Vijayan, Satheesan back ‘Empuraan’; state BJP chief says he won’t watch it

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan on Sunday expressed solidarity with the makers of the Mohanlal-starrer L2: Empuraan citing the right to freedom of speech and expression. Meanwhile, state BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who had previously vowed to watch the movie, said that he would not watch the film.

The statements of the three political leaders came on a day when actor Mohanlal expressed regret for certain scenes that caused “emotional distress” among a section of his fans and pledged to remove those scenes from the film. The big-budget action thriller film attracted controversy after several right-wing social media handles lambasted it over its alleged portrayal of right-wing politics and covert references and scenes to the 2002 Gujarat riots. The producers of the film have said that they would “voluntarily” make several cuts including muting dialogues and changing the names of certain characters.

Vijayan, who watched the film in theatres with his family on Saturday, condemned the alleged hate campaign against the film by supporters of the BJP and Sangh Parivar.

“The film’s references to one of the most brutal genocides the country has ever seen has angered the organisers of the riots, the Sangh Parivar. BJP and RSS leaders are also publicly issuing threats to the film’s makers,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

“This atmosphere of fear created by the Sangh Parivar is worrying. That communal forces are able to destroy a work of art and viciously attack the artists simply because they took a stand against commuanalism and depicted its horrors does not bode well for democracy,” he said.

The CM underlined that a citizen’s freedom of expression must be protected in a democracy. “Violent calls to destroy and ban artworks and artists are new manifestations of fascist attitudes,” he said.

LoP Satheesan also took a stand in favour of the film’s makers. He alleged that the Sangh Parivar and its allied forces do not understand history and have the tendency to distort it.

“Cinema is a product of a group of artists. Changing the content of a piece of art through threats, humiliation on social media is not victory. It is a sign of radical failure and cowardice,” he said, adding that he would definitely watch the film in theatres.

At the same time, state BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who had earlier congratulated the film pre-release and vowed to watch it, stated that there are issues and topics which have hurt a section of fans of the actor Mohanlal.

“A movie should be watched as a movie. It can’t be seen as history. Also, any movie that tries to build a story by distorting the truth is doomed to fail. So will I watch the sequel of Lucifer? No. Am I disappointed by this type of movie making? Yes,” he wrote on Facebook.

He clarified that the BJP did not ask the film’s makers to make the cuts. “Rather, they decided to do it on their own. It’s because they realise there is objectionable content in it,” he said.