Pankaj Shankar?s documentary on Godhra - In The Name Of Faith - throws up several questions we all need to answer, feels R AKHILESHWARI http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/july28/at9.htm As documentary maker Pankaj Shankar screened his video film, one waited with trepidation on having to see the horrors that were committed by one human being on another. As the film started to roll, eyes filled up and the mind went numb. Such mindless violence all in the name of faith. It hurt, even long after the film ended. The images return to haunt, to question, to torture. ?Is this government only yours? Isn?t it ours too?? demands a young woman and it sears your conscience. Fellow Indians have been reduced to being non-citizens all because they follow a different religion? Pankaj (34) says this question was the turning point in his life. He decided to do something to retrieve what had been snatched from him, that is his religion, that had made him what he was. ?All of us are answerable... we have to answer that lady, as Indians and as human beings... I realised I should take a stand... I need to speak my mind,? said Pankaj, maker of the film In the Name of Faith, a short version of which was screened at Hyderabad recently. Pankaj had no idea what turn his life would take when he left Delhi to go to Ahmedabad after Godhra . He had a story idea in his mind for Channel Four of United Kingdom. He arrived in Ahmedabad three days after Godhra. He filmed horror after horror for five days. On the sixth day, as he was filming a mob on rampage in Gomtipura area, the police pounced on him. He was beaten up, his camera broken, taken into custody and dumped into the police jeep. Protestations, flashing of the media accreditation card and appeal to reason did not move the Deputy Commissioner of Police. The DCP kept Pankaj confined in his jeep for three hours as it rushed from one area to another in the dark of the night. ?If police had only done their duty, Gujarat would not have burned,? said Pankaj. ?That one night and that one question of that lady transformed me. I then realised we have to take a stand... we cannot allow hooligans who claim to be Hindus to take away from us the sense of who we are... which is we are human beings first, and Hindus and Muslims later,? he said. So instead of returning to Delhi after five days with the footage to do the film for Channel Four, Pankaj stayed back for 45 days, canning 54 hours of his encounters with the evil that had Gujarat in its deadly embrace. Pankaj, a native of Bihar, was a full-time cartoonist. With the explosion of satellite/cable TV channels Pankaj moved to animation and then to documentary making. He has done many assignments for several prestigious channels both in India and abroad. Gujarat proved a turning point in his life. He was forced to rethink on the truths of life. He decided to adopt a brother and sister, whose parents were burnt alive in Sardarpura. ?The ultimate aim of my life is to take care of these two kids,? he says. ?Although 90 per cent of the people are not communal, they don?t speak out. I know they are with me,? he says and believes by not speaking out we have allowed hooligans to take over our lives and the country. In the name of Faith has been shown in just three cities, Delhi, Calcutta and Hyderabad, but its message has been carried far and wide. It evoked horror and sorrow. It shook people. ?How can anyone not cry when you see the kid crying out of terror... I see my son in the child,? says Pankaj. But it also inspires him. ?It makes me stronger.? Along with appreciation for this effort came threats, harassment and intimidation. Fortunately for him, film-maker Mahesh Bhatt stood by him. There have been lucrative offers to buy his footage but he has not succumbed to them. For, he has other things lined up. He would like people to chip in to rebuild the future of Dilawar and Salma (his adopted kids), take back Hinduism from the hooligans and drive home the point that all of us are responsible for Gujarat. ?I want to show the film all over the country. We have to come face to face with evil... it is a mirror of our fall as a people,? he says. (Pankaj Shankar can be contacted at pankajshankar@yahoo.com) |