'From Where I Come, Kaali Is...': Leena Manimekalai Speaks Out Against Film Row, Says She 'Isn't Safe'

Amid FIRs registered against Canada-based film-maker Leena Manimekalai for allegedly hurting religious sentiments with her depiction of the Hindu Goddess Kali in her documentary film, the director said ‘she did not feel safe anywhere in the world’.

Taking a stance against censorship, Leena said she was raised as a Hindu in Tamil Nadu but was now an atheist, and denied that her film was disrespectful to the goddess or to Hinduism. She defended her right to cultural freedom and artistic expression, saying she “vehemently opposes censorship from within and without,” according to a report by the Guardian.

“In rural Tamil Nadu, the state I come from, Kaali is believed to be a pagan goddess. She eats meat cooked in goat’s blood, drinks arrack, smokes beedi [cigarettes] and dances wild … that is the Kaali I had embodied for the film,” she said, the report stated.

Manimekalai said she, her family, and collaborators had received threats from more than 200,000 accounts online in the days since the film’s poster went viral, describing it as a “grand-scale mass lynching” by rightwing Hindu groups.

“I have all rights to take back my culture, traditions and texts from the fundamentalist elements. These trolls have nothing to do with religion or faith,” she said, according to the report.

“It feels like the whole nation wants to censor me,” said Manimekalai. “I do not feel safe anywhere at this moment.”

The Toronto-based director is facing FIRs in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Bhopal.

Mahua Moitra, MP from Krishnanagar, also got embroiled in the controversy when she said at a conclave, in response to the row over the “Kaali” poster, that she had every right as an individual to imagine Goddess Kali as a meat-eating and alcohol-accepting deity, as each person had his or her unique way of offering prayers.

Meanwhile, priest at Hanumangarhi temple in Ayodhya threatened to behead filmmaker Leena Manimekalai. In a video statement addressed to the Toronto-based director, Mahant Raju Das said, “Do you want that your head be separated from your body.”

Das also claimed that if this film is released, it will create a situation that will go out of control. Reacting over Das’ controversial video statement, Ayodhya Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Varma told PTI, “We have received such a video and the matter is being investigated.”

As controversy swirled over the poster of the film, yet to be seen by most people, the embattled filmmaker termed Twitter’s decision to pull down her tweet hilarious and asked whether the social media platform would also withhold posts by “hate mongers”.

While Twitter pulled down Manimekalai’s tweet on the matter in response to “a legal demand”, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto that was supposed to show Kaali at an event expressed regret and removed the documentary from its list of films being presented. There were political ripples too.

The Aga Khan Museum here has said it “deeply regrets” causing offence to members of the Hindu and other faith communities and has removed the presentation of the documentary Kaali’, after the Indian mission in Ottawa urged the Canadian authorities to take down all “provocative material” related to the controversial film.

Toronto-based filmmaker Leena Manimekalai shared the poster of her documentary Kaali’ on Twitter on Saturday which shows the goddess smoking and holding an LGBTQ flag in her hand. The poster led to a social media storm with the hashtag ‘Arrest Leena Manimekalai’, and allegations that the filmmaker had hurt religious sentiments. A member of a group going by the name Gau Mahasabha’ said he had filed a complaint with Delhi Police.

Responding to the uproar on Twitter, the museum said in a statement that it deeply regrets that Kaali had “inadvertently caused offence to members of the Hindu and other faith communities.”

Toronto Metropolitan University brought together works from students of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, each student exploring their individual sense of belonging as part of Canadian multiculturalism for the project Under the Tent’, it said on Tuesday. Toronto Metropolitan University’s project presentation was hosted once at the Aga Khan Museum on July 2, 2022 in the context of the Museum’s mission to foster intercultural understanding and dialogue through the arts, it said.

Respect for diverse religious expressions and faith communities forms an integral part of that mission. The presentation is no longer being shown at the Museum, the statement read. The Museum deeply regrets that one of the 18 short videos from Under the Tent’ and its accompanying social media post have inadvertently caused offence to members of the Hindu and other faith communities, it added.

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