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Fire — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Controversies and reaction

Fire was passed uncut by India's Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in May 1998 with a rating of Adult, the only condition being that the name of the character Sita (which is also the name of a significant Hindu goddess) be changed to Nita. The board allowed the original name back after more consideration. The board made their decision based on what it called the importance of the story for Indian women. The film was first screened on 13 November 1998 and ran to full houses in 42 theaters in most metropolitan cities throughout India for almost three weeks.

On 2 December, more than 200 Shiv Sainiks stormed a Cinemax theatre in suburban Goregaon in Mumbai, smashing glass panes, burning posters and shouting slogans. They compelled managers to refund tickets to moviegoers. On 3 December, the Regal theatre in Delhi was similarly stormed. American film critic William Arnold, in India doing a feature on the Bollywood Cinema, witnessed the Regal rampage and later reported: "I watched about a dozen Shiv Sena activists−including three women with canes−threaten the terrified manager, disperse the line of moviegoers, smash ticket booth and display windows, then force their way into the theater, smashing the food counter and terrorizing patrons. Outside, other Shiv Sena tore up the film's posters and billboards and set them ablaze in a bonfire." He added, "Apparently, this opening was particularly offensive to them because the Regal was a sacred site of Hindu supremacy: the spot where, 49 years ago, Gandhi's assassins−ex-members of the Shiv Sena's parent organization, the RSS−met on the fateful morning of the murder in January 1948."

Mina Kulkarni, one of the Delhi protesters, explained the reasoning behind their actions: "If women's physical needs get fulfilled through lesbian acts, the institution of marriage will collapse, reproduction of human beings will stop". Bajrang Dal workers with lathis invaded Raj Palace and a few other theatres in Surat, breaking up everything in sight and driving away frightened audiences. Some of the rioters set fire to theatres screening the film.

Theatres in Surat and Pune stopped screening the film on the same day. However, when attackers attempted to shut down a screening in Calcutta, ushers and audience fought back and the theatre stayed open. Maharashtra's Chief Minister, Manohar Joshi, supported the actions to shut down screenings of Fire: "I congratulate them for what they have done. The film's theme is alien to our culture".

On 4 December, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting referred the film back to the CBFC for re-examination. The Indian government was criticised for siding with the vandals. On 5 December a group of film personalities and free speech activists, including Deepa Mehta, actor Dilip Kumar, and director Mahesh Bhatt, submitted a petition to the Supreme Court asking that a "sense of security" be provided, in addition to basic protection, so that the film could be screened smoothly. The petition referenced articles 14, 19, 21 and 25 of the Indian Constitution, which promise many of the fundamental rights like the right to equality, life and liberty, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of conscience, free expression of religious practice and belief, and the right to hold peaceful meetings. On being asked the reason for discomfort, Kumar said that he had not seen the film and was not much concerned about its content but rather the kind of vandalism that takes place on their cultural life, whenever such issues comes up.

On 7 December, activists from 32 organisations, including Campaign for Lesbian Rights (CALERI), protested against the withdrawal of Fire, carrying placards, shouting anti-Shiv Sena slogans and crying for the freedom of right to expression. On 12 December about 60 Shiv Sena men stripped down to their underwear and squatted in front of Kumar's house to protest his support of Fire. Twenty-two were arrested, and Kumar, as well as others involved in the production of the film, were provided with police security.

Cinemax reopened screenings of Fire on 18 December, but 100 members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vandalised posters at the Sundar Theatre in Kanpur despite the police commissioner's reassurance that protection had been arranged. Fire was re-released without cuts by the Censor Board on 12 February 1999. Theatre screenings were resumed on 26 February and continued without incident.

Reception

In the weeks following its release, reviewers praised the film's explicit depiction of a homosexual relationship as "gutsy" and "explosive". Following the Shiv Sena attacks on the film, prominent party members said Fire had been targeted because it was an "immoral and pornographic" film "against Indian tradition and culture". The lesbian relationship depicted in the film was criticised as "not a part of Indian history or culture". Other politicians of the Hindu right voiced fears that the film would "spoil [Indian] women" and younger generations by teaching "happy wives not to depend on their husbands" and informing the public about "acts of perversion". Speaking on the dangers of Fire, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray compared lesbianism to "a sort of a social AIDS" which might "spread like an epidemic". Furthermore, Thackeray claimed that the film was an attack on Hinduism because the protagonists were named Sita and Radha, both significant goddesses in Hindu belief, and that he would withdraw his objections to the film if the names were changed to Muslim names.

A statement issued from the Shiv Sena's women's wing said: "If women's physical needs get fulfilled through lesbian acts, the institution of marriage will collapse, reproduction of human beings will stop". Critics charged the Shiv Sena of committing "cultural terrorism" and of using the rhetoric of "Indian tradition" to protest images of female independence and suppress freedom of speech: "The justification for [Shiv Sena's] action... demonstrates that Indian 'culture' for the Sangh Parivar is defined essentially in terms of male control over female sexuality".

Gay activist Ashok Row Kavi criticised the Shiv Sena's protests as "gay-bashing" and disputed their claims that lesbianism was "against Indian tradition", indicating that homosexuality is in fact abundantly present in Hinduism and that the criminalisation of homosexuality in India was a legacy of British colonial rule and Christianity. Pointing to evidence of lesbianism in Indian tradition, he said: "What's wrong in two women having sex? If they think it doesn't happen in the Indian society they should see the sculptures of Khajuraho or Konark".

Madhu Kishwar, then-editor of Manushi, wrote a highly critical review of Fire, finding fault with the depiction of the characters in the film as a "mean-spirited caricature of middle-class family life among urban Indians". She claimed that homosexuality was socially accepted in India as long as it remained a private affair, adding that Deepa Mehta "did a disservice to the cause of women... by crudely pushing the Radha-Sita relationship into the lesbian mould", as women would now be unable to form intimate relationships with other women without being branded as lesbians.

Feminist critics of Mehta's films argue that Mehta's portrayal of women and gender relations is over-simplified. Noted Indian feminist authors Mary E. John and Tejaswini Niranjana wrote in 1999 that Fire reduces patriarchy to the denial and control of female sexuality. The authors make the point that the film traps itself in its own rendering of patriarchy:

Control of female sexuality is surely one of the ideological planks on which patriarchy rests. But by taking this idea literally, the film imprisons itself in the very ideology it seeks to fight, its own version of authentic reality being nothing but a mirror image of patriarchal discourse. Fire ends up arguing that the successful assertion of sexual choice is not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition—indeed, the sole criterion—for the emancipation of women. Thus the patriarchal ideology of 'control' is first reduced to pure denial – as though such control did not also involve the production and amplification of sexuality – and is later simply inverted to produce the film's own vision of women's liberation as free sexual 'choice'.

Whatever subversive potential Fire might have had (as a film that makes visible the 'naturalised' hegemony of heterosexuality in contemporary culture, for example) is nullified by its largely masculinist assumption that men should not neglect the sexual needs of their wives, lest they turn lesbian.

The authors additionally argue that viewers must ask tough questions from films such as Fire that place themselves in the realm of "alternative" cinema and aim to occupy not only aesthetic, but also political space.

Mehta expressed frustration in interviews that the film was consistently described as a lesbian film. She said "lesbianism is just another aspect of the film... Fire is not a film about lesbians", but rather about "the choices we make in life".

Shohini Ghosh wrote a 2010 monograph about the film and the public response to it, titled Fire: A Queer Film Classic.

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