NEW DELHI: Sixty-two personalities, including actor Kangana Ranaut, CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi and classical dancer Sonal Mansingh, have written an open letteragainst the “selective outrage and false narratives” of celebrities who had earlier penned an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modirime over lrimeynching incidents in the country.
Titled ‘Against Selective Outrage & False Narratives,’ the letter terms those who wrote about mob-killings as “self-styled guardians and conscience keepers” and charges them of political bias.
“An open letter which has been published on July 23 2019, and addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has astonished us. Forty nine self-styled ‘guardians’ and ‘conscience keepers’ of the nation and of democratic values have once again expressed selective concern and demonstrated a clear political bias and motive,” the letter by 62 personalities reads.
It terms the letter on lynching incidents a “document of selective outrage” that comes across as an attempt to “foist a FALSE NARRATIVE with the intention of denigrating the democratic ethos and norms of our collective functioning as a nation and people.”
“It is aimed at tarnishing India’s international standing and to negatively portray Prime Minister Modi’s untiring efforts to effectuate governance on the foundations of positive nationalism and humanism which is the core of INDIANNESS,” the letter read.
“The signatories to the ‘open letter’ have, in the past, kept silent when tribals and the marginalised have become victims of Naxal terror, they have kept silent when separatists have issued dictates to burn schools in Kashmir, they have kept silent when the demand for dismembering India, for making pieces of her -Tukde Tukde – were made, they kept silent when slogans chanted by terrorists and terror groups were echoed in some leading university campuses in the country,” it added.
The letter also includes names of Grammy Award winner instrumentalist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar, Vivek Agnihotri and Ashok Pandit, actor Pallavi Joshi, folk artist Malini Awasthi, actor Manoj Joshi and film personality Biswajit Chatterjee among others.
Altogether, they have said that for the 49 celebrities, who earlier wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, “it seems the freedom, unity and integrity of India can be bartered away in the name of freedom of speech and expression.”
“But for us, the unity and integrity of India, her freedom is sacrosanct and anyone who questions these, who works to dilute or destroy these, who conspires to disturb these need to be resisted. Some of the signatories to the ‘open letter‘ have a record of acting as mouthpieces and ideologues for insurgents, separatists and terrorists in the past. Their concern, therefore, smacks of dishonesty and opportunism,” they said.
The letter added that, “In fact under the Modi regime we see maximum liberty to differ, to criticise and to abuse the government and the dispensation in power – the spirit of dissent has never been stronger.”
“An open letter which has been published on July 23 2019, and addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has astonished us. Forty nine self-styled ‘guardians’ and ‘conscience keepers’ of the nation and of democratic values have once again expressed selective concern and demonstrated a clear political bias and motive,” the letter by 62 personalities reads.
It terms the letter on lynching incidents a “document of selective outrage” that comes across as an attempt to “foist a FALSE NARRATIVE with the intention of denigrating the democratic ethos and norms of our collective functioning as a nation and people.”
“It is aimed at tarnishing India’s international standing and to negatively portray Prime Minister Modi’s untiring efforts to effectuate governance on the foundations of positive nationalism and humanism which is the core of INDIANNESS,” the letter read.
“The signatories to the ‘open letter’ have, in the past, kept silent when tribals and the marginalised have become victims of Naxal terror, they have kept silent when separatists have issued dictates to burn schools in Kashmir, they have kept silent when the demand for dismembering India, for making pieces of her -Tukde Tukde – were made, they kept silent when slogans chanted by terrorists and terror groups were echoed in some leading university campuses in the country,” it added.
The new letter also includes names of Grammy Award winner instrumentalist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar, Vivek Agnihotri and Ashok Pandit, actor Pallavi Joshi, folk artist Malini Awasthi, actor Manoj Joshi and film personality Biswajit Chatterjee among others.
Altogether, they have said that for the 49 celebrities, who earlier wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, “it seems the freedom, unity and integrity of India can be bartered away in the name of freedom of speech and expression.”
“But for us, the unity and integrity of India, her freedom is sacrosanct and anyone who questions these, who works to dilute or destroy these, who conspires to disturb these need to be resisted. Some of the signatories to the ‘open letter‘ have a record of acting as mouthpieces and ideologues for insurgents, separatists and terrorists in the past. Their concern, therefore, smacks of dishonesty and opportunism,” they said.
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