More than 100 filmmakers in India on Friday issued a statement urging people to not vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the coming Lok Sabha elections. The elections are scheduled from April 11 to May 19 in seven phases – with results to be announced on May 23.
Among others, the statement has been signed by documentary filmmakers Anand Patwardhan, Anjali Monteiro, film festival director Bina Paul, Tamil film director Vetrimaaran, Malayalam film director and producer Aashiq Abu, film critic CS Venkateswaran. There are 103 signatories in the list.
The statement said that people should vote for a government that “respects the Constitution of India, protects our freedom of speech and expression, and refrains from all kinds of censorship.”
They said that the BJP and its allies have failed to keep the promises they made during elections, the Dalits and Muslims have been marginalised and hate campaigns were being spread through social media. “Fascism threatens to strike us hard with all its might if we don’t choose wisely in the coming Lok Sabha election. Period,” the statement reads.
“Any individual or institution that raises the slightest dissent is labelled ‘anti-national’,” the statement said. It added that farmers had been forgotten, flawed economic policies that ended up as disasters had been made to look like successes – all with the help of false propaganda and marketing blitz. It has helped the ruling party in power to “create a false optimism in the country,” the statement added.
The filmmakers also criticised the government’s strategy to “romanticise and exploit the armed forces” and the onslaught on “cultural and scientific institutions.”
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