Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Ira Bhaskar (Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics) has responded to Anupam Kher’s allegations that the university has deliberately prevented the screening of one of his films, Buddha in a Traffic Jam, in the campus.
Speaking to ANI, Ira Bhaskar said that university authorities received no request from Anupam Kher or from Vikas Agnihotri, the director of the film. She said that she, personally, received an email from the director’s team, but had to turn down the request for the film screening because the School of Arts and Aesthetics had no free slot in this semester’s event schedule. She added that the film could possibly be scheduled for next semester.
She added that it has nothing to do with Mr Kher, whom she respects.
I agree with Mr Kher that opinions of all kinds must be space in a university campus.Ira Bhaskar
Anupam Kher had alleged that the university was preventing his film “on contemporary social issues” from being screened on campus and that the filmmakers had been writing to JNU for two years to screen the film on campus.
Why are only certain people allowed to exercise their freedom of expression at JNU?Anupam Kher, to India Today TV
Kher said the film is based on life in a campus like JNU. “Cinema is cinema. It is beyond political boundaries and ideologies,” the senior actor had said.
At an event in Kolkata, Kher had attacked JNU and student union president Kanhaiya Kumar for allegedly raising “anti-national” slogans at an event to mark the hanging of Parliament attacks convict Afzal Guru.
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