Is the idea of Hindi-film censorship smart, technically? China and Iran spend billions of dollars a year
to create porous internet firewalls that barely do what they’re supposed to do.
And of course—surely you must be joking
Mr. Bhattrai – we like our Hindi films more than anything else. That’s
meant only as a compliment to the Indian entertainment industry and not as
self-criticism, as some might assume. We have some serious love of Hindi movies—the
amount of hate I got for publicly stating my opinion of the film Three Idiots, I wouldn’t have gotten for
expressing my uncensored opinions about the party. And that explains precisely why
the party is afraid of them—they are a force much powerful, influential and
uniting than it can ever hope to be.
The PM’s disdain for online criticism and the party’s
disdain for Hindi films are facets of the same mindset. It’s
reasonable—the party doesn’t like what it doesn’t like, so it believes the best
way to get rid of it would be to… well—get rid of it. While that policy -- if you don't like them, they don't stay around- - works
quite well with things—ahem—physical, the Internet or the electronic media is
not something that can be beaten up, tied in a boraa, and thrown into a dirty river, hoping no one notices.
Things BRB should know by now but
apparently doesn’t—no one is indispensable. The easiest way to get dispensed is
to tell people to shut up and then dictate what listen to, and look
at. The party is apparently not comfortable with Hindi films. Considering that
Hindi films have become part of our cultural identity (compare their box-office
gains against Nepali films all over Nepal), the party is unlikely to find a lot
of supporters. It also shows how out of touch the party is with its base—the probable
assumption that Hindi films are for the sukela-mukela
and not its vote-bank is not only faulty but dead-on wrong. Nepal is more
drenched by the Hindi entertainment industry than many Indian states themselves—I
got many blank stares from teenagers in South Indian cities this summer when I
tried striking up conversations about Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan and
Aishwarya Rai. It’d be quite surprising if city-dwelling teenagers hadn’t
watched their films in Nepal.
The point I’m trying to make is, the party perceives a
fracture between communities—one that watches Hindi movies and one that is more
Nepali and does not; and one that uses Twitter and Facebook and one that is ‘Nepali’
and does not. The PM and his party are slow-thinking behemoths, still stuck in
the years of their war, and fail to understand the dynamics of the rapidly
evolving Nepali society. Perhaps the high-command should go watch Satyajit Ray’s
Hindi film Shatranj Ke Khilari, where
the rulers are so engrossed in their games of chess, they don’t realize the
power has quietly shifted away under them. But of course, that would be illegal.