India's Supreme Court grants protection to filmmaker attacked for movie poster featuring Hindu goddess

This story contains an image of the film poster. 

A Toronto-based filmmaker from India has been granted protection from India's highest court after facing multiple police investigations and death threats over a depiction of a Hindu goddess on her movie poster. 

"I feel really heard," said Leena Manimekalai, who is currently the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).

Manimekalai says she has received thousands of death and rape threats as a result of a movie poster she tweeted promoting her film, Kaali — which uses an alternate spelling of the goddess's name. The poster showed the Hindu goddess Kali smoking and holding a Pride flag. 

Police in six different Indian states issued first information reports (FIRs) against Manimekalai for allegedly offending the religious sentiments of Hindus.

An FIR is a written document police prepare after receiving information about a crime serious enough that they can make an arrest.

After petitioning the Supreme Court to quash what she referred to as the "malicious" FIRs, Manimekalai says the resulting order vindicates her and gives her some legal protection, which will allow her to finally return home to India this summer.

"It feels good that I could change the narrative," she said. "I was bullied, I was insulted and I was branded problematic and controversial."

In her petition, she said she wanted to depict Kali in an "inclusive and all-compassing form" and noted that there are wide-ranging interpretations of gods and goddesses in the Hindu faith. 

The interim court order issued Jan. 20 was extended for three weeks on Feb. 20 pending another court date. It stated "no coercive steps" like arrests should be taken against Manimekalai "on the basis of the FIRs which have been instituted against her." 

The court order also prevents police from pursuing any action against the filmmaker based on any FIRs lodged against her based on her film poster after the order was issued. 

"She has full protection for now," said Indira Unninayar, Manimekalai's lawyer in India. She says police have been taking action based on FIRs recently, especially in cases regarding religious sentiments. 

"People have been whisked away," she said. "It serves to make an example of that person."

Viral tweet prompted furious response 

As part of her graduate program at York University, Manimekalai submitted Kaali to Toronto Metropolitan University's "Under the Tent" film series on multiculturalism. It was one of 18 works chosen to be screened at Toronto's Aga Khan Museum. 

According to Manimekalai, the film is a commentary on multiculturalism. It features Manimekalai herself portraying Kali and exploring the city of Toronto at night. 

To promote the screening last July, she tweeted an image of the film poster showing Kali smoking and holding a Pride flag.

The director's tweet went viral, prompting furious responses from some on social media, with many calling for her arrest. The High Commission of India in Ottawa, which essentially functions as the Indian embassy, got involved, urging authorities to "take action" against what it called a "disrespectful depiction" of Kali. 

Chandra Arya, a Liberal MP representing the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean, also weighed in.

He said it was "painful" to see the poster and welcomed the apology from the Aga Khan Museum. In the past few years, "traditional anti-Hindu and anti-India groups in Canada have joined forces," he wrote, "resulting in Hinduphobic articles" and "attacks on our Hindu temples."

The Aga Khan Museum apologized for screening the film, saying the presentation is "no longer being shown," and that it "deeply regrets" that the movie and social media post "have inadvertently caused offence." 

TMU also distanced itself from Manimekalai, first pulling the film from the series and then posting a statement on its website saying it had done so because it regretted "causing offense." That statement has since been removed.

In the wake of the threats, the TMU faculty association's equity committee held a protest screening in November to show support for Manimekalai. 

"It's really important in the academic world to stand up to that attack on academic freedom and artistic freedom," James Turk, TMU's director of the Centre for Free Expression, said at the time. 

The court protection of Manimekalai emphasizes that important message, according to advocacy group Hindus for Human Rights, which has been vocal in its support of the filmmaker. 

"It's good to see [the court] protect Leena … especially for something as fundamental as freedom of expression," said the group's policy director Ria Chakrabarty. 

"There's a plurality of ways in which people are Hindu and how they express their faith." 

Politicization of Hinduism 

The director's tweet sparked heated debate among politicians and religious leaders in India, including those who support Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Hindu ideology of Hindutva. 

One researcher that has chronicled far right movements within diaspora groups said Hindutva is a superficial politicization of Hinduism and has led to discrimination and sectarian violence against minority groups in India such as Muslims and Christians.

Steven Zhou, a former researcher with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network told CBC last April that Hindutva is a modern political ideology that advocates for Hindu supremacy and seeks to transform India, a secular democracy, into an ethno-religious country. 

That concerns Dolores Chew, a professor specializing in South Asian history at Marianopolis College in Montreal.

Chew told CBC that while the recent Supreme Court decision sends a "very strong message," she is still concerned about Hinduism being used for political purposes. 

"The current government of India has an agenda to make India a Hindu nation in its own interpretation."

According to Chew, that includes labelling any behaviour out of line with its definition of Hinduism to be "Hinduphobic." She says Manimekalai isn't the only one receiving online hate and is fearful that such hate often results in physical violence. 

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Several Canadian academics say they’re being harassed and threatened by local diaspora groups and foreign trolls for criticizing the government of Narenda Modi in India and its support of Hindutva — a right-wing political ideology that advocates for Hindu supremacy.

She says the governments of other countries, including Canada, can easily play into the narrative, which can result in artists, journalists and human rights activists being condemned and censored. Chew said the High Commission's complaint that resulted in Manimekalai's film being pulled from the screening is a clear example. 

"There's a political agenda that is taking advantage of peoples' ignorance or desire to be inclusive," she said. "It's very, very dangerous." 

Manimekalai's fight is still not over. The next court date is March 24, when the Supreme Court will hear from the states trying to justify the FIRs.

The director says she is still receiving threats and abusive messages, which she says she'll continue to include in her case as evidence. 

Manimekalai says she and her lawyer "are also interested in the Supreme Court taking a stand on religious freedom, artistic freedom and academic freedom."