Since the beginning of this month, a number of cinema halls in Bangalore have remained closed following a government-imposed seven-week moratorium on the release of new non-Kannada films in Karnataka. For many, this is really bad news because there are a number of world class multiplexes here, and visiting them to catch up with the latest English or Hindi films is part of the weekly ritual. This is true especially for the young cosmopolitan tribe inhabiting the silicon city. Expectedly, this has set alarm bells ringing in Bollywood as well as in the Tamil and Telugu film industries, which have their share in Karnataka?s movie market.

The state government?s decision on the moratorium, imposed at the behest of the Kannada Film Producers? Association, is a pathetic attempt to revive the moribund Kannada film industry. It is really unfortunate that a state that has produced such fine film-makers as M.S. Sathyu and Girish Kasarvalli, has to resort to such a draconian move. In a country of myriad tongues, such parochialism on linguistic lines creates an ominous precedent. In the coming days, one should not be surprised to hear similar demands being made by the makers of Bhojpuri, Konkani, Punjabi, Assamese, or even Bengali cinema.

Over the years, as Hindi, and then American films, have claimed ever-increasing territories within the country, many regional cinemas that once catered to small local audiences have either folded up or are in a bad shape. In fact, this is a phenomenon happening all over the world in various forms of art and culture, especially in the field of visual arts. This year?s Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme, highlights the fact that ?countries are demanding that cultural goods (mainly cinema and audio-visual products) not be treated as any other goods in international trade since imports of cultural goods can weaken national cultural identities.?

But it is one thing to rally behind ?national cultural identities? and completely another to seek protection in the name of local cultural sentiments in the multi-cultural fabric of the Indian society. Hindi cinema, which is the bone of contention here, complicates the matter because of the art and circumstances where it situates itself. Over the years, so-called Bollywood movies have forged a sort of pan-Indian cultural identity.

It is debatable how much pan-Indian they really are, but there is no denying that a large swathe of the Indian population, cutting across language and other ethnic markers, have been able to connect culturally to its evolving genre. In fact, its overriding appeal has often been able to bypass powerful social and political considerations. The latest example is Manipur, where the only extremist action that has not found much popular support is the ban on Hindi movie channels in cable networks in Imphal. At the international level, Bollywood films were just as popular across the border in Pakistan when tension ran high between the two nations.

For the moment, let us shift our focus from Hindi cinema and zoom in on the larger cultural issues at stake here. In this age of globalization and expanding technologies, any move that attempts to block or ban the dissemination of a more powerful cultural artefact is both impracticable and counter-productive. Faster internet connectivity and incredible processing power of personal computers have made it possible for any kind of data, including complete feature films, to be downloaded. More important, blockades give fillip to piracy. In the end, the state stands to lose crores of rupees of revenue that it collects as entertainment tax.

But at a more fundamental level, any ban or moratorium curbs people?s cultural freedom that is so crucial in a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society. The Human Development Report 2004 refers to this issue in unambiguous terms: ?The solution is not to retreat to conservatism and isolationist nationalism ? it is to design multicultural policies to promote diversity and pluralism.?

But in a country like ours, with its unfolding history of competing cultural interests and identities, of negotiations and accommodations, designing multicultural policies to promote pluralism is a difficult task. Left to the state, they boil down to unjust protectionism of local cultures at the expense of others.

Again, let us take the example of cinema. In almost all states in India, the entertainment tax on national and international releases (read Hindi and English films) are many times higher than that levied on local films. In Karnataka, it was 70 per cent on non-Kannada films as against zero tax on Kannada films. The state government has recently brought down the former to 40 per cent, a move the local film producers have been vehemently protesting against.

More entertainment tax means that people would have to pay more if they chose to watch a film not made in the language of the region. It would have made sense had such disincentives forced them to watch more of local cinema. It would have made more sense had part of the revenue been spent on rejuvenating the local film industry.

But here again, we are on unsure ground. How does the state promote a popular art form that projects itself as an industry? The question brings us closer home, to West Bengal, where the state government had financed a number of so-called art films in the Eighties. A few years ago, an estimate was released where it was shown that around Rs 6 crore was given to six film directors for the development of Bengali cinema. In a state where basic public services languish due to lack of funds, such munificence could have been justified had it been able to achieve its desired goal. But what is the scene now after nearly two decades?

Since the very tall man of Indian cinema died in 1992, and Mrinal Sen almost stopped making films, it has been left to Rituparno Ghosh, Aparna Sen and a few others to make films that can properly be called Bengali cinema and which still draw people into movie theatres. Of course, the Gautam Ghoshes and the Buddhadeb Dasguptas are still there, making films and winning awards, but they can arguably be called makers of international cinema or festival cinema. The impact of their work on general viewers (read middle-class Bengalis who refer to films as ?boi?) is negligible. The rest is left to makers of very low-grade films with mushy themes who target the rural or mofussil audience. But perhaps these films should not be called Bengali cinema in the proper sense of the term as most of them are poor remakes of Hindi films. Except for the dialogues delivered, that too in strange and unfamiliar accents and syntax, nothing in most of these films are identifiably Bengali.

These kinds of films have their counterparts in other regional languages, especially the ones facing extinction owing to the challenges from Hindi or American cinema. Their desperate strategies for survival too follow a similar trajectory. On the one hand, they try to imitate the aggressors (Hindi, Hollywood or Tamil and Telugu as in the case of Kannada films). On the other hand, they raise the bogey of cultural invasion and arm-twist the state into taking protectionist measures.

Protecting this type of cinema is not the same as protecting indigenous and threatened art forms. A form of art, a cultural artefact, or even a language needs protection from extinction not because of any intrinsic value, but because they carry the civilizing ethos of a social group. Demanding bans or moratoriums, or defacing signboards and breaking glass panes, is a form of cultural hooliganism that does not issue out of that ethos.