Legal Rights Protection Forum, an NGO, has filed a legal complaint against National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) for racist and abusive comments against a four-year-old child actor from South and referring to him as ‘chu**ya’.
In the letter addressed to the Chairperson of NCPCR, Legal Rights Protection Forum talks about the abusive language used against children by Swara in the YouTube show ‘Son of Abish’ hosted by ‘comedian’ Abish Mathew. The NGO points out the crass language used by Swara for a child actor from a particular region (South India). The NGO states that Bhasker made racist and discriminatory statements along with abusive comments against the children from Southern part of India.
This is ‘humour’? Calling a 4 year old child a ‘Ch*^%a’ a ‘Kameena’? Saying with great confidence that children are ‘evil’? #PanautiJunior is sounding completely deranged here, and that moron @kunalkamra88 is watching like a drunk dodo at this ‘wisdom’. pic.twitter.com/wM7f401tkm
— Shefali Vaidya ஷெஃபாலி வைத்யா शेफाली वैद्य (@ShefVaidya) November 4, 2019
In the clip that has gone viral on social media, Swara is describing one of her initial ad shoots about a soap where against her expectations of appearing in a dreamy sequence she was confronted with a four-year-old child actor. When the child called her ‘aunty’, Bhasker, in her head, called the child ‘chu**ya’ even as the audience erupted in laughter. “Children are basically evil, right?” she says while the host of the show Abish, agrees.
The complaint further states that the Constitution of India under Article 15 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth or residence. The complaint even states the United Nations Convention of Child Rights which speaks about rights of a child against any discrimination.
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“One could immediately sense the underlying implicit and unconscious bias in the supposedly ‘funny’ video that too from a person who is widely regarded as popular by a section of Indian media,” the complaint states adding that such language sets a wrong precedent across India portraying children from South India in negative picture.
The Legal Rights Protection Forum has further asked that the platforms such as Hotstar, Twitter and YouTube remove the content and take strict action against Swara Bhasker.
