The Hindu : Confronting censorship

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Confronting censorship

By Kalpana Sharma

The real worry for the future is the convergence between official and unofficial censorship. It would mean closure of democratic spaces, a virtual ban on expression that does not have the stamp of the "official" ideology.

THE SIGNIFICANCE of the two parallel film festivals held in Mumbai recently should not be missed. One of them was official, the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF), and the other unofficial, Vikalp: Films for Freedom. Over the course of the six days, when documentary films were screened in two contrasting locations across the street from each other, the issues that governed the choice of films almost became more important than the films themselves.

The arena of the battle, so to speak, was the documentary film. MIFF, held every two years, has, in the past, afforded documentary filmmakers a chance to showcase their work. The films screened have often included controversial ones, even those critical of the Government and its policies. For instance, Anand Patwardhan's "War and Peace", which criticises the Government's nuclear policy, has received a MIFF award as has Vasudha Joshi's documentary on the struggle against a test-firing range in Baliapal, Orissa. Such recognition has not automatically resulted in these films being cleared by the Censor Board or being telecast on national television. These are separate battles that each filmmaker has fought depending on his or her conviction. Yet the very fact that a festival run by a Government department recognised the value of even critical documentaries in the past shows what MIFF was all about. So, what happened in the last two years that resulted in a parallel festival being organised that drew more delegates than the official festival did?

Essentially, the confrontation between an official and an unofficial film festival is censorship, control and subversion. The initial battle lines were drawn between MIFF and around 250 independent documentary filmmakers last year when a new provision was introduced requiring all the entries to have certificates from the Central Board of Film Certification, or the Censor Board. Following widespread protest from these filmmakers, who came together as Campaign Against Censorship, this provision was withdrawn.

The story, however, did not end there. In the final selection of documentaries for MIFF, practically all the recent films made on the Gujarat carnage were excluded. Also ruled out were films dealing with sexuality and even one on the long struggle against the Sardar Sarovar Dam, a subject on which several films had been made in the past and screened at previous MIFFs.

So what were the organisers of MIFF afraid of? Why this sudden change of rules? We may never know whether they received orders from someone or whether these were the typical responses of bureaucrats who like to be seen as being more loyal than the king. But it is clear that in the last few years, independent documentary filmmakers are increasingly being perceived as a threat.

Documentary films have carved out a new, independent space for themselves. With increasing corporatisation of the media, both print and electronic, there are limited avenues for writing or recording the kind of events that took place in Gujarat. Sometimes, the event itself is recorded but the transient interest of an event-centred media moves on to other issues. It is then left to the documentary filmmaker to record the long-term consequences of such violent events on a whole society or the violence of developmental policy on the voiceless, those cut out from mainstream media and politics. Is it not ironic that while journalists writing on these issues get awards for reporting uncomfortable facts and for exposés on social issues, documentary filmmakers in India must seek recognition outside the country because there are few avenues for recognition within?

Predictably, events such as the ones in Gujarat have drawn the attention of several socially conscious filmmakers. Rakesh Sharma, for instance, has managed to gather precious material on the Gujarat carnage in his almost four-hour-long, four-part film, "Final Solution." The film recently won two prestigious awards at the 54th Berlin International Film Festival. This film is an invaluable document of what people did, said and thought of that horrific episode in our contemporary history. Its value lies in this. If such subjects are not captured at the point at which events take place, they are lost to history. And Mr. Sharma has provided us with that record. This is precisely why his film is seen as such a threat, because of what it reveals and exposes about that period. It also records how those events have affected an entire future generation in Gujarat, and the long-term consequences of such state-sponsored violence targeted at a minority. Mr. Sharma's was one of the 30 films rejected by MIFF.

The MIFF-Vikalp standoff bookmarks a more significant trend, one of backdoor censorship. This is neither official control, nor unofficial censorship that results in the sacking of art galleries or disruption of film screenings or demands to ban books. This is using the system to discourage and stop independent work. If the 250 filmmakers had not already come together earlier, MIFF might have got away with claiming that the 30 rejected films were works that were sub-standard or did not meet the MIFF criteria. But because the battle had already been joined earlier, such a stand could not be taken. On the contrary, even those who were on the MIFF selection committee came out openly during the festival to object to the manner in which they had been manipulated.

Yet despite this direct experience of backdoor censorship, there is no unanimity on how one confronts censorship, even amongst the filmmakers who organised Vikalp. This is an issue that clearly requires more thought and discussion amongst all those interested in strengthening democratic processes and institutions in India. There are many questions. For instance, should we oppose any kind of censorship? Is there equivalence between the Maharashtra Government banning James Laine's book on Shivaji and the Left Front Government in West Bengal banning Taslima Nasreen's book? Is freedom of expression only feasible if it is an unfettered right? Or are some checks acceptable? If they are, how do you control those given the authority to institute those checks, such as Censor Boards that have been known to be arbitrary? These are not issues that can be settled easily. While some believe that once you give in to one group demanding a ban you open the way for every section demanding similar action, there are others who hold that it is possible to fight the system and assert your constitutional rights. It is also true that people are selective when they speak of freedom of expression. For instance, not many progressive people in Maharashtra raised their voice against the banning of James Laine's book on Shivaji, or against the threat of the Raza Academy to blacken Salman Rushdie's face if he came to Mumbai again. Yet many of them rallied behind Vikalp and its challenge to the officials who run, or rather ruined, MIFF.

Arundhati Roy described Vikalp and documentary films as a "new political space that's opened up where art and politics meet beautifully." Will the India of the future allow this new political space to grow and flourish or will new ways be found to suppress these voices? Given the manner in which MIFF was organised this year, the future does not look particularly promising. But the fact that without any funds, an entire parallel film festival could be organised within a few weeks, and could draw dedicated crowds, indicates that there is a hunger for unvarnished, truthful information that is not being provided either by the official media or the so-called "independent" but corporate media. This is the space that independent documentary filmmakers occupy.

The real worry for the future is the convergence between official and unofficial censorship. The latter has now become almost routine in India. But when the official mimics this unofficial censor, then you have a problem on your hands. For what this suggests for the future is a closure of democratic spaces, a virtual ban on expression that does not have the stamp of the "official" ideology. The MIFF/Vikalp confrontation has basically exposed this reality — that "Shining India" and the "Final Solution" cannot coexist.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

RULING OUT HUMAN CLONING

DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS

Confronting censorship

E.U. and India — natural partners

Election year budgets

Not a wise move

IIM controversy

Nuclear proliferation

Valentine's Day