Where is the big Indian democracy?

It's so easy and fanciful to trumpet around the world that we are a democratic country. Agreed that we are democratic compartive to countries like China et all, but the fact is that we have a really long way to go to achieve the full meaning of democracy. Whether we need a complete democracy or not is debatable, but transparency and freedom are certainly things that are the need of the hour.

Following are really bad examples that defame the name of a democracy:

• Authors can't controversial books.
• Movies can't be made with controversial titles or stories. We all know that there are a lot of things that are out of the way, but we won't allow producers to make movies out of it.
• Even a Valentine day can't be celebrated because RSS doesn't like the sound of it.

One such instance is the movie The Final solution by Rakesh Sharma about the Godhra act and the carnage that followed in Gujarat. It's actually a Fahrenheit 9/11 style documentary, and no one knows if all the people who were interviewed were genuine, but what's obvious is the magnitude of hatred that's live among so many people. I just watched it a couple of days back after recommendations by some of my friends, and liked the boldness of the producer from frame one. Some bits and pieces of the movie are real eye-openers.

Some of the quotes:

• An RSS activist saying: "Not all muslims are bad, but all terrorists are muslims and we got to give a fitting reply".
• A 10 year old kid saying "I'll kill any Hindu after I grow up".
• One activist saying: Christians have 200 countries to live in and muslims have 40 (?) countries but we got only this one and we got to make sure this is not taken away.

Really powerful words those. The way these arguments are put forward to the uneducated and uncouth crowd makes all the difference between liking and hatred. Tell that to people who are filled with adrenaline, out of work, with paltry education, and you could make them die at your feet. As shown in the movie, such trainings happen from age 10 and there are references to Nazi way of 'cleansing' in Gujarat school text books. Holy hell!

And what does such a movie get in return? A ban on Indian theatres! The movie has been shown all around the world and received hundreds of awards in international film festivals and it is banned in India, the place where it matters the most.

It's understandable that uneducated ruffians and hooligans are used as pawns for spreading hatred, but what is not understandable is why authoratative, educated people in censor boards ban such a film where the director has taken utmost care to handle the stuff in the way it has to be handled. All after the whole world has acknowledged the greatness of the movie. [Here's the BBC interview with Rakesh Sharma] Shame on us to call ourselves a democratic country!