A folk song on Madhya Pradesh farmers’ plight was banned a day before it was to be performed by a group of schoolgirls as part of their Independence Day celebrations at school.
The Government MLB School girls were diligently rehearsing their steps to the song when the Chhatarpur district Collector ordered the school to omit it from the list of performances on Wednesday.
Scripted in a local dialect, the song talks about the ordeal of drought-hit farmers whose crops are destroyed due to insufficient rains, which often leads them to commit suicide.
However, no sooner than the District Collector, Superintendent of Police and senior officials saw the rehearsals on Tuesday that they asked the school authorities to do away with the song.
Not only the girls, the lyricist and singer of the song have also been left disappointed as they believe that there is nothing objectionable in the song.
Opposition Congress was quick to criticise the move. Leader of Opposition, Ajay Singh asked the Collector whether it was a free country or a fascist state. “Do we have any freedom of expression or we do we need to ask those in power to express ourselves,” questioned Singh.
Chhatarpur district is part of the Bundelkhand region that is a perennially parched geographical region between Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Drought, crop destruction and farmers’ woes are quite common in the area, often leading to suicides.
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