New Delhi: Controversies surrounding two pieces of content – Netflix’s web series ‘IC-814’ and BJP MP Kangana Ranaut’s yet-to-get a fresh release date ‘Emergency’ – did not only put the spotlight on the movies being used in the narrative war but also highlighted why BJP loses such battles.
IC814 triggered a row after a section of viewers objected to the humane projection of terrorists and reference to their Hindu code names, contending that distortion of the real identities of hijackers amounted to misrepresentation of historical events.
While Netflix included the real and code names of the hijackers in its disclaimer, the narrative and intent of the director continue to be humanising Muslim terrorists.
From picking up the issue of Hindu names of terrorists to a ‘fake’ victory celebration, the BJP got it all wrong.
Amid a flurry of reactions on news platforms and social media, writer-blogger Arnab Ray’s analysis was pretty close to addressing the reality of two controversies playing around at the same time.
In a long post on X, Ray explained how IC-814 director Anubhav Sinha succeeded in subtly pushing his narrative that the then BJP government was impotent/ incompetent and the Pakistan-funded hijackers were humane.
“He does very little pre-market publicity. He does not need to. He puts his focus on the narrative. And what is that? The impotence/ incompetence of the then BJP government, and the humanity of the Pakistan-funded hijackers,” Ray said.
Addressing the BJP’s lack of understanding of the real issue, Ray said, “The right-wing IT cell clutches the wrong end of the straw. They push the narrative that Sinha is trying to pass the hijackers off as Hindu terrorists, which he is not, (because they actually used Hindu code names during the hijack) and since no one with half a brain would think that Hindu hijackers would fly to Taliban land, that sleight of hand was not what the director was going for, in this case.”
“But by outraging on the wrong thing, they give free publicity for Sinha. Since it’s the wrong place to attack his movie, it is also trivially countered,” Ray added.
Ray suggested that all of this could have been avoided by either ignoring the series or focusing the fire on the real issue.
Explaining the case of Emergency, also as political a work of art as IC814, Ray said, “Unlike IC814, the lead actor (Kangana Ranaut) does a blitz of pre-release publicity and she has all of the government-aligned media to provide her a platform. But like all her publicity campaigns (it’s not a coincidence that despite being a good actor, most of her movies recently have been flops) the focus is not on the movie but on herself.
“Rather than letting the movie talk, she does and it is a stream of consciousness of being both a victim as well as the greatest, and since it’s all unscripted and unplanned, things are said that instead embarrasses the very party to which she belongs, a self-goal truly.”
It is an established fact that the BJP made the series popular by trivialising a non-issue.
Who is to blame in this case – BJP or their IT cell or both?
Has the BJP not created enough noise around the series to win an international award?
Creative freedom must be paramount
Numbers tell us that the BJP cannot match the level of bans imposed by the Congress governments on various forms of content including films and books.
Even when the grand old party is not in power, it allegedly succeeded in ‘effectively’ banning the ‘Emergency’ film by inciting the Sikh community.
But at the same time, it is also true that the reduced majority of the Narendra Modi government and Ranaut’s tirade against the farmers’ protest played a big role in hindering the release of the film.
The real “Emergency” in 1975 has been called out as an act of cowardness and any sort of curb on freedom of speech, expression and creativity continues to be a sign of cowardness.
Asserting that “no creative expression should ever be censored”, The Kashmir Files director Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri remarked cowards only censor what exposes their ugly faces.
NewsDrum reiterates that the narrative war should be fought with counter-narratives and not bans, censorship or protests.
“Why can’t right-wing do another story on a hijack by Indira Gandhi supporters to free her from jail?” They can easily target the Congress party by showing how these two hijackers rose within the party and came close to the Gandhi family,” said an industry veteran.
The ‘divided’ media picks up an issue owing to their individual allegiance to their political ideologies.
It is a rare situation when two pieces of content serving two ideologies are under fire and the media personalities are being exposed as they continue to pick and choose the sides.
It is even more rare to find a top journalist defending ‘creative freedom’ by supporting both pieces of content.
Unless we see that happening, the talks of creative freedom by journalists are farcical in nature and this abandons people from creative industry to their fate.
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