The Goods and Service Tax (GST) references in the movie Mersel has not gone down too well with the BJP and has demanded that the references be deleted. Soon, people came to defend the movie, batting for artistic expression.
Actor Kamal Haasan took to Twitter to show his support for Mersel.
Mersal was certified. Dont re-censor it . Counter criticism with logical response. Dont silence critics. India will shine when it speaks.
— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) October 20, 2017
Soon, politicians too started extending their support.
Congress’ national spokesperson, Abhishek Manu Singhvi wondered if India is Nazi Germany.
TN BJP demanding that scenes criticizing implementation of GST & DeMo be removed from #Mersel. Are we in India or Nazi Germany?
— Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) October 21, 2017
Soon, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, too, chimed in.
Mr. Modi, Cinema is a deep expression of Tamil culture and language. Don’t try to demon-etise Tamil pride by interfering in Mersal
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) October 21, 2017
No sooner had he done that, filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar showed Rahul Gandhi a mirror about how Congress party workers had demonised and campaigned against his film Indu Sarkar, but Rahul Gandhi chose to remain silent.
Sir @OfficeOfRG I m against ban on any film I had expected ur support while ur workers wr demonising #InduSarkar but u chose 2 remain silent https://t.co/a3dipAKl0C
— Madhur Bhandarkar (@imbhandarkar) October 21, 2017
The film Indu Sarkar was a fiction based on the 19 month long Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister and Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother Indira Gandhi in 1970s. Despite Bhandarkar’s assurances that the film was not a biopic on Gandhi’s life, Congress workers and leaders came down heavily on him.
One Congress worker had announced booty of Rs. 1 lakh to blacken Bhandarkar’s face.
इन्दू सरकार के निर्देशक @imbhandarkar के मुहं पर कालिख पोत कर आओ , 1लाख रु नगद पाओ@abpnewshindi @pankajjha_ @aajtak @ndtv @NavbharatTimes pic.twitter.com/AvLu9KLjZf
— Haseeb Ahmad (@haseebcongress) July 5, 2017
A press conference for the movie was also disrupted.
Its baffling to see self proclaimed custodians of #freedomOfExpression creating huge ruckus to prevent a legitimate release of #InduSarkar pic.twitter.com/orJVVJULdp
— Madhur Bhandarkar (@imbhandarkar) July 15, 2017
@waglenikhil Is this party still living in 1975 for them to disregard hon’ble Supreme Court’s decision & undemocratically stop #InduSarkar https://t.co/LfxJMCkFc1
— Madhur Bhandarkar (@imbhandarkar) July 28, 2017
Earlier, Bhandarkar had also exposed so called journalist Sagarika Ghose’s hypocrisy while she was trying to ‘expose’ Bhandarkar’s on the film Indu Sarkar. No wonder Bhandarkar claimed that had it not been for social media support, he would have gone into depression.
