Even as the Maharashtra government went one step back on its move to fix a mandatory prime-time slot for Marathi films, author Shobhaa De continued to face protests for her stance over the issue on Thursday.
After a meeting between State Cultural Affairs Minister Vinod Tawde and representatives of multiplexes and Marathi film producers, it was announced that Marathi films could be screened on any one screen in multiplexes any time between 12 p.m. and 9 p.m., relaxing the earlier decision making it mandatory to screen Marathi films in the 6-9 p.m. slot.
Ms. De had opposed the move on twitter, leading to protests from the Shiv Sena, a partner in the ruling coalition.
Accusing Ms. De of insulting the State’s culture and cuisine (over her reference to popular Marathi snacks vada pav and dahi missal ), Sena activists reached the author’s doorstep raising slogans and presenting her with a platter of the two snacks. A smaller group from the Republican Party of India also staged a similar protest.
An editorial criticising Ms. De’s tweets, which termed the mandatory screening “ dadagiri, ” also appeared in the Sena mouthpiece Saamna . “Had Chhatrapati Shivaji, in his time, and Balasaheb Thackeray not done ‘dadagiri’, your forefathers and their children would have been born in Pakistan and you would have been attending Page 3 parties in a burqa,” it said.
Senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut also said that no Marathi would tolerate such statements.
But the author’s stance was echoed by actor Aamir Khan who said that instead of making laws on the subject, the government should let people decide what they want to watch.
And even as Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha described the protests against Ms. De as a bid to herald the launch of election campaigning for the BMC elections, and the BJP maintained a distance from the issue, the author herself remained undeterred by the developments.
De unfazedMs. De said while she took pride in being a Maharashtrian, she felt it was not necessary to assert it. “I have grown up eating vada pav and dahi missal , and why should my comments be taken as an insult? This is nothing but the Shiv Sena trying to get some publicity,” she told reporters.
She took to twitter yet again to take a dig at the demonstrations against her. “Thank you , Shiv Sena. Delicious!” she tweeted after Sena activists presented her with a platter of the popular Maharashtrian street food.
