Sulking over a Konkani Tiatr (Konkani musical drama) which was critical of growing activities of rightwing Hindu outfits, Hindu Janajgruti Samiti (HJS), the rightwing Hindu outfit reiterated its demand with the government to establish a Censor Board for plays and tiatrs in Goa.
A memorandum was submitted to Chief Minister of Goa on Monday by HJS demanding a Censor Board for plays and tiatrs ‘to preserve the communal harmony and maintain peace in Goa’. “The demand comes in view of the ongoing controversy and public unrest about the Konkani play ‘Akantvadi Goent Naka’ and moves by State-owned Ravindra Bhavan recently to seek an undertaking from producers of tiatr about not criticising politicians\VIPS\government officials in their plays and tiatrs,” admitted a spokesperson of HJS.
The HJS along with Sri Ram Sene unsuccessfully had tried to stop the maiden show of the play early this month through Court, accusing the play of demonising Sene chief Pramod Muthalik as “terrorist”.
The memorandum also says that now there is a trend of showing obscene, vulgar and controversial things just to seek publicity and earn money. In public interest, it is duty of the government to ensure that the freedom of expression is not violated by unscrupulous elements in society, bent upon misusing the liberty given to them by the State and the Constitution.
Making a forceful plea for censor board, it said there must be control of State government on plays/dramas because of the effect that the audio-visual medium can have on the people which can be far stronger
than the influence of the printed word.
It also pointed out that in the state of Maharashtra there is a censor board for plays known as ‘Raajy Rangbhumi Parinirikhsan Mandal’ which censors and certifies every play that is going to be staged, but in Goa we do not have any such machinery like Censor Board.
The HJS memorandum does not fail to point out that the Chief Minister himself is also on record saying that the tiatrist have gone overboard many a times and there should be some restrictions on the contents of
the tiatr. It may be recalled Chief Minister Parrikar during the course of a debate in the recently concluded session of the State Legislative Assembly had stated that he will ask the Department of Art and Culture to convene a meeting of the State Tiatr Academy to ask them to have some self-regulations to curb defamatory content and “below-the-belt” criticism in some tiatrs.
