s documentary ‘India’s Daughter’ while serving a legal notice to the BBC for airing it. Union minister Venkaiah idu sees the documentary on the horrific December 16 Delhi bus gangrape as an intertiol conspiracy to mar the image of India. Yet the documentary is being freely circulated in social media, the ban order adding to its attraction. By all accounts, the documentary has been praised for its sensitive, balanced portrayal of sexual violence against women in India, trying to go deep into the social mindset that fosters this evil. Shooting the messenger while ignoring the message has never been a wise policy. India needs all chances to introspect, whether it is about ensuring dignity to women or safeguarding the interests of the poor and the margilized.