As one staging of Agnes of God ended successfully in Mumbai on Monday evening and another in Hyderabad has been forced to shift venue, the spotlight is yet again on Catholic groups demanding bans on works that offends them.
The Catholic Secular Forum, a fringe group with no official backing from the Church, has been particularly strident in its demands for action against those who it deems to have offended their religious sentiments. It was behind a flurry of emails to the BM Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad that led to the venue cancelling its scheduled booking for Vinay Varma's production of Agnes of God on October 9 and 10. It also wants to have cases filed against Kaizad Kotwal, the director of the play's Mumbai production and others involved with it.
The forum's founder Joe Dias spoke to Scroll.in about what exactly he dislikes about the play and those who are staging it.
When did you hear of the play?
I saw an advertisement for it on Sunday [September 27] and the immediate thing that shocked me were the words “Immaculate Conception”, which is generally used to refer to the birth of Christ without human intervention. The words have been used for 2,000 years to refer only to the birth of Christ.
To say that an illegitimate child is born of a nun and is killed, or rather she murders the child, and that another senior nun is involved in the issue is too farfetched. It is a misportrayal of the nun’s community. It is a great disservice to the personhood of the nun. It is objectifying a nun to sell tickets for a play for commercial profit.
The moment I saw this I thought it was revolting and shot off a letter to the Commissioner of Police asking him to immediately file an FIR for hurting religious sentiments. Police are duty bound to register an FIR as this is a cognizable offence. This has not happened to date, one week later. Even that solace the Christian community has not got in this state.
On Monday at the meeting, [Maharashtra minority affairs minister] Eknath Khadse said your only option was to appeal to the Censor Board...
There is a small correction to that, a small oversight. The Censor Board always deals with films. It is the Central Board of Film Certification. Plays, dramas, nataks theatre all come under the purview of a board which is in the department of culture in the Maharashtra state govt.
Without application of mind, or perhaps by oversight, a certificate was issued to the producers of this play. We are calling for revoking that certificate, given the fact that the community is now unanimous in its demand to ban the play in the light of the hurt religious sentiments which have been expressed very widely in the country. This will set a wrong precedent for the play to be shown in other states also. So the responsibility on the government of Maharashtra to ensure that this kind of filth is not purveyed throughout the country is much more.
This play has been staged in India some decades ago. Had you heard of it then?
This is false propaganda being put out by the producers. We have no evidence that this play ever was staged in India. And even if it had been staged, today, sentiments are running high and the populace is expressing its sentiment through mass media. Priests, nuns, bishops, the highest religious authority in the land, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, the president Cardinal Baselios Cleemis has written to the Home minster, the Information and Broadcasting minister clearly stating that this hurts our religious sentiments and the play should not be staged in the country.
Would you want to negotiate with the producers? What are your objections to the play?
For one, the title itself is objectionable. It talks about the Lamb of God which refers to Jesus Christ. The other thing is that as this is a play the script and scenes can be changed with every performance. It is very difficult for us to monitor every performance of the play. The publicity material is also objectionable which they said that they will remove.
Only after we get a certified recorded video copy of the play from the government will we be able to pinpoint and do two things. One is to take criminal action. Another is to check if some things can be deleted.
You have said that since you will be offended by the play, you do not want to watch it. But if there are Catholics who choose to watch it and their sentiments are not hurt, do you think there is a problem then?
Faith is a personal issue. If you are not hurt, you are not hurt. But when it is the authorised representatives of the community, who are the bishops, priests and nuns who are the affected persons, and when others who are representing them – organisations like ours that have represented the community on many occasions for the last 30 years – if we say our sentiments have been hurt, they have been. You will always find an occasional progressive, radical or rationalist whose name is just Christian.
If you can ban Satanic Verses, MF Hussain’s paintings, then why should you have double standards for a play which the church is asking to be banned? Christians are being made a soft target.
Do you then think the situation would have been different had it involved another religious group?
Nobody would dare to do this with other communities. Because it is the Christian community, we are having discussions. There would have been no meeting or discussion had it been the Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist community. No playwright would dare to write something like this.
Freedom of expression is not absolute. The Supreme Court has held that time and again. There are reasonable restrictions, which is public order, social discord, secular fabric of the country, a whole lot of reasons why this is not allowed. This is basically a hate crime, stereotyping the Catholic faith.
But this is the story of one nun. It is not about the entire community...
It is a gross misrepresentation of nunhood. Nuns are celibate. They live their lives sacrificing decades of their lives in service of the poor.
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The Catholic Secular Forum, a fringe group with no official backing from the Church, has been particularly strident in its demands for action against those who it deems to have offended their religious sentiments. It was behind a flurry of emails to the BM Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad that led to the venue cancelling its scheduled booking for Vinay Varma's production of Agnes of God on October 9 and 10. It also wants to have cases filed against Kaizad Kotwal, the director of the play's Mumbai production and others involved with it.
The forum's founder Joe Dias spoke to Scroll.in about what exactly he dislikes about the play and those who are staging it.
When did you hear of the play?
I saw an advertisement for it on Sunday [September 27] and the immediate thing that shocked me were the words “Immaculate Conception”, which is generally used to refer to the birth of Christ without human intervention. The words have been used for 2,000 years to refer only to the birth of Christ.
To say that an illegitimate child is born of a nun and is killed, or rather she murders the child, and that another senior nun is involved in the issue is too farfetched. It is a misportrayal of the nun’s community. It is a great disservice to the personhood of the nun. It is objectifying a nun to sell tickets for a play for commercial profit.
The moment I saw this I thought it was revolting and shot off a letter to the Commissioner of Police asking him to immediately file an FIR for hurting religious sentiments. Police are duty bound to register an FIR as this is a cognizable offence. This has not happened to date, one week later. Even that solace the Christian community has not got in this state.
On Monday at the meeting, [Maharashtra minority affairs minister] Eknath Khadse said your only option was to appeal to the Censor Board...
There is a small correction to that, a small oversight. The Censor Board always deals with films. It is the Central Board of Film Certification. Plays, dramas, nataks theatre all come under the purview of a board which is in the department of culture in the Maharashtra state govt.
Without application of mind, or perhaps by oversight, a certificate was issued to the producers of this play. We are calling for revoking that certificate, given the fact that the community is now unanimous in its demand to ban the play in the light of the hurt religious sentiments which have been expressed very widely in the country. This will set a wrong precedent for the play to be shown in other states also. So the responsibility on the government of Maharashtra to ensure that this kind of filth is not purveyed throughout the country is much more.
This play has been staged in India some decades ago. Had you heard of it then?
This is false propaganda being put out by the producers. We have no evidence that this play ever was staged in India. And even if it had been staged, today, sentiments are running high and the populace is expressing its sentiment through mass media. Priests, nuns, bishops, the highest religious authority in the land, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, the president Cardinal Baselios Cleemis has written to the Home minster, the Information and Broadcasting minister clearly stating that this hurts our religious sentiments and the play should not be staged in the country.
Would you want to negotiate with the producers? What are your objections to the play?
For one, the title itself is objectionable. It talks about the Lamb of God which refers to Jesus Christ. The other thing is that as this is a play the script and scenes can be changed with every performance. It is very difficult for us to monitor every performance of the play. The publicity material is also objectionable which they said that they will remove.
Only after we get a certified recorded video copy of the play from the government will we be able to pinpoint and do two things. One is to take criminal action. Another is to check if some things can be deleted.
You have said that since you will be offended by the play, you do not want to watch it. But if there are Catholics who choose to watch it and their sentiments are not hurt, do you think there is a problem then?
Faith is a personal issue. If you are not hurt, you are not hurt. But when it is the authorised representatives of the community, who are the bishops, priests and nuns who are the affected persons, and when others who are representing them – organisations like ours that have represented the community on many occasions for the last 30 years – if we say our sentiments have been hurt, they have been. You will always find an occasional progressive, radical or rationalist whose name is just Christian.
If you can ban Satanic Verses, MF Hussain’s paintings, then why should you have double standards for a play which the church is asking to be banned? Christians are being made a soft target.
Do you then think the situation would have been different had it involved another religious group?
Nobody would dare to do this with other communities. Because it is the Christian community, we are having discussions. There would have been no meeting or discussion had it been the Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist community. No playwright would dare to write something like this.
Freedom of expression is not absolute. The Supreme Court has held that time and again. There are reasonable restrictions, which is public order, social discord, secular fabric of the country, a whole lot of reasons why this is not allowed. This is basically a hate crime, stereotyping the Catholic faith.
But this is the story of one nun. It is not about the entire community...
It is a gross misrepresentation of nunhood. Nuns are celibate. They live their lives sacrificing decades of their lives in service of the poor.