Amongst other things such as the one being where the late Sridevi finally got the Best Actress Award, the 65th National Film Awards of India would also be recalled for the one where many recipients threatened to skip the ceremony. Citing their displeasure following reports that the President of India would be presenting only 11 of the 140 awards, some of the awardees expressed a desire to skip the event altogether. It is understandable that such a departure from the norm would have upset many winners for whom the National Awards is but a moment of their life yet a boycott is somewhat unwarranted. In the end, one must know that it is about the work and the not an award you get for the work.
The National Film awards have always been surrounded by some controversy or the other nearly every year. If someone is not happy with the way the jury was picked, others are mortified at some people winning the award and nearly every year the government of the day is accused of discrimination. According to this writer, who was a part of the jury for Best Book on Cinema in 2016, there should be no doubt in the minds of nominees and winners that awards go beyond the government. The jury is free to deliberate endlessly without any interference from the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry and this year’s chairman Shekhar Kapur, in fact, spoke on record how he kept telling the jury to not let his relationship with Sridevi sway them.
When it comes the National Awards there is little doubt about the prestige that accompanies them and a large part of this also because of the ceremony attached to it. Any honour that is bestowed upon by the President of India is indeed the zenith of all honours and remains peerless. Does the prestige of the National Award reduce if one were to receive the award from anyone besides the President of India?
This year most of the awards would be presented by Smriti Irani, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports. A few of the winners have said that the presence of the minsters changes the ‘apolitical’ nature of the awards but the fact remains that the National Awards function under the aegis of the I&B Ministry, which, irrespective of the President’s presence is always involved. Isn’t it then a rather convenient argument to label the whole thing apolitical or political depending on how appears to an individual?
In a way, disheartening as it might be, this break in tradition is somewhere an indicator of a change and change of any kind is often met with resistance. More than that, there is also never a good moment to initiate it. Many have criticized the development and said that the somewhat biased treatment is an insult to the other awardees. It is said that when 60 awardees wrote a letter in protest, the President’s office issued a statement in response saying that since President Kovind first assumed the office he has always allotted only one hour to award ceremonies, no matter what their nature. While the official invitation to the awardees stated that the President of India would present the award and if that didn’t happen, is a boycott the best way to react? Could something that appears to be an administrative goof-up, which could be best described as a “bureaucratic shilly-shallying”, a term coined by the great Satyajit Ray to describe the government’s process when it came to films, be good enough for a response bigger than the awards itself?
Updated Date: May 04, 2018 08:39 AM