I&B Minister Shri Manish Tewari's address on inauguration ceremony of 44th IFFI in Goa

Text of speech of I&B Minister Shri Manish Tewari inaugurating the 44th IFFI in Goa:

Chief Minister of Goa- Sh. Manohar Parrikar, Secy I&B, Bimal ji Julka, Susan Sarandon, distinguished members of the jury, Ladies & Gentlemen

 One year ago when I was given the privilege of being asked by the leadership to serve as India’s Minister for Information & Broadcasting an office which many believe is a hangover from the erstwhile socialist era, maybe perhaps increasingly becoming irrelevant to india’s emerging profile. However, one of the first tasks that I had to perform was to review the preparations for the 43rd. Edition of the International Film Festival of India  (IFFI) commemorating the centenary of the Indian film industry.

     It indeed intrigued me as to why was the government is in the business of organizing film festivals and that too not once but 44 times repeatedly if not consecutively. After all the Indian film industry had grown in spite and despite of successive governments. It rightly resents the probing obtrusiveness of officialdom.

     Should it not be the film industry in all it’s multi splendored brilliance that should really be reveling and toasting it’s own success by inviting the best in the world to soak in the salubrious climes of it’s agonies and ecstasies rather than government chaperoning the process?

    After thinking hard and deep I concluded that in organizing the film festivals, and we are doing three different festivals in this year alone what we really underscore and reiterate are the core values that define the very idea of india.

  What we really seek to reinforce are the values of pluralism, diversity, democracy, freedom of thought and expression and the ability to challenge the conventional that the founding fathers of the modern Indian state strived, struggled and stood for.

   An ethos that we have carefully nurtured over the past sixty-six years by embedding it in the collective psyche of our people.  Perhaps these thoughts were also in the heart and mind of India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru one of the foremost thought leaders of his generation as he ignited the torch of the film festival movement by inaugurating the first IFFI in 1952.

    What we reject with vehemence is any assault on these libertarian values that seek to constrain our liberal spaces, constrict freethinking, and circumscribe non- conformism that is the essence of the renewal and rejuvenation of the great human experiment.

   The twentieth century was witness to horrendous trials and tribulations. A century that saw the human mind elevating death and destruction to an industrial scale by using chemical, biological and nuclear science for weapons of mass destruction.  The first decade of the twenty first century has been no better with these and other instruments of death and destruction being honed to an efficiency that makes even ruthlessness blush with envy.

However all throughout this train of tragedy Cinema performed a yeoman role in celebrating the indestructibility and immortality of the human spirit. It provided soup to the soul and kinship to the kindred.

  Over the next ten days as we soak ourselves in the extravaganza that has been laid out I urge you to kindly reflect on the contribution that people of the arts and literature need to make to ensure that the values that underpin this effort are preserved, protected and persevered with so that we can build a world free of fear of monologues and monotheistic manifestations.

    As we go on with our lives let us not forget that the dark forces of obscurantism, reaction and subversion lurk ominously over the horizon armed with the zeal of vigilantism. For them and their ilk events such as these are the anti- thesis of the humbug, hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness that define their imbecile existence. A great evil still stalks our times. Let us not delude ourselves into subscribing to the optimistic naivety of Lord Neville Chamberlin that any compromise with the forces of darkness can buy us the peace of our times.

Ladies and Gentlemen eternal vigil is the price of liberty.

I hope all of you enjoy this festival.