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NDTV
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Hey Ram, Vishwaroopam, Thug Life: Why Kamal Haasan, In His Words, Keeps "Walking Into Trouble"
New Delhi: Kamal Haasan is unwilling to apologise for his controversial comments on how Kannada was derived from his mother tongue Tamil. The language row, which continues to be an undercurrent issue in the country, doesn't seem to be nearing its end. He is playing a thug in Thug Life, whose release appears to be in limbo, at least in Karnataka. The Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC) on Thursday threatened to ban the film over his comments. The much anticipated Tamil film is more than a prestige project, it's a homecoming too. It reunites him with his Nayakan director Mani Ratnam after almost 40 years. But Haasan is no stranger to controversy. He was criticised for one of his earlier films, Thevar Magan, in 1992 for allegedly equating violence with the Thevar community. It went to earn five National Film Awards, including Best Feature Film in Tamil. His superhit 2004 movie Virumaandi was also caught in the crosshairs with political parties over its previous title 'Sandiyar' which Dr K Krishnasamy, leader of Pudhiya Tamizhagam, believed was allegedly derogatory and would encourage caste-related violence. Dasavathaaram (2008) also angered Hindu groups for hurting sentiments. Years later came the first part of Vishwaroopam. Written, directed by, and starring Haasan, the movie was the subject of multiple controversies. The release of the 2013 film was stalled, even faced a two-week ban despite CBFC approval, in Tamil Nadu citing potential law and order issues and its alleged anti-Muslim content. After several Muslims groups protested against the film, the actor had organised a special film screening for them. After a two week-long standoff between the actor and the Muslim groups in Tamil Nadu, the Madras High Court lifted the ban on the film by allowing it to release on February 7, 2013, days after it already released in other states. If you think Haasan would have appeased the majority by othering the minority, think again. Members of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, a right-wing organisation, had also filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the actor for his alleged derogatory remarks on Hindus and the epic Mahabharata. In an interview with a Tamil channel, as quoted by The Indian Express, Haasan had said, "In Mahabharata, Panchali was used as a pawn while the men gambled... She was used as a collateral and India is a country that respects and honours a book that revolves around men using a woman to gamble away as if she was a mere object." Eventually, the dust settled and the odds turned out to be in Haasan's favour. The film grossed Rs 220 crore in reported earnings. It won two awards in Best Art Direction and Best Choreography at the 60th National Film Awards in 2013. Four years later, he once again rubbed the ring-wing organisations the wrong way. In an article for Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan, Haasan accused Hindu groups of converting state festivals into a muscle flexing activity. "There is Hindu extremism in Tamil Nadu, and you cannot say there is no Hindu terror," he wrote. BJP party spokesperson Narayanan Tirupati said Haasan should steer clear of making sweeping statements and instead speak on corruption in the film industry. Then again in 2019, Haasan invited the ire of Hindu nationalists when he said " independent India's first extremist was a Hindu". The actor, whose political party Makkal Needhi Maiyam made its debut in the 2019 general elections, defended his remarks, stating he only spoke about what was a "historic truth". Years before he sparked controversy with his comments referring to Nathuram Godse, Haasan was called out by various political parties for his revisionist period drama film Hey Ram for an alleged negative depiction of Gandhi and certain lines spoken by him. In the movie, also starring Haasan and directed by him, Haasan played a man called Saket Ram who is tasked with killing Gandhi but ultimately chooses not to. In his defence, Haasan spoke about using artistic liberty with the film after facing allegations of hurting people's sentiments. Even then, Haasan, the multihyphenate that he is, possessed the ability to smell trouble. "I keep walking into trouble. But I sleep peacefully with myself. That's my problem. I can't keep my conscience aside. This fellow wakes me up each night to ask me questions. Sometimes I don't have the right answers. I end up looking sheepish in front of him," he said in an interview to Subhash K Jha. The actor has often blended cinema and politics, so much so that he ended up taking the political plunge. He might be in the middle of a controversy right now but according to his track record, he has managed to wiggle out of prickly situations. June 5, 2025 is the release day of Thug Life, on which Haasan is a co-producer with Ratnam and Udayanidhi Stalin of Red Giant Pictures. The actor and filmmaker have been criticised for his kiss with much younger actor Abhirami and a suggestive dialogue he says to Trisha's character in the film's trailer. Haasan's comments have landed him and his film in trouble once again but let's not forget, he has also invested money in the film. The creative multihyphenate is also a sharp entreprenuer. He won't let his money, time, and efforts go waste.
Scroll.in
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Scroll.in
June nonfiction: Six recently published books that try to make sense of India's past and present
The Dismantling of India's Democracy: 1947 to 2025, Prem Shankar Jha India's democracy, once celebrated as an unprecedented experiment in pluralism and participatory nation-building, now faces a grave crisis. In this urgent and penetrating work, veteran journalist Prem Shankar Jha traces how the country's hard-won democracy – rooted in diversity and tolerance – has been steadily hollowed out since Independence – slowly at first, and since 2014, with determined ferocity. Structural flaws in our Constitution, like the lack of state-funded elections, Jha argues, were made substantially worse by Indira Gandhi's ban on company donations to political parties. As parties increasingly turned to clandestine donors for election financing, politics became a near-criminal enterprise, facilitating the rise of a predatory state long before 2014. And now, under the Modi regime, the weaponisation of state agencies, the serious undermining of electoral processes and the transformation of governance into a tool of political vendetta threaten to tear down the last remnants of India's democracy. Jha further argues that the erosion of democratic institutions, the rise of Hindu majoritarian politics and the normalisation of state repression are not isolated events but symptoms of a deeper transformation. Drawing on Indian history and global parallels, he makes the bold case that what India is witnessing is not simply a drift towards authoritarianism but the emergence of a distinctively Indian form of fascism. Our only hope cannot be, he says, an electoral victory for the opposition; it must be grounded in a commitment to both political accountability and cultural inclusivity. A Man for All Seasons: The Life of KM Panikkar, Narayani Basu KM Panikkar was a multifaceted man, one of India's first public intellectuals when India won its independence. His imprint is all over India's colonial and post-colonial history: from constitutional reform in the princely states, where he was a strong advocate for India's current federal model to charting India's maritime policy as a free country. He believed in an essential Hindu culture that held his land together, yet he was a committed secularist. He was Gandhi's emissary and the founder of the Hindustan Times. He was independent India's first and most controversial ambassador to both Nationalist China and the People's Republic of China. He was Nehru's man in Cairo and France and a member of the States Reorganisation Commission. He had enemies in the CIA as well as in India's own Ministry of External Affairs. He frustrated his admirers as much as he provoked their reluctant respect. From the British Raj to the Constituent Assembly, across two world wars and an ensuing Cold War, KM Panikkar was India's go-to man in all seasons. Through it all, he never stopped writing – on Indian identity, nationalism, history and foreign policy – material that remains as relevant today as it was seven decades ago. Yet, about the man himself, strangely little is known. In A Man for All Seasons, Narayani Basu bridges that gap. Drawing on Panikkar's formidable body of work, as well as on archival material from India to England, from Paris to China, and from Israel to the United Nations, as well as on first-time interviews with Panikkar's family, Basu presents a vivid, irresistibly engaging portrait of this most enigmatic of India's founding fathers. Featuring a formidable cast of characters – from Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel to Zhou Enlai, Chairman Mao and Gamal Abdel Nasser. Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, Sam Dalrymple As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the 'Indian Empire', or more simply as the Raj. It was the British Empire's crown jewel, a vast dominion stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia, home to a quarter of the world's population and encompassing the largest Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities on the planet. Its people used the Indian rupee, were issued passports stamped 'Indian Empire', and were guarded by armies garrisoned in forts from the Bab el-Mandab to the Himalayas. And then, in the space of just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart, carving out new nations, redrawing maps, and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division. Shattered Lands presents the whole story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. How a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches. Its legacies include civil wars in Burma and Sri Lanka, ongoing insurgencies in Kashmir, Baluchistan, Northeast India, and the Rohingya genocide. It is a history of ambition and betrayal, of forgotten wars and unlikely alliances, of borders carved with ink and fire. And, above all, it is the story of how the map of modern Asia was made. Tagore in Tripura: An Enduring Connection, Khagesh Burman A part of Rabindranath Tagore's life that remains largely unknown is his connection to the state of Tripura. Tagore had close ties with four generations of the Tripura royal family, especially Maharaja Radhakishore, who helped set up and fund the Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan. Tagore's relationship with the Tripura royal family began in 1882, when Maharaja Birchandra was so moved by his poetry that he sent his minister to congratulate the poet. During Birchandra's son Radhakishore's reign, Tagore was involved in Tripura's administration, advising the king on all state matters. He visited the state several times too. Later generations of the royal family continue to patronise Tagore and Visva-Bharati, sending several students with stipends to the university. This book, written by a member of the Tripura royal family, explores their connection with Tagore, including the friendships and associations the poet formed and the ways in which Tripura appeared in his writings. The Outsider: A Memoir for Misfits, Vir Das When comedian and actor Vir Das found himself stranded on a pier in Cozumel, Mexico, watching his cruise ship sail away without him due to visa issues, it became a metaphor for his life: he's always been, and will always be, an outsider. Standing on that beach, he took in the absurdity of it all-broke, hungover, dumped, jobless, trousers full of sand. He knew the best way to deal with the situation wasn't to retreat. It was to laugh. Vir's story is one of cultural dissonance and identity exploration. As a child, he bounced from India to Lagos, Nigeria, and back again. He navigated life between worlds, never quite fitting in. In Africa, he was the kid from India, and back in India, he was the kid from Africa. As the only Indian kid costarring in War and Peace on stage at Knox College in Illinois, his outsider status was undeniable. Whether he's washing dishes at a Grand Lux Cafe in Chicago, navigating Bollywood, getting cancelled by an entire country and then embraced by that country all over again, or performing on stages from New York to Mumbai to Stavanger, Norway, Vir has learned to lean way into his place as an outsider, and to find humor and meaning on the fringes. Meet the Savarnas: Indian Millennials Whose Mediocrity Broke Everything, Ravikant Kisana In the early 2000s, India was expected to 'shine' and emerge as a rising superpower. It was the post-1990s golden generation – professionals fresh out of B-schools and engineering programmes – who were supposed to take us there. The Great Indian Dream was ready to lift off. Except we never left the ground. No one could really explain what went wrong. Some blamed politicians, some corruption, some capitalism and some communal polarisation. Most people missed the giant elephant in the room – caste. Caste in India is mostly researched and reported from the experience of the oppressed. Caste as a privilege is not well understood. How do caste elites respond to modernity? How do they understand culture, intimacy, love and tradition? Were their ideas, institutions and imaginations ever even capable of delivering upon the Great Indian Dream?
New Indian Express
3 hours ago
- New Indian Express
Call for direct train to Velankanni from Chennai after BG line gets nod
CHENNAI: With the commissioner of railway safety approving train operations on the newly converted 23.5-km Peralam-Karaikal broad-gauge (BG) line recently, passengers are calling for a direct train service from Chennai to Velankanni via this route due to shorter distance compared to the current route through Tiruvarur. Previously, the Chennai Egmore-Karaikal/Velankanni Kamban Express, operated until 2022, was discontinued following a decision of the railway board to phase out slip coaches. Slip coaches allowed a section of the train to be split and sent along a different route, while the rest continued along the main line. Additionally, the train's locomotive had to be reversed at Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam, adding about an hour to the journey for passengers heading to Velankanni. With the new BG line now operational, it's possible to run direct trains from Chennai to Velankanni via Peralam, Karaikal, and Nagore, eliminating the need for a locomotive reversal at the two places. This route could also provide direct train service to Thirunallar, a Hindu pilgrimage town in Karaikal, from Chennai. Velankanni, one of the state's major tourist and pilgrimage centres, attracts visitors throughout the year. Particularly, from April to January, the Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health in Velankanni draws lakhs of visitors from Chennai and other parts of TN. Currently, passengers on the Tambaram-Karaikal Express disembark at Nagapattinam around 4 am and get into the Nagapattinam-Velankanni DEMU Express to reach their destination.
Hans India
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Hans India
Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025
The peaceful demonstration will also include Hindu, Christian and Sikh community leaders, showcasing solidarity across religions Hyderabad: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), along with the members of Telangana's Muslim organisations announced a unified protest at Dharna Chowk on Sunday. The protest will be held from 2 pm to 5 pm, under the slogan – 'Sunday is Waqf Day'. This announcement was made during a consultative meeting held recently, which included prominent scholars, board members, and representatives of various Muslim groups across Telangana. The meeting aimed to clarify doubts regarding different protest dates and to consolidate efforts for a single, united demonstration under the AIMPLB's leadership. Among the distinguished attendees are Maulana Mufti Khaleel Ahmed, Chief of Jamia Nizamia and am Islamic scholar, Maulana Dr Mateen Quadri, Member of AIMPLB, Ziauddin Nayyar, Dr Mohammad Mushtaq Ali, Maulana Hyder Nisar Agha and Maulana Masood Mushtahidi, and Hafsa Akhtar, representing women's voices in the board. Other key organisation leaders present included Mufti Mahmood Zubair from Jamiat Ulema; Dr. Ali Hussaini from Quadri Chaman; Maulana Syed Ahmed-ul-Hussaini Sayeed-ul-Quadri, President Quadria International; Muneeruddin Mukhtar, representing United Muslim Forum, and Mufti Rafiuddin Rashadi, head of several institutions for the protection of Shariat and Khatm-e-Nabuwwat. This peaceful demonstration will not only include Muslim scholars, intellectuals, and activists but also representatives from secular parties and other faiths, including Hindu, Christian, and Sikh community leaders, showcasing solidarity across religions. A strong participation of women and youth is also expected.
Scroll.in
4 hours ago
- Scroll.in
How case against Muslim teen accused of ‘love jihad' fell apart in UP court
On the night of December 14, 2020, Mohammad Saqib's life was upended. He had stepped out of his friend's home in Nasirpur village in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district after a birthday party. Outside, he saw a girl on a bicycle surrounded by a few men. When he walked up to the group to find out what was going on, the men attacked him. Saqib, a 16-year-old daily wager, did not return home in Kirar Kheri village that night. The next morning, his parents learnt that he had been arrested. The girl was also 16 and a Dalit. On December 15, her father lodged a first information report against Saqib at the Dhampur police station. Saqib was 16 too. He was accused of kidnapping and 'compelling' the minor 'for marriage'. He was also booked under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020, better known as the state's 'love jihad' law. 'Love jihad' is a conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of being part of an organised plot to trick unsuspecting Hindu women into romantic relationships to ultimately convert them to Islam. Saqib was one of the first men to be booked under the law, 18 days after it was brought in as an ordinance by the Adityanath government. Five years later, on May 21, a special court in Bijnor acquitted Mohammad Saqib, now 21, of all charges. 'This is the first case where a Muslim man in UP has been acquitted of charges under the anti-conversion law after a trial,' said Bijnor-based advocate Mashruf Kamaal, Saqib's counsel. In other cases, the Uttar Pradesh police has dropped charges against individuals after preliminary investigations, or they have been quashed by the courts. At least three cases that have ended in acquittals in Amroha, Bareilly and Azamgarh districts had tried mostly Dalit men for illegally converting others to Christianity. Saqib's case went through 74 hearings over five years. During the trial, the court found contradictions in the state's case and said that it could not prove its charges beyond reasonable doubt. 'The prosecution has failed to establish the basic facts,' said additional district and sessions judge Kalpana Pandey's judgement. The case The FIR against Saqib made serious claims. It invoked sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act involving sexual assault and accused him of luring a minor for illicit intercourse under the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The complaint alleged that Saqib regularly spoke to the Dalit girl while pretending that he was a Hindu man named Sonu. Around 11 pm on December 14, 2020, he lured and abducted the girl from her house in Berkhara Chauhan village with the intention of marrying and converting her, it alleged. When she found out that he was Muslim, she escaped and returned home and narrated the ordeal to her parents. All offences in the complaint were non-bailable. On December 17, Saqib was sent to judicial custody. He spent six months in prison before the Allahabad High Court granted him bail on June 15, 2021. In submissions before the sessions court, Saqib said that he was innocent and had been falsely implicated because of a local dispute. The young man told Scroll that he worked as an understudy to a welder in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, and had returned to his home in Bijnor days before the incident. He added that he did not know the girl and had never met or spoken to her before the night of December 14. Days after the FIR, the minor's father, the complainant in the FIR, told the Indian Express that the matter had been 'politicised' by the village pradhan, against whom he was going to contest in the panchayat polls in April 2021. 'This is all politics. They made videos of my daughter and falsely claimed that this was a case of love jihad,' he was quoted as saying, adding that his FIR was dictated by police officials. Poking holes Arif, Saqib's elder brother, told Scroll that the girl's village, Berkhara Chauhan, is a few hundred metres from his family village of Kirar Kheri. Saqib is the youngest of three brothers. 'Our father passed away in 2016,' Arif said. 'When Saqib was young, we sent him to school for a few months. But he could not adjust, so we took him out and put him to work.' During the trial, the minor's cross-examination by the defence counsel poked several holes in the FIR complaint. Three aspects of the prosecution's case were called into question: the location of the incident, the account of the complainant, and the claims of religious conversion. In her statement before the magistrate under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the girl had said that Saqib had lured her to a village called Nasirpur. When she asked his name, he said Saqib and revealed that he was Muslim. Then he tried to molest her. The girl added that she pushed him away and started running. She raised an alarm which led the residents of Nasirpur to catch Saqib. The court noted that according to the statement of her father, a witness, his wife had told him that their daughter had gone missing from their home after she went to the washroom on the night of December 14. The girl returned shortly after and recounted her ordeal to her parents, he said. However, the girl's mother, also a witness in the case, had a different version. She told the court that her daughter had gone missing after going to the washroom that night, but she only returned the next morning to recount her ordeal. Moreover, in her cross-examination, the mother said that her daughter had not told her anything about the incident that night. The girl's cross-examination gave yet another account. She said that she had gone to the washroom at her friend's house when Saqib took her to Nasirpur. The girl's statement was inconsistent in other aspects, the court noted. During her medical examination, she claimed that she had been abducted on the night of December 13 by three men while using the washroom in her home. The men threw her into a van and brought her to Nasirpur, she had said. They forced themselves on her but could not sexually assault her. She eventually escaped after locals intervened. The second problem in the prosecution's case was the father's account. In his court statement, he had alleged that on December 14, when the girl did not return home, he searched for her until she came back herself later that night. But during his cross-examination, the father said that he did not search for the girl after she went missing. He was instead informed about her whereabouts by a police official at the Nehtaur police station over a phone call. He added that the police handed over the minor to him the next morning. Third, and most importantly, the claim of conversion also fell apart during the cross-examination. The girl told the court that Saqib had not asked her to convert to Islam. She added that, contrary to her father's claim in court, she was not present in the police station when he had written out the FIR. Judge Pandey observed that these contradictions in the statements of the victim and her parents 'did not provide much benefit to the prosecution as they are contrary to the prosecution's story'. 'Doubtful evidence' The court found glaring weaknesses in the statements of circle officer Ajay Kumar Agarwal, who was the investigating officer in the case. For one, during his cross-examination, Agarwal could not recall where Saqib had allegedly taken the girl after kidnapping her, and where he had allegedly proceeded to molest her. This was a problem because he had drawn the map of the alleged scene of crime himself. 'He does not remember in which direction of the village is the site of the incident,' said the court. 'How many rooms were there in the location where he made the map? He does not remember. He does not remember what was east of the incident site. He said that the map only shows where the victim went; not where the incident took place…this makes the evidence doubtful.' The court also examined the doctor who conducted a medical examination of the minor on December 16. The doctor told the court that she found 'no external injuries on the victim's body'. She had also examined whether the minor was sexually assaulted, despite her claim that she was not. But Agarwal did not demand a supplementary report on sexual assault from the doctor. 'We prepare the supplementary report only when the investigating officer asks for it,' added the doctor. Taking these inconsistencies into account, judge Pandey ruled that the prosecution 'has failed to establish basic facts' since the statements of the victim, her father, her mother and the investigating officer are 'full of contradictions and hence not reliable'. 'The prosecution has failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt,' the judge said. The special court acquitted Saqib of all charges. 'Most cases result in acquittals' The UP anti-conversion became a law on March 5, 2021, and was amended with harsher punishments on August 6, 2024. Between November 2020 and July 2024, the UP police registered 835 cases under the law, with 1,682 arrests. However, lawyers said that convictions under the law have been few. Advocate Ramesh Kumar, who represented Saqib during his bail hearing in Allahabad High Court, told Scroll that it is difficult to prove charges under Uttar Pradesh's anti-conversion law during a trial because it is a bad law to begin with 'Mostly, these cases are applied under pressure from Hindu right-wing groups, who force a woman and their family to give false statements,' he said. 'But as the pressure eases with time and the trial goes on, the same people contradict their older statements in courts.' Kumar added that the hardest part is to prove a malafide intent of the person accused of illegal conversion. 'This is why most cases under this law result in acquittals,' he said. 'Mostly, there is no intent. Cases are filed because of the ruling party and its cadre's attempt to magnify anti-Muslim prejudices for political gain.' In July 2024, while acquitting two two men charged with sections of the anti-conversion law, a court in Bareilly directed 'appropriate legal action' against police officials for lodging the case 'under some pressure' and on the basis of a 'baseless, unfounded, fabricated and fantastical' story. In March 2024, the Supreme Court had remarked that parts of Uttar Pradesh's anti-conversion law may seem violative of Article 25 of the Constitution, which protects freedom of conscience and the free profession, practice, and propagation of religion. 'The case ruined us' Soon after he was granted bail in 2021, Saqib returned to Dehradun and resumed his welding job. 'I used to make Rs 7,000 a month when I got the job and today I make Rs 10,000,' he said. 'Most of that money was spent in fighting the case. Sometimes, I had to travel to Bijnor four times a month for hearings. I have not been able to save any money.' His brother, Arif, added that he and other family members had to pitch in when Saqib ran out of money. 'Hum toh bekaar ho gaye is case ki wajah se,' he said. The case ruined us. While the acquittal came as a relief to him, the trial has taken a toll. 'The case happened when I was 16. That is the age when others play and have fun,' said Saqib. 'The case is like a stain on me and my family. In Bijnor, some still believe that I did it.' Arif added that people in his village still look down on the family because of the trial. 'None of our ancestors ever went near a police station,' he said. 'But this [case] changed everything.'
