Kangana, Prasoon lead response of establishment voices
Kangana ranaut and Prasoon Joshi
Sixty-two personalities, including actor Kangana Ranaut, CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi, classical dancer Sonal Mansingh, Grammy Award winner instrumentalist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar have written an open letter against the 'selective outrage and false narratives' of the 49 celebrities who had earlier penned an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over lynching incidents in the country.
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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.
Sonal Mansingh
"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.
Madhur Bhandarkar
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 Indianess," the letter read.
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
"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 were made," it added. The new letter also includes names of filmmakers Vivek Agnihotri and Ashok Pandit, actors Pallavi Joshi and Manoj Joshi, folk artist Malini Awasthi and filmmaker Biswajit Chatterjee.
On Tuesday, 49 celebrities, including singer Shubha Mudgal, actors Swara Bhasker and Konkona Sensharma, filmmakers Shyam Benegal, Anurag Kashyap and Mani Ratnam had written a letter to Modi demanding that 'exemplary punishment' should be meted out 'swiftly and surely' in mob lynching cases. They also stated that Jai Shree Ram had become a provocative war cry.
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