The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : OF CINEMA AND CENSORSHIP

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Monday, Oct 18, 2004

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OF CINEMA AND CENSORSHIP

IN HIS BRIEF and aborted career as Chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Anupam Kher, tended to behave as if he were the custodian of Indian morality. His attitude was redolent of prudishness and he was an unapologetic votary of a tough form of censorship. His statements suggested he was in favour of, or at least comfortable with, the National Democratic Alliance Government's attempts at moral policing. He had campaigned strongly against the airing of `offensive' music videos and adult movies on television and is reported to have pressed for the Censor Board to be allowed to have a role in regulating content in this medium. The CBFC was also in the eye of a storm over Final Solutions, the award-winning documentary on the Gujarat pogrom; a censor certificate was initially refused for the film and clearance came only after a six-month battle by the director. Mr. Kher's tenure as chairman of the Censor Board is thus pretty much indefensible. But the manner of his removal could have been more graceful. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which has appointed actress Sharmila Tagore to succeed him, has chosen to be tight-lipped about the reasons for effecting the change. As a result, the field has been left open to conspiracy theorists who have given the incident a sensationalist political twist.

Mr. Kher is not the first Censor Board Chairman to be shown the door. His predecessor, Vijay Anand, was coerced by the NDA Government to put in his papers for recommending that pornographic films be given certificates for exhibition in dedicated theatres. Mr. Anand had argued that since the country was unable to control the business of sex films, it would be sensible to regulate it. If the previous dispensation felt that Mr. Anand's views were shockingly avant-garde, it is entirely possible that the present Government felt that Mr. Kher's attitude to the question of censorship and cinema was backward-looking, even reactionary.

At a different level, Mr. Kher's exit raises two issues. The first relates to the need for those who decide what films the public should see to adopt a more liberal and progressive attitude. Over the years, the Censor Board — which is constituted under the Cinematograph Act, 1952, "for the purpose of sanctioning films for public exhibition" — has been in frequent conflict with filmmakers and the film-going public. It has taken decisions that have shown it up as being too priggish (example: it objected to Nagesh Kukunoor's Hyderabad Blues because the word "blue" could be misleading), too arbitrary (Mahesh Bhatt's Zakhm, which went on to win an award for national integration, was initially refused a censor certificate on the ground it could promote `communal disharmony'), and too confused (double entendres and titillating dance sequences are routinely cleared while a close embrace between two adults may attract the scissor). The second issue relates to the need to ensure that appointments to Censor Boards are apolitical and that their functional autonomy is not impaired in any way. A bumbling but autonomous Censor Board is better than a system where the Government decides which films can be screened in cinemas and which will remain in the cans. The recent controversy over Prasar Bharati's refusal to screen Prakash Jha's film on Jayaprakash Narayan without cuts is a reminder that the political sensitivities of those in power should not be allowed to determine the content of cinema or become the basis for censorship.

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