(Rishi Majumder is an associate partner at the new media company Oijo)Forget Mangalyaan. If you really want to know what it's like on Mars, click on some of the 'India Trends' on Twitter. A recent one was #BoycottHaider, a hashtag that began trending for long stretches on October 2, thanks to those asking you to not watch Vishal Bhardwaj and Basharat Peer's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, set in Kashmir.
In 2008, when members of a right-wing group called Sanathan Sanstha disapproved of the movie
Jodhaa Akbar, they bombed two theatres screening the film in Panvel, Navi Mumbai.
Thank God for Twitter. All we've had to deal with was a hashtag.
Why do so many people on Twitter appear to want us to boycott Haider though? Who are they?
For one, many of them haven't seen the film. Don't scoff. This is quite the Hamletian dilemma. How, truly, does one watch a film one is asking others to boycott? Yet, how does one ask others to boycott a film one hasn't seen?
@maypan18's bio says he 'either wins or learns but never loses'. He wants to boycott Haider because he read a Facebook post by his cousin, married to an army man, which said the movie had an "anti-army element" to it. He also believes the filmmaker Bhardwaj is pro-separatist because "he wanted mercy for Afzal Guru". And he has read about the writer Peer's "pro-separatist inclinations".
This doesn't resolve things for @theAshwinPatel, however, who is more amiable and succinct. He tweeted on October 2: Then there's this argument - why didn't Haider revolve around what the Pandits went through as well?
@MissMegna, a "free spirited and wavering mind", believes Haider can "act like fuel to the fire."
Of course. There is a real danger that the film might remind Kashmiris in the valley that they are living under the shadow of the AFSPA and that countless Pandits who left in the 90s are yet to return. It is easy to forget such things, you see.
Vishal Bhardwaj, that evil genius.
Apparently, he's also demoralized the Indian army. Or so Sushil Chauhan (his bio is laced with some mystery: "One Sentence to describe My Profile : Ab Ki Bar Modi Sarkaar 3") believes:
So do many others including @maverickmohit10 a "social media coordinator" for BJP.
Elsewhere Bhardwaj has violated the sanctity of the ruins of the Martand Sun Temple near Anantnag by filming a 100 feet tall puppet in it.
The puppet was part of the song Bismil, and it isn't quite clear whether the film's makers meant it to signify "Satan", but the campaigners have decided it is so.
The most fascinating tweet I have seen so far belongs to @fgautier26, French journalist and writer, often championed on Twitter as a mascot of the 'foreigner-sees-Hindu-greatness-but-you-don't-traitor' cause.
I did ask Mr. Gautier what he meant by this but he hasn't replied as of yet.
Also from Mr. Gautier:
Very few members of Haider's primary cast are Muslim. Perhaps Mr. Gautier has watched the wrong film?
Finally, the conspiracy theories.
@Deepak Budki ("Urdu Author & Retired Senior Govt Officer. A refugee in my own homeland, Rootless, Abandoned and Voiceless."):
Imagine. Dawood Ibrahim, Vishal Bhardwaj and Basharat Peer conniving to adapt one of
Shakespeare's most difficult texts.
What has the underworld come to?
The hashtag didn't really last beyond two days, except for spurts when it resurfaced. It should be noted that supporters of the film were able to get #HaiderTrueCinema trending by Friday evening. To hashtag and what to hashtag - those are the new questions.
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