SC issues notice to Centre; 62 celebs including KR, Prasoon write to P

Mob lynching: Supreme Court issues notice to Centre; 62 celebs including Kangana Ranaut, Prasoon Joshi write to PM Modi against selective outrage, false narratives

Mob lynching: Earlier, Eminent film directors and actors including Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap and Aparna Sen, Konkona Sen Sharma, Soumita Chatterjee had written a letter to Modi expressing regret that Jai Shree Ram has become a war cry today

This combination of file photos show actor Kangana Ranaut and lyricist Prasoon Joshi.





Intolerance row: As many as 62 celebrities including actor Kangana Ranaut, lyricist Prasoon Joshi, classical dancer and MP Sonal Mansingh, instrumentalist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar and Vivek Agnihotri have written an open letter against selective outrage and false narratives. The move comes after 49 celebrities wrote a letter to the prime minister expressing concerns over the growing incidents of lynching in the country. Eminent film directors and actors including Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap and Aparna Sen, Konkona Sen Sharma, Soumita Chatterjee had written a letter to Modi expressing regret that Jai Shree Ram has become a war cry today.

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), on hearing a PIL seeking implementation of its 2018 judgment (Tehseen S Poonawalla vs Union of India) with respect to mob lynching cases. In the 2018 judgement, the apex court had urged the Centre to come out with a legislation to curb mob lynching in the country. An SC bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta issued a notice in a petition filed by Anti-Corruption Council of India Trust.

Tehseen Poonawalla had petitioned the apex court to ensure a strict crackdown on cow vigilantes taking matters into their own hands and resorting to violence against perceived oppressors of the bovine species. In the petition, Poonawalla had also cited numerous instances of attacks by cow protection groups on Dalits, minorities and other people in the name of protection of cow and other bovine species, the barandbench.com reported.

Here is the complete list of celebrities:

The Open Letter:

Kangana Ranaut, Prasoon Joshi, Others Hit Back Against Open Letter To Modi

61 cultural personalties including Ranaut, Joshi and Madhur Bhandarkar have written a letter in reply to one condemning lynching earlier this week.

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It’s the season of open letters once again. Earlier this week, a group of filmmakers, activists and artists wrote an open letter to the Narendra Modi government, expressing concerns over the increasing number of lynchings in India. Now, 61 cultural personalties including Kangana Ranaut and Prasoon Joshi have written a letter to counter what they call “selective outrage and false narratives”.

“An open letter which has been published on July 23 2019, and addressed to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has astonished us. Forty nine self-styled ‘guardians’ and conscience keepers’ of the nation... have expressed selective concern and demonstrated a clear political bias and motive,” the letter read.

Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar, MP Sonal Mansingh and instrumentalist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt were also among the signatories to this letter.

Criticising the open letter that was signed by 49 people including Anurag Kashyap, Aparna Sen, Binayak Sen, Konkana Sen Sharma, Mani Ratnam, Ramchandra Guha, Soumitro Chatterjee, and Shyam Benegal, this one said, “To us, the undersigned, this document of selective outrage comes across as an attempt to foist a FALSE NARRATIVE... to negatively portray Prime Minister Modi’s untiring efforts. The signatories of 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 were made.”

The letter also accused the signatories of the “open letter” of staying silent when the ‘Tukde tukde’ gang made demands of “dismembering India” and when the marginalised and tribals became victims of “naxal terror”.

Kangana Ranaut and 60 celebs hit back at stars who wrote an open letter to PM Modi!

India has been facing a mob-lynching crisis for a long time now. On Wednesday, 49 eminent personalities, artists and intellectuals including Aparna Sen, Mani Ratnam, Shyam Benegal, Ketan Mehta, Gautam Ghose; actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Revathy Asha; author Amit Chaudhuri; singer Shubha Mudgal, wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi expressing their concerns over the same. The open letter stated that ‘the lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately.’

The letter stated that ‘Jai Shri Ram’ has been reduced to a war cry, referring to recent instances in which those being lynched have allegedly been forced to chant the slogan. The letter also said that there is no democracy without disagreement and people should not be branded as an ‘anti-national’ or ‘urban Naxal’ and incarcerated because of it.

Now two days later, a counter reply to that open letter to PM Modi has been filed by 60 prominent celebrities including Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut, lyricist Prasoon Joshi, classical dancer and MP Sonal Mansingh, instrumentalist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar and Vivek Agnihotri.

Their letter questions ‘selective outrage and false narratives’. It asks why do the celebrities remain silent when tribals and marginalized are targeted by Maoists (A communist party of India which aims to overthrow the government of India through people's war).

After writing the counter letter, Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut opened up and talked about the people misusing their position to create false narratives. According to a news agency Asian News International (ANI), Kangana stated,

Some people are misusing their position to generate false narrative that, under this government, things is going wrong, whereas for the first time things are going in the right direction. We are a part of a major shift. Things are changing for the betterment of the nation and few people are rattled by this. Common people have chosen their leaders. Ones who disregard people will are the ones who have no respect or consideration for democracy.

- Kangana Ranaut

On the work front, Kangana will be seen in the recently released JudgeMentall Hai Kya alongside Rajkummar Rao.

Irrelevant logo ka kaam hi yehi hai. Open letter likh do for 5 mins of fame. These were the same people who wrote the letter before elections urging people to not vote for modi before elections but people showed them théir aquaat. I haven't seen a single tweet from these so called intellectual people regarding ayub bhat's lynching by muslim mob outside mosque. Why selective outrage? Moreover if am not wrong two people who signed the open letter, sc declared them urban naxals?

Why are celebrities writing letters for this? The respected PM certainly knows what is happening. If he wanted to stop it he would have issued some rules for his followers without reading anyone's letters.

Interesting to see so many bengali personalities signing this one... I think its true that if one corners a cat it turns into a tiger!