The real tragedy of Padmavati

State govts have abdicated their responsibility

When any citizen of India publicly issues a death threat, the ordinary course of the law demands that the state security apparatus should kick in to detain them on the grounds of criminal intimidation. Yet some unknown youth from Meerut continues to remain scot-free after announcing over the weekend a Rs 5-crore bounty on the heads of Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Deepika Padukone, the director and lead actor, respectively, of the movie Padmavati. Instead, the government headed by Chief Minister Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh wrote a letter to the Union Ministry for Information and Broadcasting requesting that the release of the film be deferred on the grounds that it would not be in a position to manage the law and order problems that might follow if the movie were shown in cinema halls in the state. Which is to say, the Uttar Pradesh home department was absolving itself of the responsibility of controlling incidents of effigy burning, vandalism, demonstrations, slogan shouting and even, yes, “submission of memorandums” if the film were screened. 

This from the same chief minister who threatened to jail all criminals in the state or, even more incredibly, kill them in police encounters, completely disregarding any notion of due process of law. Mr Adityanath’s muscular statement was meant to reassure doubters about Uttar Pradesh’s rapidly deteriorating law and order situation; it is worth noting that public death threats do not appear to galvanise him to similar action. An arrest under Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code, which attracts imprisonment of seven years plus a fine if the person threatened is a woman, would surely have reinforced Mr Adityanath’s apparent resolve to discourage crime in his state. Perhaps it is the impunity that the young man in Uttar Pradesh enjoyed that encouraged a little-known Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) functionary in Haryana – in fact, he is the party’s chief media coordinator – to double the bounty on Mr Bhansali and Ms Padukone to Rs 10 crore. 

It is to the credit of the BJP’s high command that the party issued a statement the next day saying it did not support the threat the functionary issued — but with the addendum that it was not in favour of the film being released. Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, in fact, asked the Union government to not release the film without changes. And from Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, there was no word. The ruling dispensations at the Centre, in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana appear to care more for the hurt sentiments of a few than upholding the rule of law. By pandering to the most retrograde and absurd populism and ignoring glaring breaches of law and order, the signals from the state at large are sinister indeed. Thankfully, though, the Supreme Court, on Monday, refused to entertain a plea for public interest litigation seeking a ban on the release of the movie because it “defamed” the Rajput princess — incidentally, the producers themselves had earlier announced deferring the release date. The apex court stayed away from banning the movie, which has not yet received a clearance from the Censor Board of Film Certification, on the grounds that doing so would amount to “pre-judgment”.