By Subhash K Jha
Never one to mince words, Om Puri now lashes out at the moral brigade for barking up the wrong tree.
He's appalled outraged and incensed that Kamal Haasan's Vishwaroop was banned by the Tamil state government while the laws of the country allow rapists to get away with their crime just because they are legally underage.
Reasons Om angrily, `How is a male who is capable of having sex forcibly a juvenile? I read about a 13-year old being part of a gangrape of very young girl in a rural area. You want to me believe he deserves leniency because he's a child? Children don't commit sex crimes. If they do they must be treated as grownups. All rapists regardless of age must be treated on a par and punished accordingly. `
Om partially imputes the lack of respect for women in our society to our cinema. `Look at the heroines. Look at the kind of photo-shoots they do. Have they any idea what sort of fantasies rural boys must harbour after they see these pictures? And look at the item songs. You have an undressed woman dancing on screen and singing Kunda khol kunda khol (open the lock). Isn't this a straight invitation to sex? `
The actor feels the moral police is getting it all wrong in our country. `I really don't understand this ban on Vishwaroop. The censorboard had passed it. Then why should any government ban it? What was so objectionable about the content?
I remember we had trouble with Govinda Nihalani's mini-series Tamas where some people went to court against the Hindu-Muslim riot scenes during the partition of India into India and Pakistan. The courts upheld our right to expression, and we went ahead with the telecast. We have to respect the decisions of the government bodies constituted to streamline cinematic content. `
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