Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 21, 2014)

The upcoming Lok Sabha election has divided Bollywood. After Anjum Rajabali, backed by Imtiaz Ali, Vishal Bhardwaj and Kabir Khan among others, issued an appeal to protect the country’s secular character by not voting for Narendra Modi, another faction backed the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate.

 The latest twist in this story that Mirror broke (April 15) is that Rakesh Sharma (left), director of the controversial documentary Final Solution, is engaged in a public war of words with Anupam Kher. His film on the 2002 Gujarat riots is critical of the Modi government’s alleged role in the communal carnage.

 It started with Sharma tweeting that the pro-Modi actor and former CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) chairperson’s claim that he cleared the film under the NDA rule, is untrue. He insisted that it was the Congress-led UPA coalition which had cleared the film after Kher’s attempts to derail it.
“After it’s premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 5, 2004, Final Solution, won many awards. The CBFC sent two legal notices for customs and foreign exchange related violations, that was outside its purview. Later, an Examining Committee convened on July 30, 2004 and ‘banned’ the film,” he alleged, adding that after this he approached the ministry to intervene. “The Ministry took punitive action against some of the regional CBFC officers. Kher then called a special committee headed by Shyam Benegal which passed the film on October 7, 2004. So how can he claim credit?”

 Kher however insisted that he cleared the film even though Sharma didn’t want to go to a Revision Committee after being rejected by the Examining Committee. “When I came out after the revision committee screening, he was standing outside with a group of journalists, prepared to cry foul,” the actor reminisces, pointing out that Sharma’s claim about the UPA’s role is illogical. “Since when did political parties start governing the CBFC?”

 Filmmaker Pahlaj Nihalani describes the aftermath of the Rajabali campaign as “disgusting”. “Sunil Dutt and Shatrughan Sinha were the best of friends despite being from the Congress and BJP respectively. Today, we are openly taking stands about voting which is a private matter.”Echoing the sentiment social activist and producer Ashoke Pandit says he’s appalled that people are openly discussing their choices. “This is happening because Rajabali started a campaign to divide the industry? He even used FWA CEO Kamlesh Pandey’s name without his permission and later removed it when Pandey objected,” he points out.

 Pandey who handled the campaign for the Congress from 1984 to 1989, and for the Samajvadi Party from 2002 to 2007, says these parties have all have used the secular card to take voters for a ride. “They have all used this country as their ATM. I don’t subscribe to any party’s ideology,” he retorts.

 Kher had the last word, “Sharma is creating noise to get political mileage. I have just discovered a link online where he admitted a few years ago that I had passed his film. He is doing this only because he’s one of the signatories of Rajabali’s campaign.”