WELL-KNOWN documentary film maker Gopal Menon was manhandled on 8 July by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Kerala state police in a public function being addressed by VHP chief, Praveen Togadia, in Kozhikkode. Gopal Menon was accompanied by a film team consisting of Viju Verma and Mustapha Deshamangalam, who were also roughed up. Menon has made several films on human rights issues, a recent one being ‘Hey Ram – Genocide in the Land of Gandhi’, a film documenting the communal pogrom in Gujarat.
When Menon and his team reached Mudalakkulam Maidan where Praveen Togadia was addressing the crowd, Gopal Menon was identified by the VHP activists, who with the help of the state police, manhandled all three and threw them out of the meeting place. The VHP activists threatened the film makers and told the police not to allow them inside. The police in turn, threatened to arrest them if they failed to leave immediately. Their lives were under threat, and they escaped.
Gopal Menon and his team argue that since the event was a public meeting, they had every right to attend and also film the function. They expressed shock at the way the police force of a state like Kerala, that is supposedly committed to secular principles could be used by a communal outfit like the VHP for its nefarious ends. According to Menon, the organisers had violated all the basic ethics of press and media freedom. Marad, said Menon, marks the beginning of fascism in Kerala. The team stated that if the socially-conscious citizens of Kerala did not wake up at this crucial hour, the state would soon become a scane of bloodshed as a result of the poisonous statements of communal-minded politicians.
The team appealed to all right-thinking and socially-conscious citizens to pledge themselves to fight the communal canker, and see to it that the ‘Gujarat experiment’ is not repeated in state of Kerala. They urged all citizens’ groups to respond immediately and take all possible steps to isolate communal organisations and politicians who spread communal poison.
Several well-known directors, film artists and others from the film fraternity jointly issued a statement condemning the assault:
“As members of the film fraternity, we are deeply shocked at the manhandling of the well-known documentary filmmaker Mr. Gopal Menon and his associates Mr. Mustapha Deshamangalam (a free lance journalist) and Mr. Viju Verma, by the Vishwa Hindu Parishat (VHP) and police machinery in Marad, Kozhikode, on 8th of July, 2003. This deplorable incident, which took place when the team was trying to film record footage for a film on communalism at an open-to-all public function being addressed by VHP chief Praveen Togadia is yet another grim indicator of the steady communalization of Kerala today.
The increasing communal violence in Kerala, a state known for its secular traditions, is a matter of deep concern. Following the violence in Marad, we have witnessed the state losing its secular credentials and a growing sharp polarisation based on religious identity. While both Hindu and Muslim communal forces have engaged with the politics of hatred, the recent visit of Mr. Togadia to Kozhikkode is calculated to add fuel to fire.
We see the attack on Mr. Gopal Menon and his associates as an attack on freedom of _expression and violation of basic human rights. We read this issue not as an isolated incident, but as part of an overall attack on independent media by police machinery and fundamentalist forces.
We note with great concern that the Kerala Chief Minister Mr. A.K. Antony, instead of taking firm steps to restore normalcy and peace in Marad, is instead bending over backwards to accommodate communal forces in Kerala. As a result, Muslim families who were forced to flee Marad following the violence there are afraid to return to their homes even today while leaders who are notorious for spreading communal hatred are being allowed to further vitiate the city’s already-charged atmosphere.
We appeal to all secular and democratic sections in the country to condemn this attack. We urge readers of this statement to speak up against the growth of communalism in this country. We appeal to all members of the mass media to boycott communal forces so that communal statements do not dictate the lives of innocent citizens. We hope this will help prevent further bloodshed on the basis of religious identity. Finally, we demand the immediate rehabilitation of all families who have been forced to vacate their homes in Marad.
Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Saeed Mirza, Kundan Shah, Anand Patwardhan, Sudhir Mishra, Virender Saini, Satya Sivaraman, Lenin Rajendran, Ajay Bhardwaj, Altaf Mazid, K R Mohanan, P T Kunhumohammed, Priyanandanan, Anjum Rajabali, Avijit Mukul Kishore, Amar Kanwar, Shriprakash, K.P. Sasi, P. Baburaj, B. Ajithkumar, Rajeev Ravi, C. Saratchandran, Aditya Seth, Sagari Chhabra, Vagish K Jha, Deepak Roy. ?