Meherjaan is a Bangladeshi film directed by Rubaiyat Hossain. It was released last month and was receiving positive response from the critics. However, the movie is not being received positively by the Bangladeshi people itself. So much so that the distributors have decided to pull off the film from all the cinemas of Bangladesh.
The movie is basically set in Bangladesh in the tough times of 1971 when Bangladesh was fighting for its liberation. The movie is about a love story between a Bangladeshi girl Meherjaan and a Pakistani soldier. The Pakistani soldier gets court martialled for refusing to participate in war crimes and atrocities. Jaya Bachchan and Victor Banerjee are part of the film cast which also attracted many serious film lovers.
But Bangladeshi audience is outraged and feel that the movie is degrading the sacrifices and wounds of the Bangladeshi women in particular. People are angry that why are they highlighting a love story of this sort when we know that at least 200,000 Bangladeshi women were raped by Pakistani soldiers at that time and at least 3 million Bangladeshis lost their lives at the hands of Pakistani soldiers.
Four famous writers of Bangladesh wrote how this love story is demeaning the sufferings at the time of liberation war. One of the writer women was herself raped by a Pakistani soldier at that time. They feel this movie is an insult and a form of deception. Thus, the angry sentiments can not be reasoned with.
This was the first time a Bangladeshi film was being recognized by critics and now it is being pulled off from cinemas. The crew is being targeted in the form of a hate campaign for making this movie. The crew find this behavior irrational that everybody thinks that all Pakistanis were butchers and that there cannot be a single Pakistani soldier who could be good natured and who could rebel against the normal situation.
Well, for Bangladesh this is a sensitive topic. They cannot forget the bad times and the suffering during 1971. It is true they suffered badly and till this day they hold a grudge against Pakistanis. Thus, Meherjaan, despite promoting a different view is not going to be accepted by the people of Bangladesh. From the looks of it, the movie did seem pretty decent though. But we appreciate the filmmakers for looking at things from a different angle too. It is true that there will always be a few people who will look at things in a different way.
