Last modified on Thu 14 Jan 2021 07.51 EST
Up to a million Hindu pilgrims have gathered on the banks of the River Ganges in northern India, marking the start of a major religious festival that is taking place despite the risks of Covid infection.
Millions more are expected to descend on Haridwar in the coming weeks for Kumbh Mela, one of the world’s biggest religious gatherings. Pilgrims bathe in the Ganges in the belief that the sacred waters will cleanse them of their sins.
Officials have said measures to prevent a surge in Covid infections include pre-booking to control numbers, strict social distancing and colour-coded bathing areas. “The pandemic is a bit of a worry, but we are taking all precautions,” said one of the organisers, Siddharth Chakrapani.
Chadha dismissed the criticism as an example of “cancel culture” and urged her critics to see past the poster and appreciate the film’s “progressive and transformative” theme.
Political theorist and author Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd said caste prejudice was so ingrained that those who created the image ignored the fact that Mayawati was educated and worked as a teacher before becoming, as leader of the Bahujan Samaj party, the first woman chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. She served four terms.
“The director’s casteist mind and absolute stupidity [meant he] did not see her image with a human eye, rather he saw her image with a caste eye. Bollywood is so full of such casteist and foolish minds that they can hardly be expected to make what this film claims to be: a socially relevant and transformative film,” said Shepherd.