Speaking Out

Prominent names from the film industry lend voices of support to the Jamia students

Voices of support were not limited to Bollywood, with actors from the south joining in.

A day after Delhi Police entered the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia during a protest over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, filmmakers across India have come forward to voice their support for the students. Director Anurag Kashyap, who had deleted his Twitter account this August after rape threats to his daughter, returned tweeting, “This has gone too far… can’t stay silent any longer. This government is clearly fascist… and it makes me angry to see voices that can actually make a difference stay quiet…”

Some of the filmmakers like Alankrita Shrivastava (pictured) have a personal connect to the university at the centre of turmoil. The award-winning director of Lipstick Under My Burkha wrote on Twitter, “I studied at Jamia. It is where I trained to be a filmmaker, where I met my best friends for life. It is the place that gave me hope and encouragement when I was a confused young girl trying to navigate my way through life. I have such fond memories. But today my heart is bleeding for the students of Jamia who have been mercilessly attacked on campus. This is wrong and cruel at every level… I am praying for the students who are injured and fighting for their lives.”

“I studied at Jamia… today my heart is bleeding for the students who have been mercilessly attacked,” said Alankrita Shrivastava.

Anubhav Sinha (pictured), director of the critically-acclaimed Mulk, which explored communal divide, and Article 15, which showed caste discrimination in all its ugliness, spoke of the urgent need for “icons” from all fields to lend their support to the protesting students. He wrote, “Dear Icons! Films. Sports. Arts. Politics. Literature. Etc. We chose what we chose because most of us didn’t want to be government servants,” adding, “When no one has the answers, students do. Look at history worldwide.”

“When no one has the answers, students do,” Anubhav Sinha said.

Actor Swara Bhasker took to her handle to express her shock at the incidents of violence and tear gas at Jamia. “Why are students being treated like criminals? Why are hostels being tear gassed..? What is going on #DelhiPolice ??? Shocking and shameful”. “We are with the students! Shame on you, @DelhiPolice”, tweeted actor and director Konkona Sensharma. Actor Rajkummar Rao tweeted, “In a democracy the citizens have the right to peacefully protest. I also condemn any kind of act of destruction of the public properties. Violence is not the solution for anything!”

The protests garnered international support too, with Hollywood actor John Cusack, of Serendipity fame, sharing videos of the Delhi protests. He tweeted, “Indian economy in ICU – chaos – civil war.”

Meanwhile, Akshay Kumar trended the whole day after he first liked a tweet captioned “Badhai ho… Jamia me Azaadi mili hai”, showing a video where students can be seen running away from police personnel, and then quickly backtracked. “Regarding the ‘like’ on the tweet… it was by mistake. I was scrolling and accidentally it must have been pressed and when I realised I immediately unliked it as in no way do I support such acts.”

Voices of support were not limited to Bollywood, with actors from the south joining in. Actor Siddharth tweeted, “These two are not Krishna and Arjuna. They are Shakuni and Duryodhana. Stop attacking #universities!…” Malayalam actor Parvathy Thiruvothu shared a video on Twitter of police firing at students in Aligarh Muslim University, calling it sheer “terrorism”, while actor Amala Paul and director Aashiq Abu shared a poster on Instagram with a line in Malayalam that said it like it is: ‘India doesn’t belong to your father’.

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