Actor Anupam Kher was booed by audience as a debate at a literary festival in Mumbai on freedom of speech heated up, with the actor wondering aloud if it was a paid audience. Kher was among the panel of speakers at the debate on 'Freedom of expression is in imminent danger' organised as part of the Tata Literature Live Festival last night. As the booing continued, Kher said he had spoken to the festival organiser Anil Dharker in the morning and expressed his apprehensions of a paid audience at the debate.
Kher along with BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli, spoke for the motion whereas former BJP ideologue Sudheendra Kulkarni and noted writer Shobha De spoke against the motion.
Soon after Kher rose to speak, he was booed after he recalled Shobha De's past as an editor of a film magazine "which printed gossip about which film star slept with whom."
Undeterred, Kher went on saying "people have an agenda and cannot handle a chaiwala becoming a PM.". This infuriated several members of the audience who kept on booing the actor.
His wife Kirron Kher, a BJP MP, who was in the audience rose to his defence but the audience neither allowed her to speak nor stopped booing Kher , though he gracely said, being a theatre artist he was used to such booing.
My Intolerance Vs Your Intolerance
My Intolerance Vs Your Intolerance
India Honest is surprised, "If Booing and Disallowing Anupam Kher to Speak in a Debate is Discarded from the right of "Freedom of Speech" ? Then what else the freedom of speech meant by these protesters ?
What a pity, the festival debate organiser Anil Dharker said it was ridiculous to suggest that the audience at the debate was a paid and thus validated the forced disallowing of Kher from speaking. And the last nail in freedom of Speech was laid by the judgement, which was delivered by the foreign media (one that hell bent to insult Modi's India)the BBC's former anchor and moderator Nik Gowing, " That the motion, 'Freedom of expression is in imminent danger' was declared to be carried.
India House laughs out on the tyranny, when biased foreign media, the BBC's anchor, is given the choiced liberty to present one tarnished image of Modi led Resurging India, in the name of "'Freedom of Expression?