The Parivar has won another battle in its favourite daughter Uma Bharti’s Madhya Pradesh, this time against one of the world’s leading photographers, Steve McCurry. After the Swadeshi Jagran Manch protested against the state government giving the contract to cover the Ujjain Simhasta to ‘‘foreigners’’, McCurry has decided to withdraw from the deal.Talking to The Indian Express, McCurry said: ‘‘They basically lost interest after the new government came to power. They came up with a bunch of excuses. They just wanted it to go away and I guess without their cooperation there was no point pursuing the project.’’The MP government’s public relations department initiated the proposal and a contract was signed with McCurry under the previous Digvijay Singh regime. McCurry’s photographs were to be part of a book on the Kumbh to be brought out by Phaidon Press, London, with text by William Dalrymple. Or this was the plan till the SJM intervened.It first objected to marketing of the Kumbh by a Lintas subsidiary, Linterland. Then the Manch took the stand that there was no need for the government to award contracts for covering the Kumbh to a foreign photographer and writer.The Linterland contract was the first to be scrapped. Soon after, the PR department decided not to sign the contract with Dalrymple and scrapped the proposal for the book.However, new Commissioner, PR, Satyaprakash, insists the decision was financial. ‘‘The agreement with Phaidon would have required us to buy 2,000 copies at Rs 40 lakh.And since the book was not to be published, we did not pursue the contract with Dalrymple. The contract with McCurry still stands.’’ But that’s only officially — the photographer isn’t keen on pursuing the project, given the situation.The SJM enjoys enormous clout in the Uma government. The convenor of the organisation is Govindacharya, who has been a guiding figure through Uma’s political career. One of Govindacharya’s confidants is Atul Jain, former journalist and now advisor to the CM.According to Poornima Date, sahsanyojak of the SJM in MP, ‘‘We cannot accept the fact that a foreign photographer and writer have been appointed to cover the Kumbh. This money can be better spent on developing Ujjain. There is also a question of.how they view the Kumbh. There have been enough instances in the past of India being wrongly depicted abroad. If the contract is not cancelled, we will oppose it by exerting pressure on the government and through protests.’’Satyaprakash says they would provide McCurry security and that they had informed him about the SJM opposition. He also admits McCurry was recently surrounded by activists while photographing devotees bathing in the Kshipra.In fact, given the SJM pressure, the government seemed keen on ensuring that McCurry would drop out on his own without their having to cancel his contract. Now, it seems they have achieved that .McCurry says: ‘‘I am busy with a lot of other projects, but the book would have been a good exposure for an interesting city that a lot of people know very little about.’’
