Filmmaker lauds Keralites for sharp retort to Shah

Kochi: The 'sharp response by Keralites' to Amit Shah's Vamana Jayanthi greetings was commended by award-winning filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, while delivering the John Abraham memorial lecture on Saturday. Sharma, the director of the 2002 Gujarat riots documentary 'Final Solution', however, said that there is no link between literacy and tolerance, referring to the increased polarisation in the state, despite its 'model state' image.
"It is a mistaken assumption that illiterate people are gullible toowards the venomous polity in play. In fact, from my experience, I can draw an inverse relation between education and tolerance, having seen highly qualified people holding extremely regressive mindset," Sharma said.
"In the past, many of the extreme views I now hear were considered as emanating from the loony fringe. Such views now dominate our living room discussions and our TV debates," he said, noting the roles played by rising inequity post-liberalisation and the prioritising of identity politics in lieu of welfare politics.
Sharma also spoke about the impassive attitude the present government has towards minorities by pointing out how Shah tweeted greetings for 'Vamana Jayanthi' but not for a global festivity like Eid.
"While speech might seem freer, mindspaces appear to be shrinking and becoming shallower. A more visibly intolerant India - with identity markers as differentiators - is our new reality," he added, acknowledging this as a global trend.
Sharma called sedition the 'new Padmashri', freely handed out by the state to those it finds disagreeable.
"The right wing is a grave threat, challenging the very nature of our democracy, unleashing gently a series of ground-level changes that I consider to be transformational: food fascism, love jihad, a greater degree of 'othering'.
A recent survey of Indian dietary habits, conducted by the registrar general of India, found that there were 29% vegetarians in the country. How does this minority hold a 71% majority to ransom?" Sharma asked.