A criminal on ZEE5’s show, Saheed Khudiram Bose surely deserved a better tribute!

“একবার বিদায় দে মা ঘুরে আসি।
হাসি হাসি পরব ফাঁসি দেখবে ভারতবাসী।”

Mother bid me farewell once, I will be back soon. The whole of India will watch me while I wear the noose smiling -so goes the immortal rendition of Pitambar Das on the life and times of Saheed Khudiram Bose.

At 18 years, 8 months, and 11 days of his life on earth, Khudiram Bose walked to the gallows for the sake of a free nation that we all inherited. Khudiram Bose was the youngest revolutionary freedom fighter, who was executed on August 11, 1908, for his role in the Muzaffarpur conspiracy case. Khudiram Bose, along with another freedom fighter Prafulla Chaki, had attempted to assassinate a British judge, Douglas Kingsford. Unfortunately, the bombs did not hit the judge’s carriage but hit a different one, leading to the death of two others. The inextinguishable fiery spirit of Khudiram Bose, a revolutionary extraordinaire, continues to inspire millions across our country till today.

On the eve of the 74th Independence Day, while the entire nation was celebrating the lives of all those great sons of our motherland who dedicated their lives for liberating our country from the clutches of the imperialist British regime, a huge row broke out on the social media vis-a-vis featuring of Saheed Khudiram’s picture among the pictures of petty criminals on a ZEE 5 produced web series called ABHAY -2.

On episode 2 of the web series, Saheed Khudiram’s monochrome picture can be clearly seen among the pictures of other supposedly fictitious criminals.

As the netizens erupted in anger and shock over such an irresponsible and reckless act on the part of the makers of the web series , we tried to get in touch with Ken Ghosh, director of the show, for his remarks over the controversy. As it turned out, the entire crew and cast of the show have decided to evade all questions relating to the controversy. It is worthy to point out that the twitter handle of video on demand streaming platform – ZEE5 has released a clarification in an attempt to douse the controversy. The tweet reads as follows –

“The producers, show & the platform, have no intention whatsoever to offend any community or hurt anybody’s sentiments. Keeping in mind the feedback received and with the utmost respect to our audience, we have blurred the image (inadvertently) used in one of the scenes of Abhay2.”

ZEE5 shared a statement with Barak Bulletin which read, “We unconditionally apologise for this error,” in addition to what has been tweeted earlier by the streaming platform.

While artistic freedom is of paramount importance in any liberal democracy, the makers of the web series will do well to remember the observation of the Supreme Court of India in a case relating to the usage of abusive words against Mahatma Gandhi.

“You cannot use abusive words for historical figures under the garb of artistic freedom. There is complete freedom for ideas but the freedom of speech and expression is not absolute. The Constitution provides restrictions and it is regulated freedom,” -a bench of Justices Deepak Mishra and Prafulla C Pant said.

While the alleged scenes have been blurred out from the web series, it is truly shocking to realize how filmmakers of considerable standing and repute have failed to recognize one of the greatest martyrs of our freedom struggle. On the 74th year of our Independence, Saheed Khudiram Bose surely deserved a better tribute.