Out of focus

State interference in culture is self-defeating

More than its content and messaging, the controversy around The Kerala Story, an unexpected box office hit in parts of India, highlights the problematic policy of state interference in cultural affairs in a democracy as deeply multicultural and argumentative as India. These interventions have taken two forms: Either an outright ban as the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, has decreed or tacit political encouragement via entertainment tax breaks on cinema tickets as the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have done. Both represent extreme responses that sit uncomfortably with the constitutional guarantees of freedom