Prakash Rai (name changed to Prakash Raj to suit the Tamil audience), the versatile actor from Karnataka, who has featured in various Tamil, Telugu and Hindi movies, has recently been in the news for his Modi bashing, dutifully lapped up by our liberals from Lutyens. He has been hailed as a person who dared to speak up against the fascist establishment and alongside Jignesh Mewani, the liberals found a new hero. On an earlier occasion, Prakash Raj spoke against PM Modi by saying that the Prime Minister was a very good actor. Just after his conclave with Rahul Kanwal of India Today, Raj tweeted against the firebrand Union Minister Anant Kumar Hedge by twisting his speech and accusing Hegde of calling Dalits street dogs. During his conclave with Kanwal, Prakash Raj spoke about a variety of issues from the killing of Gauri Lankesh to the ban on the Sanjay Leela Bhansali film Padmavat.
First things first. The points that I agree with him on. I am with him on three counts:
1.) I agree with him that once a movie is cleared by the Censor Board, it is the duty of the respective state governments to ensure that there are no law and order issues. In a democracy, there is place for dissent but violence by a bunch of goons must be contained.
2.) The second point that I agree with him is that some so called right wingers really crossed all limits of decency by celebrating the death of Gauri Lankesh.
3.) The third point is that some of the BJP workers sprinkled Gaumutra on a mandap after he left. This was a silly and rather juvenile thing to do, almost as silly as activists sending the PM sanitary napkins to protest against, 12% GST on sanitary napkins.
Now, the points on which I am completely opposed to Prakash Raj.
While he has the right to ask PM Modi why the PM follows people who celebrated the death of Gauri Lankesh, he must understand the fact that one does not endorse anybody’s views by merely following a person. I follow abusive politicians like Arvind Kejriwal and abusive journalists like Swati Chaturvedi, but I am not responsible for everything they tweet. To mention that PM Modi is not a true Hindu because of it, is taking things too far. We still do not know who killed Gauri. The evidences obtained thus far point toward the involvement of the extreme Left.
Why doesn’t Prakash Raj question the CM of his home state for not making any headway in the investigation? Under the Siddaramaiah government, there has been lot of communal unrest in Dakshina Kannada. Why hasn’t Prakash Raj spoken about the death of Paresh Mesta or Bajrang Dal activist Deepak? Were they any less human because they had an ideology different from Prakash Raj? In Karnataka, a lot of honest whistle blowers have been killed, transferred or forced to resign. DK Ravi, Ganapathi, D Roopa, Anupama Shenoy are some such examples. Why doesn’t Prakash Raj, a revolutionary activist citizen, question his CM on any of these SIR?
Prakash Raj is from the film industry and has been vocal about freedom of expression. Why does he not talk about the Malayalam film Pithavinum Puthranum, which has been stuck for a couple of years now as it allegedly hurts the sentiments of the Christian community? Prakash Raj had in fact praised Kerala as a state with no censors. For people from the left, Freedom of Expression is fine only as long as the views are in line with theirs.
According to Prakash Raj, PM Modi and BJP President Amit Shah are not true Hindus.
Anant Kumar Hegde, who spoke about modifying the constitution, is also not a true Hindu. It must be mentioned here that the words Secular and Socialist were not there in the original Preamble, as the architect of the constitution BR Ambedkar did not find them relevant. These two words were added by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency. The Constitution has been amended 122 times after it was framed, the most recent one being the GST. Lawmakers do have a right to modify the constitution, provided it is passed with two thirds majority in both the houses. One may agree or disagree, but in the name of secularism, Hindus have always been at the receiving end and have been treated with contempt.
So Mr Prakash Raj, who according to you is a true Hindu SIR? The CM of Kerala, under whose patronage RSS workers are being killed with eerie regularity? Co activists like Prashant Bhushan, according to whom Lord Krishna was a legendary eve teaser and who is fighting desperately hard to not have the Rohingyas deported even at the cost of national security? The CM of Karnataka, who celebrated the birthday of the barbaric Tipu Sultan, the fanatic ruler responsible for the destruction of many Hindu temples and death of many Hindus? Jignesh Mewani, who has been systematically trying to divide the Hindu community on the basis of caste and has been responsible for the riots that happened in Bhima Koregaon? What does Prakash Raj have to say about his good friend Gauri Lankesh? During her living days, she had the penchant to speak up against Hinduism and Brahmins in particular, some of which were disgusting to say the least. Prakash Raj has only said that he did not agree with Gauri on some of the things, but can he accept the fact in public that her views and the way she used to express them were in very bad taste?
Prakash Raj, while you are an excellent artist and I have really enjoyed watching you on the screen, but your views are as muddled as anyone from the Indian Left. Besides acting, the one thing where you have excelled in till date is cherry picking. One cannot but ponder if Prakash Raj is the Jignesh Mewani of Karnataka and planted by the Congress and Left to counter the BJP, as elections are nearing. Right to question democratically elected leaders is an essential part of democracy, but when you are selective about it and with your visceral hate for the Prime Minister clearly evident, it only amounts to hypocrisy SIR.