'We're Unemployable Today', Swara Bhasker, Munawar Faruqui Meet West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee
At an interactive session with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Dec 1 in Mumbai, several people from the entertainment industry expressed their views and concerns.
Among those present were Swara Bhasker, Munawar Faruqui, Richa Chadha, Agrima Joshua, Kubra Sait and others.
Raising her concern, Bhasker told Banerjee that a lot of artistes are facing resistance for telling stories.
"There are many young people who have risked their careers, their livelihoods to keep the resistance alive in their own small ways."
She then introduced Munawar Faruqui who spent over a month in jail and had his twelve shows canceled following threats.
She also introduced a person called Raj whose venue had been vandalised several times for hosting comedians like Aditi Mittal, Munawar Faququi and Agrima Joshua among others.
"We also have Richa Chadha and others here who are from the film industry. We are facing a lot of resistance to telling stories. We are in a situation today where, for a common citizen like me, on one side there is the mob that's completely unaccountable because the ruling dispensation has found a way to use the mob to its liking and the police and state seem to be fine with it.? ?
"On the other side, you have a state that uses arbitrary power and is distributing UAPA and sedition charges as a prasad from a God we don¡¯t want to pray to but are forced to bow down to. This is our reality," she said.
Elaborating on why there's no Meryl Streep in India, she said, Streep could, stand in front of the President-elect of her country and critique him in the harshest way, and not a hair on her head was harmed. But we are all unemployable today."??
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