New Delhi: The ninth Udaipur Film Festival, a three-day event from November 15 to 17 at the Rabindranath Tagore Medical College was disrupted by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Saturday, November 16.
The festival, jointly organised by Cinema of Resistance and Udaipur Film Society, was dedicated to the late rights activist G.N. Saibaba and Palestinian children killed in Israel’s ongoing strikes.
Speaking to The Wire, Sanjay Joshi, the national convener of Cinema of Resistance, said that the festival organisers had submitted the required application and fees, and obtained permission from the college administration. At around 2.30 or 3 pm during the post-lunch session, RSS members disrupted the event, prompting the college principal Vipin Mathur to summon the organisers and the RSS members for a meeting.
The principal questioned the Udaipur Film Festival convenor Rinku Parihar about the intention of the festival. The Wire tried to reach Mathur but he was unavailable for comment.
Joshi said that the festival featured banners and posters paying tribute to Saibaba and Palestinian children, to which the RSS objected. The RSS members also branded Saibaba a “terrorist,” Joshi added.
“The RSS members questioned me, ‘What about people dying elsewhere?’. We offered to extend this tribute to victims of all genocides but refused to apologise as demanded by the RSS members,” said Joshi. The organisers were forced to proclaim that they were against “Naxals and Maoists”.
“The representatives of the Udaipur Film Society said that they consider every single act of genocide a human tragedy and are ready to pay homage to all the victims of such acts. However, they refused to agree to the conditions presented by RSS volunteers – that the society must apologise for dedicating the festival to Palestinian children,” Parihar said.
Allegations of misbehaviour
Initially, about five RSS members entered the venue but their numbers soon doubled. The group misbehaved and pressured the organisers to stop the event. Eventually, the college administration forcibly stopped the screenings.
In a statement, Parihar said, “On the second day of 9th Udaipur Film Festival, due to pressure and terrorising of RSS activists, the RNT medical college administration forcefully stopped the film screenings.”
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Joshi also claimed that Facebook blocked advertisements related to the festival. No action was taken against the RSS members who disturbed the peace of the festival, Joshi also said.
The organisers were advised to escalate the matter to Udaipur district magistrate and district collector Arvind Poswal. When they tried to contact him initially, he was unavailable. Later, at around 7.45 pm, they met Poswal, who questioned the organisers instead of addressing the disruption and expressed his inability to take action. He asked the organisers to file a first information report. The Wire tried to reach Poswal but did not receive any response.
“The irony was the ball-passing game between the district collector and the college administration; both of them seeking permission from each other. Note that when the festival was illegally and forcefully stopped, the local police’s representative was himself present there,” Parihar stated.
Despite the disruptions, the organisers managed to conduct the festival. They arranged a new venue near Sandeshwar Mahadev temple to continue the event. “There were National Award-winning filmmakers among us, who stood in solidarity throughout,” Joshi said.
The new makeshift venue. Photo: Sanjay Joshi
Parihar said, “It is tragic that when the festival venue was barged into by these miscreants, Shabnam Virman’s film Had Anhad was being screened. The film has become an anthem for communal harmony in documentary cinema and carries the message of the poet Kabir.”
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The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation (CPIML) also condemned the hooliganism by the RSS. “The CPIML unequivocally condemns the cowardly disruption by RSS goons of the screening of Had Anhad at the Udaipur Film Festival. This brazen attack on democratic spaces and progressive art reflects the growing attack on freedom of speech under the fascist regime, which seeks to stifle any voices critical of exploitation and injustice,” the party announced in a statement.
“The CPIML stands in firm solidarity with the Udaipur Film Society in its brave stand against fascist intimidation. The refusal of the organisers to remove their dedication to Palestinian children and professor Saibaba is a courageous assertion of democratic rights,” the statement mentioned.
This is not the first time such an incident has occurred, says Joshi. In a previous edition of the festival in 2016, the organisers faced a similar disruption when activists belonging to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the RSS, objected to tributes for Rohith Vemula and a minor Dalit girl who was raped and killed. Joshi condemned the incident in the strongest terms and said that neither cinema nor any form of art can be stopped by such elements.
