Free speech being censored in different ways & forms: Amol Palekar

Mumbai: Actor-filmmaker Amol Palekar and his wife Sandhya Gokhale said Anita Rupavataram, director of the Mumbai chapter of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), was “under pressure” to prevent him from speaking freely at the opening of ‘Inside the Empty Box’, a retrospective on artist Prabhakar Barwe.

“We were told by the curator after my speech was interrupted that she was told by the director that I would not be permitted to make any antigovernment statements. It was clear that the director was under pressure,” Palekar told a press conference in Pune on Sunday.

Palekar, who addressed the press conference with Sandhya, didn’t identify any political outfit for stifling dissent, but said that free speech was being censored in different ways and forms. They said it was not about blaming any party but about intolerance to anti-establishment views.


Palekar said individual freedom and free speech have been facing attacks in the recent past. The duo has filed a case in the Bombay High Court, challenging how only the Maharashtra and Gujarat governments are asking for plays to be certified before being allowed to perform.

On Friday, he was interrupted repeatedly while criticising the ministry of culture for reportedly scrapping the advisory committees at the gallery’s Mumbai and Bengaluru centres.

NGMA director-general Adwaita Gadanayak issued a statement on Sunday, saying the advisory committees have not been dissolved and that their terms had ended. The new advisory committees will take decisions relating to future exhibitions. In reaction to Palekar’s criticism that the works of previous advisory committees are not being honoured, the statement said the recommendations would be honoured and exhibitions of artists will happen as proposed.