The Chaplin fiasco !!

Bangalore city, the software hub of India was known for being one of the most progressive and liberal cities. It always boasted of having the forward thinking rationalists. Unfortunately to put the city’s reputation to shame several incidents of moral policing has unfolded in the recent past read Barbarism by Promod Mutalik and his men. Adding on to the infamous list, another controversy of different sorts but which is equally shameful has occurred, i.e. The Charles Chaplin fiasco.




Film director Hemanth Hegde wanted to install a 67ft statue of the legendary comedian in Kundapur Taluk for a couple of song sequences in his forthcoming movie ‘Housefull’. In spite of having all the prior permissions to install the statue he faced severe protests coming from activist claiming to be a representative of the “Hindu Organizations”.

Though they started the opposition by claiming it to be totally against the interest of people in the locality but moved on to site the most absurd of reasons. They were 1. Charles Chaplin was a Christian 2. He has no contributions towards our country and 3. Around 90% people there were unaware of him. I have known Charles Chaplin as one of the greatest director in the cinema history, a legendary comedian, a script writer and even a musician for several of his movies, but strangely this was the first time he was branded as a Christian. To site religion as one of the reason for their opposition is as cheap and degusting one could get. Ironically Not long ago the nation’s largest hindutva Party was fighting over the rights for a song (Jai Ho) composed by a Muslim (AR Rehman) written by a Muslim(Gulzaar) which featured in a film directed by a Christian (Danny Boyle) with its opposition. It is shocking to see that such an issue is given a religious essence and being blown out of proportions.

It is blasphemous to restrict someone as iconic as Chaplin within trivial boundaries of region and religion. His influence and contribution to the World cinema is unmatched by any one in the Entertainment industries history. The renowned news reporter Martin Sieff sums up Charlie Chaplins contribution when he writes "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Hitler, he stayed on the job. He was bigger than anybody. It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most " There can never be any comedian at any part of globe leave alone India who was not inspired by Charles Chaplin at some point of time in their career. The legendary comedian Nagesh who recently passed away used a lot Chaplin mannerisms onscreen and called him as his true inspiration. Added we have seen so many great actors paying tribute to him by imitating him right from Raj Kapoor ( Shree 420,1951) to Kamal Hassan (Punnagai Mannan, 1986)

Not surprisingly there has been uproar from the film fraternity in Karnataka Cine Industry criticizing the hurdles caused by the government. People have dismissed these antics as a way curbing their creative freedom. There have been several Chaplin supporters who volunteered to give their land for building the statue. Several protest marches are being planned by the film’s director to express his agony. There has been strong support from the media and press. People have termed Bangalore as an Indian Taliban drawing parallels to the incident of Taliban’s breaking out Buddhist temples. Enough is enough and it’s high time that some sense is brought about to these political parties or else the so called freedom of expression, speech and the term democracy will end up looking a piece of joke. Sad that at this very moment one is reminded of Chaplin’s famous quote: “In the end, everything is a gag”.