Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

`No' to ban

The Supreme Court's `no' to petitions seeking a ban on the screening of the film The Da Vinci Code is heartening. The two-judge Bench's posers to the petitioners — what is the objection to a film cleared by the Censor Board and the Government, how many countries professing Christianity have banned it and why object to a film based on a work of fiction — are extremely relevant. The judiciary has upheld India's diversity.

E. Sivasankaran,
Coimbatore

It is ironical that a film that has been screened successfully in countries where Christians are in a large number has run into problems in some States here. All those who respect freedom should oppose any move to ban The Da Vinci Code.

G.L.N. Murthy,
Hyderabad

The article "Films and the politics of convenience" (June 12) was timely. The example of Rajaji's response to film Parasakthi — that he was unhappy with the film but the course of freedom could not be dammed — is worth emulating by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi who wrote the script for the movie. Only when a work of fiction is banned or access to it is denied do people become curious.

A.J. Rangarajan,
Chennai

The Tamil Nadu Government's decision to suspend the screening of The Da Vinci Code is the latest example of the politics of appeasement gaining an upper hand, pushing to the background the constitutional right to project and propagate an alternative viewpoint. Dissent and tolerance are the essence of democracy. Any attempt to undermine them will hit at its roots.

A.T. Sankarshanan,
Chennai

Coimbatore

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