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Vanniyar Sangam moves court against makers of Jai Bhim film
T Arulmozhi, president of the Sangam, parent body of political party Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), filed a private complaint before the second judicial magistrate in Tamil Nadu’s Chidambaram district against actor Suriya, who also produced the movie along with his wife Jyothika under the banner 2D Entertainment, director TJ Gnanavel and OTT platform Amazon Prime Video, which released it.
The Vanniyar Sangam Tuesday moved district court Tuesday against Tamil film Jai Bhim alleging that certain scenes in the movie show the community in poor light.
T Arulmozhi, president of the Sangam, parent body of political party Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), filed a private complaint before the second judicial magistrate in Tamil Nadu’s Chidambaram district against actor Suriya, who also produced the movie along with his wife Jyothika under the banner 2D Entertainment, director TJ Gnanavel and OTT platform Amazon Prime Video, which released it.
The complaint seeks the court to proceed against the accused of their offending movie scenes and punish them for the offences under sections 153(provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (1) (promoting enmity between different groups), 499 (defamation), 500 (punishment for defamation), 503 (criminal intimidation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to breach peace) and 505 (statements conducing public mischief) of Indian Penal Code.
The case was filed after the makers didn’t tender an unconditional apology as demanded. “The accused person’s reckless depiction of the Vanniyar Community in poor light with villainy and criminal bent of mind has delivered an irreparable dent in the hitherto earned high reputation of the community with one deadly blow in accused film wiping out all goodwill the Vanniyar community has enjoyed so far from all other communities,” their petition filed on Tuesday said. “Now Accused persons have created communal issues, criminal intimidation between the people and also provokes the breach of peace by inciting violence among the people in the state of Tamil Nadu.”
The petition also states that they had earlier filed criminal complaints at a Chidambaram police station but had refused to register the complaint, and thereafter, the complaint was filed in Cuddalore, but no action was taken to date.
Jai Bhim fictionalises a real-life case of a tribal man, Rajakannu, who was falsely implicated in a theft case and died in custody due to police torture in 1993 and the film shows how his wife and retired high court justice K Chandru fight for his justice. The case Rajakannu Versus State of Tamil Nadu and others resulted in three policemen being sentenced to 14 years rigorous imprisonment for the murder of Rajakannu.
Among the contentions raised, the petition states that the movie has retained the real names of all the characters but deliberately changed the name of the sub-inspector of police (who had tortured the victim in the police custody) from his real name Anthonysamy to Gurumurthy and “repeatedly referred to him as Guru” which they said was related to the community’s prominent late leader J Guru. “The accused have projected the said wicked person, a wrongdoer as if he belonged to vanniyar community thereby imputing that the members of the Vanniyar community are prone to commit wrong and illegal things while in real life said Sub Inspector does not belong to Vanniyar Community,” the petition states.
Further, the petition states that the symbol Agni Gundam (meaning raging flame from the holy pot) has been a sacred symbol of the Vanniyar community for many centuries, which has been used in a movie scene in a calendar that is behind sub-inspector. “The accused have deliberately got printed a calendar of the year 1995 with the symbol of Agni Kundam with the caption of Kshatriya Kula Manadu, Villupuram,” the petition states. “Accused have made several symbolic representations through various scenes and dialogue in the movie insinuating that vanniyar community people are oppressing the underprivileged people in the movie,” the petition said. They added that it cannot be considered as a “casual, innocent, inadvertent mistake” in the movie which has now been viewed by millions of cine lovers across the globe which was released on November 2 on the OTT platform.
The complainant states that freedom of expression cannot be used to defame the particular community and earn substantial revenue by “distorting facts”. They also pointed out that the dialogue writer of the movie, Kanmani Gunasekaran returned his remuneration saying that original facts have been suppressed and the real life-widow Parvathy that her consent was not obtained. In an interview with HT, last week, retired Justice Chandru had said that among those alive from the case only his name and the police officer I Periyasamy’s names have been retained besides the deceased Rajakannu.
The controversy started when PMK leader and former union minister Anbumani Ramadoss wrote a letter to actor Suriya demanding answers. Suriya clarified that it was intended to show the real-life struggle of Justice Chandru and that the mistakes pointed out were immediately corrected. The film’s director, Gnanavel released a statement recently, stating that it was not intended to target or shame a particular person or community.
