Secular and Tolerant - Are We?

India is a democracy. India is a secular country. Indians are tolerant and secular individuals. No, I am not writing the preamble to the Indian constitution. I am just putting forth the points that are there in it. And reflecting these on the happenings in the country. Do these statements have even an iota of truth in them? Or are they just meant to make the preamble sound nice?

What else can one conclude? Especially after considering the intolerant approach shown time and again by us. Every time there is a film based on reality or an issue related to society, it fails to see the light of the day. Water had to be shot by Deepa Mehta in Canada because the filming was stopped in Varanasi. Black Friday failed to see the light of the day, till now. Now Parzania cannot be screened in Gujarat. Are we scared to accept the truth? Are we as so called ‘secular Indians’ scared to look at things that are actually happening? And what happens to us being democratic and secular? Are these terms or philosophies meant to be followed by political parties and that to when its election time? Are we as Indians no way connected with them? Do we always have to make an issue out of every film that is in any little way connected to reality or Indian beliefs? Do we always have to resort to violence every time a film based on religion, or based on truth is screened? Do we always have to let the political parties take advantage of our attitude and resort to violence? Don’t we have an opinion? And what do we achieve out of it anyway? In fact we seem to be losing! We have already lost an Oscar nomination, which we keep trying so hard for. And there is every possibility of losing meaningful cinema forever. And maybe in some time the so called ‘democracy’!