New Delhi: Several notable personalities including documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, activist Anand Teltumbde and journalist Josy Joseph among others have condemned the Kerala government’s acceptance of the Union government ban on six films that were part of the International Film Festival of Kerala’s roster.While the Union government had initially censored 19 films, the Kerala government, in defiance of the order, had announced that it would go ahead with the screening of all banned films.“When the BJP-led central government of India refused permission to the CPM-led Kerala government’s international film festival to screen 19 films, which included Battleship Potemkin and several Palestinian films, [it] was no surprise. Intolerance and censorship has been the hallmark of Modi rule,” the statement said.However, the Union government later allowed the screening of 13 of the 19 films, with the Kerala government accepting the ban on the remaining six.“Those of us who have always opposed censorship at film festivals welcomed this defiance against a centrally imposed political and artistic diktat…What shocked and dismayed us is that the Kerala government backtracked its defiance by agreeing to this ban on 6 films,” the statement said.“We the undersigned condemn this act of censorship by the Central government and the capitulation by the Kerala government. Apart from the issue of censorship, we appeal to the conscience of all Indians who stand up against genocide and genocide deniers,” it added.The statement in full is produced below.§We believe that Kerala government-run festivals are much better than in most parts of the country and yet we must fight so that they don’t internalise the pernicious language of censorship and so that they too prefer to challenge rather than acquiesce.When the BJP-led central government of India refused permission to the CPM-led Kerala government’s international film festival to screen 19 films which included Battleship Potemkin and several Palestinian films, that was no surprise. Intolerance and censorship has been the hallmark of Modi rule. As international scorn poured in, what came as a breath of fresh air was an announcement from the Kerala government that it had taken a stand to show these films despite the objections of the centre. Those of us who have always opposed censorship at film festivals welcomed this defiance against a centrally imposed political and artistic diktat. The centre immediately did damage control by unbanning 13 films including Battleship Potemkin but retaining the ban on 6 films including several Palestinian films. What shocked and dismayed us is that the Kerala government backtracked its defiance by agreeing to this ban on 6 films. Resul Pookutty, the Oscar-winning artistic director of the Kerala festival made a shocking statement on camera. He did not even state that the centre had arm-twisted the Kerala festival into censorship. He instead justified the deed by resorting to the usual “anti-national” rhetoric that the BJP is famous for. He claimed that showing these films would jeopardise foreign policy and national security ! We the undersigned condemn this act of censorship by the Central government and the capitulation by the Kerala government. Apart from the issue of censorship, we appeal to the conscience of all Indians who stand up against genocide and genocide deniers. Signed by Concerned CitizensAnand Patwardhan, Rakesh Sharma, Sanjiv Shah, Kasturi Basu, Amudhan RP, Surabhi Sharma, Pankaj Rishikumar, Joshy Joseph, Yousuf Saeed, Ziya ur Salaam, Anand Teltumbde, Nancy Adajania, Mridula Garg, Ranjan Palit, Vasudha Joshi, Anjali Monteiro, KP Jaishankar, Saba Dewan, PM Satheesh, Sudha Padmaja Francis, Kamal K M, Prateek Vats Shahrukhkhan Chavada, Ronny Sen, Subhadra Mahajan, Varun Grover, Harshad Nalawade, Natesh Hegde, Indranil Roychowdhury, Krishand, Anuparna Roy, Akshay Indikar, Manjeet Singh, Bauddhayan Mukherji, Satyanshu Singh, Bhaskar Hazarika, Ashim Ahluwalia, Harsh Agarwal, Honey Trehan, Devashish Makhija, Kabir Singh Chowdhury, Fahad Mustafa, Vinod Kamble, Rohan Kanawade, Karan Gour, Abhilash Shetty, Chhatrapal Ninawe, Aditya Kripalani, Jitendra Adappa, Shazia Iqbal, Diwa Shah, Farha Khatun, Anshuman Jha, Kamil Shaikh, Dibakar Das Roy, Sankhajit Biswas, Karan Tejpal, Mona Lisa Mukherji, Aditya Vikram Sengupta, Tanuja Chandra, Sudhanshu Saria, Rima Das, Sumit Purohit, Pushpendra Singh, Mudit Singhal, Praba Mahajan, Kabeer Khurana, Irfan Engineer and Ramesh Sharma.