Da Vinci Code

It seems like some things never stop making controversies. One of them is Da Vinci Code. The furore this book has caused was somewhat exceptional. But I am not going to write anything more about the book than that's already been published in last two years.

It's about the movie and in particular the reaction of some minority sections in India. Firstly, it started in Punjab. The congress government there banned screening of the movie despite no release was planned in that state. No releasr, yet they banned it!!! The Christian population of Punjab is a meagre three lakh(three hundred thousand, now it looks like a big number!). I am not advocating that we can afford to hurt the sentiments of a section of community just because they are less in numbers. I will come back to this, let me state the facts first. Not surprisingly, Andhra Pradesh's(AP) congress(congress is the key word here) government took cue from Punjab and banned it in AP. I have not checked how many more states banned this movie, quick way of doing this would be to check how many congress-run states do we have!! Of course, you don't expect them to ban it in Delhi and Mumbai, do you?

As I sad, the key word in last paragraph was congress. Both states are being run by congress governments. If you are still wondering, who heads congress party in India? Someone who goes by name of Sonia Gandhi. I do not know which religion she belongs to now, but she's a born Roman Catholic. And Da Vinci Code rattles the very foundations of Christianity. So it was a good opportunity for congress-run state governments to impress Soniaji by banning this movie.

I was surprised when I read that Punjab government banned this movie, although no release was planned in that state. But I was not surprised for a second when same thing repeated in AP. The chief minister of AP is Rajashekhar Reddy, a protestant!!!! It is true that AP has more Christian population than Punjab, maybe due to the fact that AP is economically poorer than Punjab and the conversion rate is high in economically poorer sections. I am not going to dwell on this controversial conversion issue, but for the record, the fact that middle-class does not want to convert says all about the authenticity of conversion and the means of how it's done. But how can we proclaim that we are a secular country when governments are willing to go overboard to impress their high command for their own political advantages with the excuses of communal riots and blah blah.

I know, I digress. It's no secret that congress leaders can go to any extent to please Madam. And it was a great opportunity for them to show their loyalty and gain political mileage out of it. And additional incentive is, it will once again reaffirm the government's keen interest in safeguarding the interests of minority. But the funny twist to story was even MIM's(an Islamic party) chief Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi wanted the ban and said that it would result in communal riots in AP :-) Actually it made me laugh.

All's well that ends well. I took solace from the news that AP's high court had severely criticized the state government and ruled against the ban and allowed the screening in AP.