Vetrimaaran and over 100 other directors join against BJP

  • IndiaGlitz, [Friday,March 29 2019]

The Lok Sabha elections 2019 is just a fortnight away and all political parties are vying with each other to woo the voters.  Political analysts are divided in opinion as to whether the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi would lead the country for yet another five year term.

Over 100 filmmakers from across the country have signed an appeal under Save Democracy urging people to vote the BJP out of power in Lok Sabha Elections 2019.   From the South director, Vetrimaaran and Aashiq Abu have signed the appeal.

The statement from the Artist Unite India reads

An Appeal to the People of India

Our country is going through the most testing times ever. Though culturally vivid and geographically diverse, we have always stayed united. As a nation. It has indeed been a great feeling to be a citizen of this wonderful country.But all that is at stake now.

Fascism threatens to strike us hard with all its might if we don't choose wisely in the coming Lok Sabha election. Period. As we all know, ever since the BJP came to power in 2014, things have changed. And only for the worse. A country polarised along religious lines isn't the India we have known. Besides, the BJP and its allies have failed miserably in keeping their election promises. They are now using mob lynching and cow vigilantism to split the country communally. Marginalizing Dalits and Muslims is the name of the game. They are spreading their hate campaigns with the help of the internet and social media. Patriotism is their trump card. Any individual or institution that raises the slightest dissent is labelled ‘anti-national’. ‘Patriotism’ is how they grow their vote bank. Let us not forget that some of our eminent writers and media persons lost their lives because they dared to dissent.

Romanticizing and exploiting the armed forces is one of their strategies. Even at the risk of engaging the nation in an unnecessary war. There is unrelenting onslaught on the cultural and scientific institutions in the country. They mock the collective intelligence of the people by appointing persons with no relevance or experience as heads of these institutions, propagating unscientific and irrational beliefs even at international science seminars, making us the laughing stock of the entire world. Banning and censoring 'works of art', especially the most powerful of the lot - Cinema and Books - is their way of keeping the population away from the truth.

Farmers have been completely forgotten. In fact, the BJP has made the country the boardroom property of a handful of businessmen. Flawed economic policies that ended up as extreme disasters are covered up and made to look like successes. All with the help of false propaganda and marketing blitz. This has helped them to create a false optimism in the country.

Manipulation of statistics and history is another one of their fond projects. Giving them one more term in power will be a grave blunder. It could well be the last nail in the coffin for the biggest democracy in the world.

We urge all of you to do everything in your capacity to keep this harmful regime from coming back to power. Let your mandate be to choose a government that respects the Constitution of India, protects our freedom of speech and expression, and refrains from all kinds of censorship.

Yes, This is our last chance!

Signed by:

  1. Aashiq Abu
  2. Abhijnan Sarkar
  3. Abhro Banerjee
  4. Ajayan Bala
  5. Ambika Rao
  6. Amitabha Chatterjee
  7. Amshan Kumar
  8. Amudhan R
  9. Anand Patwardhan
  10. Aneez K Mappila
  11. Anirudda Sharma
  12. Anjali Monteiro
  13. Anupama Bose
  14. Arun Karthick
  15. Arun M
  16. Arun N Sivan
  17. Asha Unnithan
  18. Babu Easwar Prasad
  19. Baburaj V G
  20. Baburaj Pandavath
  21. Bina Paul
  22. C S Venkateswaran
  23. Dar Ghai
  24. Devashish Makhija
  25. Debjani Banerjee
  26. Debalina
  27. Deepa Dhanraj
  28. Deepesh T
  29. Dileep Daz
  30. Divya Bharathi
  31. Gobi Nayanar
  32. Goutham Soorya
  33. Gurvinder Singh
  34. Indrasis Acharya
  35. Indraneel Lahiri
  36. Jayan Cheriyan
  37. Jeeva K J
  38. Jeeva Ponnuchamy
  39. Jiju Antony
  40. Jisha
  41. Jhelum Roy
  42. Jubith Namradath
  43. Kabir Singh Chowdhry
  44. K B Venu
  45. K P Jayashankar
  46. Kombai S Anwar
  47. Kamal K M
  48. Leela Santhosh
  49. Leena Manimekalai
  50. Madhupal
  51. Maheen Mirza
  52. Malini Jeevarathnam
  53. Manisha Korde
  54. Manoj Kana
  55. M G Sasi
  56. Miransha Naik
  57. Maulik Raj
  58. Muhsin Parari
  59. Nishtha Jain
  60. P F Mathews
  61. Padmakumar Narasimhamurthy
  62. Pradeep Nair
  63. Pradeep Dipu
  64. Prakash Bare
  65. Pramod Payyannur
  66. Prasanna S Kumar
  67. Pratap Jospeh
  68. Prateek Vats
  69. Praveen Morchhale
  70. Prem Chand
  71. Priyanandanan
  72. Pushpendra Singh
  73. Q
  74. Rafeeq Ellias
  75. Ranjith Sankaran
  76. Rinchin
  77. Ritesh Sil
  78. Sajeevan Anthikkad
  79. Saji Palamel
  80. Sajin Baabu