This time the challenge for India’s entry to the Oscars for the category of ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ was very strong, courtesy the many excellent films from all over India that had been released in the given time frame. But bypassing them all, Zoya Akhtar’s movie ‘Gully Boy’ was chosen as an official entry from India for the Oscar Awards. Due to this, the jury committee also faced a lot of criticism regarding the election of Gully Boy on social media.
But why is the election of ‘Gully Boy’ a controversial decision? Why has the jury committee that selected it for the Oscars become the center of criticism? This is because the jury committee is headed by none other than Bengali director and former actress Aparna Sen. Yes, she is the same Aparna Sen, who along with 48 other celebrities wrote a letter to PM Modi to stop the alleged ‘mob lynching’ of ‘minorities’, in which these celebrities also labeled ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as a ‘violent warcry’.
Former actress and director Aparna Sen has long been a staunch opponent of nationalism from the beginning. In 2014, when 60 Bollywood celebrities wrote a public letter not to vote for the BJP, Aparna Sen was included as well. This year too, Aparna Sen, along with 48 other celebrities, wrote a public letter to PM Modi expressing their concern over the damage done to the secularism of the country by the alleged mob lynchings, saying that criticizing the government is not ‘treason’. This argument was also used to defend Naxalites who were caught planning the assassination of PM Modi in Maharashtra, as shown below in the open letter –
This is the same Aparna Sen, who calls for tolerance otherwise, but when Arnab Goswami wanted to ask her some questions about the letter, she refuse. She is the same Aparna Sen, who did not see a temple damaged by anti-social elements in Hauz Qazi, Delhi, and selectively picks incidents of violence to attack the government.
Perhaps that is why the intention behind ‘Gully Boy’ being selected for the Oscars is quite crystal clear. In 2009, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was nominated at the Oscars by Danny Boyle, showing India as a very poor, backward country. Despite this, the film received 8 awards including Best Film and Best Director at the Oscars, including 2 awards for music by AR Rahman and Resul Pookutty for sound mixing. Danny Boyle is said to have been inspired by the 1988 film ‘Salaam Bombay’, directed by Meera Nair, which also received several awards at the Cannes Film Festival.
Since then India has been shown in many foreign films as a country full of slums, and this backward image was also repeated in ‘Gully Boy’. The film itself copied acclaimed movie ‘8 Mile’, and attempts to mock nationalism with songs like ‘Jingostan’. The film may have claimed to focus on street rap, but the way it attempted to influence our younger generation with propaganda is not hidden from anyone.
In such a situation, the question is why Aparna Sen wants to present this negative image of India to the world? No amount of condemnation of Aparna Sen for this would ever be enough. India has come away from the image of a backward nation, and to drag it back towards the same is nothing less than a criminal offence. Moreover, India has never won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film till date, and has been nominated in this category only 3 times, which includes ‘Mother India’, ‘Salaam Bombay’ and ‘Lagaan’. As such, selecting movies like ‘Gully Boy’ will only dent India’s image further. However, this is not the first time that the Jury Committee selected Indian films for Oscars bypassing good films altogether.
In 1998, when everyone felt that ‘Satya’, directed by Ram Gopal Varma, would be sent for an Oscar, the jury surprised everyone by sending ‘Jeans’, an average Tamil comedy film to the same. Similarly in 2006, when the question of sending nominations from India for the Oscars came up, ‘Eklavya’ was nominated, ignoring all the other good movies that were released that year.
Likewise, when everyone was confident that ‘The Lunchbox’ directed by Ritesh Batra would be nominated for the Oscars in 2013, the then chairman of the jury committee Gautam Ghose nominated a Gujarati film titled ‘The Good Road’. Interestingly, Gautam Ghose is also among the 49 celebrities who wrote the controversial letter to PM Modi which reeked of selective outrage and met with criticism from
In such a situation, the way Aparna Sen has kept her personal agenda above everything else by bypassing the best films of the year, is harmful not only for the country but also for Indian cinema. As long as people like Aparna Sen remain eligible to decide which Indian films should be sent for the Oscars, forget winning an Oscar, India won’t be able to get a nomination at the same as well.
