When did we turn into a country that has a problem with propaganda? Are we so thin-skinned that we can no longer give mediocre filmmakers a chance to make a living just because we find their substandard work offensive? What is to become of these talentless men if we stop offering them our support? If filmmakers are to be attacked merely for lying or using their work to incite communal violence, isn’t that an indictment of who we are as citizens of a New India? Is this the kind of audience we intend to become?

These are questions that have occupied me over the past few weeks, following reports of yet another filmmaker being pulled up by critics merely for making a film about something that never happened in the state of Kerala. The poor man, and those who chose to act in his brave parody of a feature film, were vilified online. If this were to happen only because the movie was among the worst made in our country’s history, it would have been okay, but the reason had nothing to do with its poor quality and everything to do with what some people chose to describe as ‘propaganda.’