'Water': Artistic freedom and freedom of expression

MOVIE: Culture is the development of mind. Civilization is the transmigration of men from barbarity to civility. The latter is a product of creative activity, which in turn develops the mind. In creative activity, there is an impulse against such activity by the conservative, which emanates from the cultural roots, which are embedded in the civilizing process.

Throughout history, men who indulged in creative activity were opposed by those enjoying the privileges of the old order. They became a potent force in denouncing such activity and became predatory and defensive.

The war was between those who accepted changes in social behaviour, built on notions of civilized living patterns of the day, and those who lived by ancient rituals rules and etiquette continues even today.

These societies would never ever accept the realism of ghostly medieval existence, akin to living in a dark abyss. Pro-independent India is a classic example. Once, a philosopher stated that one can, even today, perceive the living conditions that existed during the middle ages and traverse back in time in a time warp, if one travels to India.

In the state of Rajasthan and many other states the man had the foremost position in a family. The husband was akin to a living God. The 'Suttee Pooja', the self immolation of a widow, jumping into the funeral pyre of her husband, could only be described as an act of utter barbarism.

Even today, the Hindu fundamentalist, reading the scriptures of 'Stri Dharma', would recite chapter and worse and defend this act as an integral part of their culture which dates back more than 5000 years and the belief that the ideal wife is one whose sole joy in life is to satisfy the husband and is attached to him even after death.

In this background, Deepa Metha's film has historical significance to Indians and to Sri Lankans. Deepa Metha could not produce the film in India as many Indians perceived Metha as an agent of a worldwide conspiracy to destablize Eastern religions, by producing a film to condemn the glorious civilizations of the Indus valley and to portray the rituals like the 'Suttee Pooja', child marriages and widows as barbaric and thus opens a whole gamut of practices which would be condemned by the West, which had always treated the Indian society, specially their practices, of the Suttee pooja and child marriages, with contempt.

The British Raj brought in legislation to prevent such inhuman degrading actions and banned the Suttee Pooja and child marriages.

Deepa Metha's film 'Water' probes deep into the mysteries of barbaric rituals of an ancient civilization, which cannot comprehend the vulgarity and the barbarity of these practices.

The film depicts the constant and a continuous struggle by the artist against the accepted cultural norms of pre-independent India. Those widows, who could not be sacrificed at the funeral pyre of the husband, or who were prevented from performing Suttee, were led away like chattel to lead an austere life in an Ashram. The child marriages were a common cultural norm and part of the Hindu civilization. Deepa Metha, by her film, brought before our eyes the swan song of the widows of India.

I refuse to accept it is a movie. It is the most moving and poignant portrayal of social malevolence committed in the name of religion and culture. It behooves us to face the reality of human suffering due to our false beliefs. Our rituals, our dogmas, our cultures, our oppressive selfish attitudes, keep these barbaric traits alive in the name of culture. Deepa Metha has made us feel like vermin in a cesspit. We cajole coerce and interpret these customs and theoretically reject the truth as heretical.

The fundamentalists, the Brahamins the Shiva Sena soldiers and every single man who enjoys the benefits and the privileges of the doctrines of 'Stri dharma' forced Deepa Metha to relocate the shooting of the film in Sri Lanka.

Chuiya, the child widow, played by the Sri Lankan child actress, Sarala, is abused by an old Brahamin fit to be her great great grandfather. It is the most poignant message of child abuse being committed in the name of culture. Fortunately 'Sarala' or Deepa Metha has still not been questioned by the Child Protection Bureau for having made use of a child of no more than eight years old in a film which depicts the most horrendous scene of child abuse.

Metha, in her sociological dissertation, using the medium of film instead of the pen, portrays the deep social degradation of women and children in pre-Independent India. Women gradually and steadily gained their rights through a continuous struggle.

Deepa Metha, by her sociological masterwork has opened the eyes of those myopic self-centered fundamentalists who had made Indians protest against this monumental movie, even enacting a suicide attempt by a professional at suicides, who had performed the act for a fee on many previous occasions.

These protests had earned the praise of those who accepted the fate of 40 million widows in India as cultural manifestations misunderstood by the West but denounced by society, condemned by their cultures, ostracized from their families and made to live the life of beggary and penury.

The burning of the sets of "Water", in India, is a symbol of fundamental social malaise, which is devouring the freedom, specially the freedom of expression foisted upon us by the western imperialists and is drawing us back to the middle ages. Some local politician pronounced glibly that we should go back to the pre 1805 era.

When the Europeans were taking a peep from the unidirectional thinking and learning, governed by the Church, into pragmatic, scientific and artistic entities, governed by those who even questioned the Old Testament and creation, about the solar system. Due to the efforts of a minuscule minority of free thinkers, renaissance dawned the people became free and more independent from the teachings of the church.

We in the East, who have learnt these lessons from the education imparted to us by the imperialists and Western thinkers, philosophers, artists and creative writers, are beginning to reject them and are strenuously striving to turn the clock back. The result of which is the churning out of potty infantile leaders, politicians and others in authority, who have became so apathetic and have no independent mind that they censure liberal teaching of the west and are placing asinine reasoning to renounce these liberal views by banking on banal primitive ideologies.

They became protectionists as they have become the odd man out in a vain attempt to fulfill their own machinations to promote their own kith and kin.

These cultural protectionists, who were non-entities, when the country was more liberal have assumed responsibilities and taken upon on themselves, with blessings of none, as the ultimate authority on culture, films, art and all forms of aesthetics and even on interpreting the meaning of child abuse striving to retrograde the modern avant-garde Sinhala film makers from making films for the world. They were successful in stifling 'Sulanga Enu Pinisa', which won the prestigious award at Cannes film festival and now they are hell bent on banning Aksharaya.

What happened in India with Water is happening in Sri Lanka, with these infantile protectors of our cultural heritage, very soon the dark ages will dawn upon us and thrust us into the black hole from which there is no escape. Unless there is a movement of intellectuals which responds to these thinkers and educate the masses of this impending tragedy our cinema art and drama will suffer the fate of 'Water' or 'Fire'.

These two films were not permitted to be exhibited in India where the story revolves the same fate will befall on films where the creative genius of the director is questioning the established values and cultural norms.

The resultant position would be that Sri Lanka will no longer produce films that could be a reflection of a nation full of creative energy. Local geniuses include Handagama, Vimukthi Jayasundera, Prasnna Withange and from a different era Tissa Abeysekera, Dharmasiri Bandranayake, Vasantha Obeyesekera and the earliest maestro Lester James Peris.