The Hindu : The stamp of (dis)approval

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 28, 2003

Opinion

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The stamp of (dis)approval

The Government has put various policing mechanisms in place at different levels, says Anita Joshua.

MUCH HAS been made of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry's recent move asking all television channels to strictly adhere to the provisions of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, and ensure that films, music videos, and even promos beamed through their platforms are certified by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). While this letter was just a reiteration of a provision that is over five decades old, and the Ministry has been shouting itself hoarse quoting this in the wake of the hue and cry over "censorship", various "policing" mechanisms have been put in place at different levels.

Why, even in its policy for Direct-to-Home (DTH) television, the Government has mandated that only Indian satellites should be used. The reason: the Government will be able to switch off a channel or an entire operation in case of a violation of the Programme Code. So particular is the Government in this regard that when Star TV secured permission to use a foreign private satellite till a higher powered INSAT was in the orbit, the agreement stipulated that the channel would subscribe to the Code right through the interim arrangement.

The Programme Code for TV channels — transmitted/re-transmitted through cable networks — also stipulates that no programme that contravenes the provisions of the Cinematograph Act, or is not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition, can be shown through the cable network.

The Government has not been averse to taking on more powers as was witnessed during the run-up to the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) when its Films Division mandated that Indian films would need a CBFC certificate for entering the festival. Since no such clause was applicable to foreign entries, the argument that the Films Division and the Ministry put forward was that the certification was necessary only to establish the date of completion of the film, and was not an attempt at censoring.

However, since this clause of the Cinematograph Act had never been invoked in the festival's 13-year existence, documentary filmmakers saw it as an attempt to screen all the Indian entries; particularly in view of the fact that the 2004 edition was the first to be organised after the Gujarat carnage. While the threat of boycott by Indian film-makers and the fear that they may succeed in getting their counterparts from overseas to also stay away saw the Ministry beat a tactical retreat, the dominant view within favours some form of screening of festival-bound Indian entries to "cleanse" them of incendiary content.

In fact, till the documentary film-makers gave their boycott call and pronounced their decision to ask foreign participants to follow suit for the cause of freedom of expression, the Ministry had been advocating a mechanism to monitor the content of films entered in "official festivals". But for the fear of the controversy giving India a bad name overseas at a time when efforts are being made to make the country an international entertainment hub, the Ministry might not have relented. Prior to the boycott call, the Ministry had for a good month turned a deaf ear to criticism both within and outside Parliament.

Such is the eagerness to police expression that in 2002, Vijay Anand resigned as the CBFC Chairman after the Ministry frowned on his support to a suggestion that the exhibition of pornographic films in designated theatres be legalised. He had not made a formal recommendation to the effect, but only said there was merit in the suggestion because such films do find their way into the market; even theatres. But it was enough to attract the wrath of the then Minister, Sushma Swaraj.

To be fair to the current dispensation at the Centre, it is not just the saffron brigade that likes to don the mantle of the cultural police. Only recently, the Left Front in West Bengal decided to ban Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen's book Dwikhandita as it feared that communal harmony would be disturbed. So time and again, it has been proved that given a chance, the powers that be — whatever the colour of their politics — are not shy of running the scissors through what they perceive as objectionable. Of course in the name of public good.

So what if the proscribed stuff — be it literature or films — finds its way get back into circulation? More so now than ever before it is possible courtesy the Internet — as is the case with Ms. Nasreen's book, which has been posted on the web to defy the ban. And, more often than not, the controversy that such policing invariably kicks up gives the objectionable material a longer lease of life and a greater audience, thereby defeating the very rationale behind the move. The eminently forgettable "Ek Chhoti Si Love Story" is a perfect case in point though here it was not the state but the Shiv Sena that sought to become the custodian of Indian morality.

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