Amol Palekar was invited to speak about an artist (Prabhakar Barwe). He chose the event to air his political views. Organisers had an objection with that. It gets difficult for the organisers when guests do not want to stick to the theme of the event. If they let them go, it might dilute the theme of the event. If they object, they will come out as rude host.
In Lakme Fashion event, Hema Malini and her daughter wore a saree by a designer representing Assam culture. After the event, Hemamalini did praise the designer, mentioned the theme (enpowerment of women in Assam). Along with that, she also tried promoting Easha's new movie. Organiser immediately cut her and said, event is focussed on designers and she should stick to that. Esha seemed agitated and left. Who is right or wrong?
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6djvZZ6b0Q[/YOUTUBE]
The invited guests can speak beforehand with the organisers, whether they can discuss other issues or not. If organisers agree, fine. If not, take a call whether you want to attend or not. Do not hijack the event. Who ever is speaking about the event now (media), most of the people do not know about Barwe or his paintings. It proves, organiser's fear was right. (The theme of the event got diluted).
As far as "intolerance debate" goes, Amol Palekar's incident cannot be part of that. It was not like audience violently or rudely stopped the event and organisers were left helpless. It was purely organiser's call.
If you all this as intolerance, then every moderator of any talk show is intolerant.
Intolerance is when an event has to get cancelled because of protest. Left are no saints regarding that. I can state many such occasions.
When a right wing artist/journalist/academic is invited to an event, whole left wing threatens to boycott the event saying, they cannot participate in an event where misogynists are invited.
If you think they represent misogyny, why can't you have debate with them in the event? Why do you bully organisers to withdraw their invitation to the right wing person or cancel the entire event? If the organisers don't heed to your bullying and still go ahead, then paint the entire event as a saffron event, to satisfy your egos.
I can give instances for each of these. But it is not tit for tat. Left or right, both should learn to tolerate each other's views. But as far as the Amol Palekar event goes, it was organiser's call. I will not put it under intolerance.
Edited by flipfl0p - 5 years ago
comment:
p_commentcount