PROJEKT iVIEW : Film and TV Censorship
iVIEW AUTHOR: RKS (Mumbai, India)
email: khullamkhulla [at] gmail.com
Film and TV Censorship
CBFC is the ‘Nithari’ of Indian cinema
The UPA government is out to de-fang and destroy the effectiveness of the audio-visual media in the name of preventing nudity, sleaze, indecency, etc. <>Some of the ignoramuses in the judiciary have become willing accomplices in this heinous conspiracy to gag the freedom of artistic expression. They want even the TV content to be censored by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). And we hear no voices of protest.
Why? The reasons for the abject capitulation are obvious.
TV Channels don’t care for the freedom of expression. They want the freedom to make money and they can buy their way about in the corridors of power. They will welcome a regulator to ensure that none among them jumps the gun and runs away with greater TRPs by showing kisses, asses, cleavages, and tits. They will be ever willing to tow the line prescribed by the judiciary and the government. They may protest and contest the procedure for operational reasons though.
<>Censorship does not deter filmmakers like Kanti Shah and Mahendra Dharival either from making their unique brand of harmless sleazy films like ‘Full Entry’, and ‘Kachhi Kali’. They desperately seek an A certificate. They will be happier if they are given a triple A certificate. It will get them buyers instantly in all the territories. They want CBFC to be there. They also know how to get the CBFC clearances. Anyway, they add the ‘bits’ to a film during its screening in remote Jhumri Talaiyaa far from the eyes of the CBFC.
Mahesh Bhatt, and the rest of his ilk, have no major quarrel with the CBFC since they are into the copying business now. Moreover, they are on the ‘politically correct’ side of the socio-political-cultural spectrum. The CBFC is ever willing to issue certificates to films that depict Modi as a monster but you cannot show M.K. Gandhi experimenting with truth or Sonia Gandhi being linked to Bofors payout.
Sooraj Brajatya, Karan Johar, Yash Chopra, Ravi Chopra, Susbhash Ghai, and other birds with silken feathers specialise in making the ‘family films’. They create star-studded extravaganzas and tell inane and juvenile stories that have neither historical, nor social or political relevance. The CBFC will never have problems with their kind of formula films.
Then we have filmmakers who specialise in comedies. The CBFC does not come in their way either. They have jokes that can have multiple interpretations. Now, how can you interpret a film’s title ‘Andheri Raat Mein Diya Tere Haanth Mein’? If it is a dark night you will obviously need a candle to find your way out.Who can be certain if the ‘diya’ referred to here is a ‘candle’ or an act of ‘giving’. And what is being given here? A dirty mind will have a dirty interpretation. Guys in the CBFC, headed by Sharmila Ji, jin ka naam hi sharmila hai, have very clean minds and a ‘diya’ for them will always be a candle. Even if they get wise to the ploy of dual meaning dialogue writing, how many ‘diyas’ and ‘liyas’ can they possibly censor in a film?
Corporate production houses make films that sell and belong to market driven genres. They have a bottom line to monitor their growth and that is what is of interest to them. They are into film production, marketing, and distribution because it is a great investment opportunity. They trust their marketing muscle and the hugely paid star cast to rake in the moolah. Content is relevant only to the extent it gets a positive nod from stars, and provides a catchy USP and slogan to develop smart promotional campaigns that can pull the weekend crowds into multiplexes. This is assembly line film making. They also have the wile and the will to buy off the officials of the CBFC, by cash or kind, to ensure that the hot and the humid (harmless) component in their films escapes the CBFC’s pair of scissors.
These are the varying sets of people who are making films happily. The occasional hiccups about the banning of smoking scenes and the use of pigs and dogs and horses and bulls in films are generally sorted out amicably. Everyone is satisfied in the end. Sometimes controversies also help a film get free pre-publicity and smart ones use the CBFC to prop up their non-descript films.
Then who has problems with the CBFC?
Read the views of the departed souls like Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, and Vijay Anand, all time greats of Indian cinema, and you would know. Read their biographies, books, and writings and you would know the torment and torture they went through because of this institution and how it throttled all their attempts to make films that could compete with the best in the world. It is a gory and heart wrenching saga of how the foetuses of great film ideas had to be aborted prematurely thanks to the terror of the CBFC.
If you want to feel that terror and the sense of despair, read the CBFC charter. It will send a chill up your spine and sap all your enthusiasm and passion for filmmaking. It is a set of dos and don’ts designed to promote mediocrity and inanity. It is so draconian and demeaning. Censor Board woh jagah hai jahan jallad aur kasai baithatein hain, hathon mein phansi ka phanda aur talwar liye, jo filmkaron ki rooh ko pehle phansi per latkatein hain aur phir use berahami se katatein hain jis se un ke zinda bachne ki koi ummeed hi nahin rahe.
The CBFC is a morgue. It is a burial ground and a burning ghat. It is the drain filled with carcasses of butchered and maimed films, so much like the one next to that infamous house in Nithari. It is a horrifying labyrinth of despair and gloom for true filmmakers. It will soon be turned into a ‘serial’ killer if Mumbai High Court’s wish becomes a command and the TV content is also subjected to its scrutiny and clearance.
The CBFC is an insensitive apparatus that sucks your life force. It murders ideas in their infancy. It is responsible for our dependence on formulaic filmmaking.
It ensures the survival of the meekest and the mediocre. It has been the real hurdle in the growth of the Indian film industry. The CBFC has been humiliating, humbling, browbeating, and terrorising our filmmakers all these years and has forced them to compromise with their self-respect. It destroys their sense of commitment to an idea and bars them from exploring new avenues. It creates taboos. It subjects the grown up and thinking adults to offensive rules and regulations.
The CBFC is the Nithari of Indian cinema and a blot on our democracy. It is one of the many callous remnants of the British Raj that should have been done away with soon after our independence. It was created to suppress the voice of freedom. Its continuance is an insult to the memory of the likes of Subhash Chandra Bose and countless freedom fighters and martyrs of our nation.
It is also an effective tool in the hands of authoritarian political establishments to throttle independent voices of sanity, and reason, and to impose their insipid worldview on our people. We don’t need the CBFC. We are not cattle. We don’t need to be taught lessons in morality by corrupt politicians, insensitive bureaucrats, control freaks like communists and Gandhi topi wallas, stupid judges, Islamic zealots, moralists, bigots of various hues and shades, and by sundry ass-lickers of the establishment.
Let the community of artistes rise in unison and demand the death and demolition of the CBFC regime.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Powerful and HARD HITTING… SHOCKING… to say that none of this is being discussed in the media… !!!
In a programme “jeena isika naam hai” Asha Parekh said by censoring they are helping the producer. They make sure that nothing in a movie, programme, etc hurts the sentiments of the audience. If anybody gets hurt they can file a case against the makers. Thus bringing problems to the makers.
In most families and even my family there is censor. We are not allowed to use some words, we are not allowed to see some things, we are not allowed to hear some things, etc. Censorship is there in a family. The censorboard is trying to be our parents by deciding what we we have to watch and what not to.
Religious sentiments also is another problem. Many times I have heard people saying our religion does not allow this, we must not talk about this, we must not see this, this is sin, etc. God decides what is good for us and what is not good for us.
=)) “If it is a dark night you will obviously need a candle to find your way out.Who can be certain if the
Thank you for this!!! My question for you is, why does the censor board wield so much power? And, what is the relationship between the television stations, producers, and the CBFC?
You have me wanting to learn more…
Oz-:
unfortunately people who should b discussing these things never care and have time to figure out on how best things can be regulated and discretion should be there…the most deserving people are the most suffered here..
the rating system also has no value…that’s one of the problem…why don’t they form a committee with prominent film personalities like shyam benegal, gulzar saab and others and ask them to give suggestions…
those bloody regressive tv serials and music videos were never objected, they are the ones which affect many women and childrens psyche directly..that too for free of cost in their own homes…
i think vijay anand suggested some positive changes to the current laws like allowing screening of certain kind of movies in some marked theaters or something like that but nothing happened after that..
our society and law makers work exactly opposite to the adage “action speaks louder than words”
good one RKS
i think, Boogie Woogie, is one program that really needs to get censored. its target audience is kids, but sometimes it is so crude and rude. also they have kids dancing to some vulgar tunes.
RKS: friend, read your article bit late after days of publication. Its energetic to read such hard hitting views but I do feel something is missing.
I am sure you know when and how Late Vijay Anand was forced by then govt. of India to resign from the post of chief of censor board. No doubt he had much liberated views and perhaps though much radical but quite logical too also.
Thanks for covering censor board in your article but when you cover Gandhi cap, Red flag etc but why you forgot to mention Black cap?
Do you think Parzania like film was going to be released in the India of 1997-2003?
Please dont be selective when you are on sweeping act and removing dirt. It shd be done by having equal eye on all sides. Otherwise one bad goes but place is replaced by another bad.
Dont you agree?