Give a dog a bad name and hang him ! - Chaplain saga

That is exactly what is happening to the BJP Government in Karnataka. In the Chaplain row issue, film director Hemant Hegde sought to put up a permenant statute ( note Permenant) in in Baindur, near Udupi in coastal Karnataka.

The other important aspectst to be noted are that

• Hemant Hegde seeks to use this statue as a prop in a song sequence
• Seeks Rupees 30 Lakh from sources to put up a permenant statue
• Hemant Hegde has little to lose. He sources money through contributions/donations. He anyway does not live in Baindur to put up with the statue permenantly.

One might, reasonably, presume that the location has been chosen by Hemant Hegde keeping the backdrop to the context of the film ( well, to err on the safer side, I am giving credit to the director).

The local people of Baindur have objected to its installation. The question is "do the local people have no say if a permenant statue is to come up in their area ?"

The controversy begins at the second point that Hemant Hegde claims that Charlie Chaplain's statue was objected to "because he was a Christian". All news channel dutifully carry the allegation and blow up the story in the context of previous events in Udupi District.

The "christian" remark is not attributed to any individual of standing.No names are raised.

Even assuming that someone had made such a remark, it can only be innocous, to suggest that a Charlie Chaplain statue has no relevance to the local area and at any rate he does not hail from Dakshina Kannada /Karnataka or India.

It can be an as innocous reference to , let us say, a foreign personality, as the Greogorian calendar is referred to as the "English Calendar" or Allopathic medicine as "English Medicine".

People of Dakshina Kannada district will probably not consider a George Fernandes or Oscar Fernandes a "christian" nor object to their statues being installed ( of course, in India till Mayawati it was not the culture to install statues of living persons).

Give a dog a bad name and hang him !