DD to screen 'Ram Ke Naam
By Vidyadhar Date The Times of India News Service

Doordarshan has finally agreed to screen Anand Patwardhan's award-winning film Ram Ke Naam, on Sunday at 9.30 p.m. on DD-1.

DD is obliged to telecast national award winning films. But it has always dragged its feet on screening all of Mr Patwardhan's award-winning films because of their hard-hitting content. On each occasion Mr Pat-wardhan has had to move the courts to exercise his right.

In the case of Ram Ke Naam DD agreed to televise the film after a legal battle which ended with a recommendation byjustice A.P. Shah of the Bombay high court. He stated that the film be shown in view of its powerful message of communal harmony. He further suggested that it be shown on DD 1 which has the maximum viewership. DD initially decided to screen it on DD-2 but it was only after protests by the film-maker that it is now to be broadcast on DD 1.

Justice Shah had observed in his judgment that "The entire structure of the film is based on the ideology of social justice for lower classes and castes. The film presents the Rarrijan-mabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute not as a Hindu-Muslim problem but as a secular world view vs non-secular world view." The protagonists in the film are neither Muslims nor Hindus but Indians, specially the poor and the working class."

The judge said "A powerful plea for communal amity and co-exis tence is structurally incorporated in the film. Throughout the film, those who are intolerant and those who spread hatred in the name of God are condemned." The film was made before the demolition of the Babrl Masjid on December 6,1992

Excerpts from the Judgement

What followed the Judgement