Fire is a 1996 Indo-Canadian erotic romantic drama film written and directed by Deepa Mehta, starring Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das.

[4][5] After its 1998 release in India, activists staged several protests, setting off a flurry of public dialogue around issues such as homosexuality and freedom of speech.

Jatin is in a typical joint-family arrangement – he lives with his older brother Ashok, his sister-in-law Radha, his paralysed mother Biji and the family servant Mundu.

Many years ago, Ashok had come under the influence of Swamiji, a local religious preacher, who teaches that desires are the cause of suffering and must be suppressed.

On 2 December, more than 200 Shiv Sainiks stormed a Cinemax theatre in suburban Goregaon in Mumbai,[12] smashing glass panes, burning posters and shouting slogans.

Mina Kulkarni, one of the Delhi protesters explained the reasoning behind their actions: "If women's physical needs get fulfilled through lesbian acts, the institution of marriage will collapse, reproduction of human beings will stop".

[10] Bajrang Dal workers with lathis invaded Rajpalace and Rajmahal in Surat, breaking up everything in sight and driving away frightened audiences.

[18][better source needed] On 5 December a group of film personalities and free speech activists, including Deepa Mehta, Indian movie star Dilip Kumar, and director Mahesh Bhatt, submitted a 17-page petition to the Supreme Court asking that a "sense of security" be provided, in addition to basic protection, so that the film could be screened smoothly.

[20] On being asked the reason for discomfort, Dilip Kumar said that he has not seen the film and was not much concerned about its content but rather the kind of vandalism that takes place on their cultural life, whenever such issue comes up.

[21] On 7 December, Mehta led a candlelit protest in New Delhi with activists from 32 organisations, including CALERI, against the withdrawal of Fire, carrying placards, shouting anti-Shiv Sena slogans and crying for the freedom of right to expression.

[22] On 12 December about 60 Shiv Sena men stripped down to their underwear and squatted in front of Dilip Kumar's house to protest his support of Fire.

[24] Cinemax reopened screenings of Fire on 18 December, but a hundred members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vandalised posters at the Sundar Theatre in Kanpur despite the police commissioner's reassurance that protection has been arranged.

[31][32][33] Other politicians of the Hindu right voiced fears that the film would "spoil [Indian] women" and younger generations by teaching "happy wives not to depend on their husbands" and informing the public about "acts of perversion".

[34] Speaking on the dangers of Fire, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray compared lesbianism to "a sort of a social AIDS" which might "spread like an epidemic".

[20][37] Critics charged the Shiv Sena of committing "cultural terrorism"[32] and of using the rhetoric of "Indian tradition" to protest images of female independence and suppress freedom of speech:[38] "The justification for [Shiv Sena's] action... demonstrates that Indian 'culture' for the Sangh Parivar is defined essentially in terms of male control over female sexuality".

Noted Indian feminist authors Mary E. John and Tejaswini Niranjana wrote in 1999 that Fire reduces patriarchy to the denial and control of female sexuality.

But by taking this idea literally, the film imprisons itself in the very ideology it seeks to fight, its own version of authentic reality being nothing but a mirror image of patriarchal discourse.

(1999:582) Whatever subversive potential Fire might have had (as a film that makes visible the 'naturalised' hegemony of heterosexuality in contemporary culture, for example) is nullified by its largely masculinist assumption that men should not neglect the sexual needs of their wives, lest they turn lesbian (1999:583).

Madhu Kishwar, then-editor of Manushi, wrote a highly critical review of Fire, finding fault with the depiction of the characters in the film as a "mean spirited caricature of middle class family life among urban Indians".