Udaipur Film Society is a fully volunteer-run, community-supported, crowd-sourced and people-funded initiative to promote and practice the core ideologies of freedom, dissent and resistance.
Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – The three-day Udaipur Film Festival was disrupted on Saturday as RSS workers objected to the display of solidarity with the Palestinian children killed during the ongoing Israeli genocidal war in Gaza.
Organisers of the festival at Rabindranath Nath Tagore (RNT) Medical College of the city in Rajasthan were forced to change the venue allegedly under the pressure of RSS activists. In a statement, Udaipur Film Society, which is holding the event, said the festival was disrupted on the second day when a documentary on the Kabir songs related to communal harmony was being screened.
“During the Ninth Udaipur Film Festival, the screening of Shabnam Virmani’s documentary Hadd-Anhad, based on Kabir’s hymns, was abruptly stopped. The incident occurred in the post-lunch session on the second day of the festival, following protests by RSS activists. Under pressure from these activists, the administration of the RNT Medical College, the festival venue, halted the screening,” reads the statement.
Udaipur Film Society is a fully volunteer-run, community-supported, crowd-sourced and people-funded initiative to promote and practice the core ideologies of freedom, dissent and resistance.
Speaking to Clarion India, Rinku Parihar, convener of the festival, said as the festival was going on, they received a call from the venue providers asking them to join a meeting with them. When the organisers arrived for the meeting, they found 8-10 activists from the RSS present there.
“They said that they have objection to the photo of late professor GN Saibaba and the dedication of the film to the children of Palestine. Why are you acting like Jihadists? We replied that we are not doing jihadist activities but expressing our solidarity with the children killed in Palestine,” said Parihar.
According to the society, a long meeting was held between representatives of the Udaipur Film Society and RSS activists in the principal’s office. However, the meeting yielded no result, and the rest of the day’s festival program was forcibly cancelled. Many prominent directors, technicians, actors, and a significant audience, including attendees from various cities across Rajasthan, were left disappointed.
“The RSS activists’ primary objection was that the festival had been dedicated to Dr GN Saibaba and the innocent children killed in the genocide in Palestine. Representatives of the Film Society expressed their readiness to pay tribute to every victim but refused to comply with the demand to retract the tribute to Palestinian children or apologise for it. The society firmly believes that opposing the ongoing genocide in Palestine is the duty of every peace-loving citizen,” it said.
Parihar said that the RSS activists were asking the organisers to read a text prepared by them in video calling the festival “anti-national activities”. However, the festival organisers did not succumb to their demands.
“Then, they tried to intimidate the administration. The officials said that they are being put under pressure by the higher authorities and would not allow to hold the festival unless there is permission from the collector…the collector also said that there is nothing in his hand and he can’t do anything,” she said.
Sanjay Joshi, the national coordinator of the movement, strongly condemned the incident, stating that no force could stop cinema or any form of art by coercion. True cinema will find its way to the people under any circumstance. He lamented the dominance of hate politics, which has numbed sensitivity even towards thousands of innocent children killed in genocides.
In the statement, Parihar pointed out that the society had secured written permission from RNT Medical College two months in advance by depositing the required fee. Despite this, the college administration, under pressure from disruptive elements, forcefully stopped the ongoing screening without a formal notice. The tragic irony was that the screening was halted during Hadd-Anhad, a film that celebrates communal harmony through the universal appeal of Kabir’s hymns.
She confirmed that the festival would continue under any circumstances, and the remaining screenings would be held near Sandeshwar Mahadev Temple in the Ashok Nagar area of the city.
