Censorship is a trespass against any free society and is perhaps an insult to any mature adult who is capable of voting. It has been a long-held practice of the CBFC to allow a film which is derogatory for Hindus but disallow anything where an objection is raised by some minority groups
Many developed countries do not have a mechanism for film censorship though they have a system of certification which is quite different from censorship. When we do not have censorship in books, music, media, and we rightly condemn the Press censorship that was imposed in India during Emergency, it escapes simple reasoning why the same logic should not be extended to film censorship.
Moreover, as we all know, film censorship was introduced by the British to keep tabs on our film industry so that it refrained from bringing sedition to celluloid. Censorship is a trespass against any free society and is perhaps an insult to any mature adult who is capable of voting. The recent resignation of the chairperson and some other members of CBFC raised the issues of the manipulative system of appointment and Government interference in what is a supposedly autonomous body.
Autonomy: A myth
The time when leela Samson and her followers (in resignation) joined the CBFC, the institution was apparently wholly autonomous for them. But the moment a change of regime took place at the Centre, they started sensing a threat to the autonomy of the Censor Board (as an aside, we are reminded of the drama regarding the withdrawal of FYUP in Delhi University; people who were running the university under straight instructions from the UPA regime suddenly felt harangued by the loss of autonomy, as UGC asked for the withdrawal of the American four-year undergraduate programme in Delhi University).
This allegation, if factual, in itself indicates how weak the basis of the autonomy of CBFC was all this time, the nature of such “autonomy” being changed invariably with a change in regime. leela Samson had chaired a lot of committees earlier; one wonders whether she does not really know how such committees are formed.
We cannot have such double standards. The time when people are hand-picked by the politicians in power for such boards and committees, the autonomy of the institutions are never questioned, but when the regime changes and the same people realise that their tenure will not be extended, they conveniently start talking about autonomy. As the political appointees of the censor board realise that a change in the composition of board is imminent, due to a change in regime, they start complaining of foul play, pressure and interference from the Government. The “controversial” film in question might just be a façade, an excuse for this event of resignation that was waiting to happen for quite some time now.
This is no secret that a lot of posts in such “autonomous” institutions are directly or indirectly filled by the Government appointees. These appointees are usually always the highly connected people, whether it is the appointment of vice-chancellors of universities, principals of colleges, directors of IITs and other such institutes, chairpersons of different commissions, Governors of States. They are all people connected with the political class. The practice of appointment by the political class is long established. Expecting unbridled autonomy in their office will be somewhat misplaced.
These appointments are often rewards for the past work undertaken by the individual concerned, which has made a regime adequately convinced to put the individual’s potential to use. Political appointees are often brought to the system for some specific purposes. This is a height of hypocrisy to expect unbiased and impartial behaviour from such political appointees.
What leela Samson and others have done is an expedient move: when the regime changes and some of the post-holders apprehend their removal, for the sake of a grand exit they start accusing the new government of interference and voluntarily resign, lest they have to face an ignominious removal.
CBFC members ride piggyback on the power to censor
licenced to censor, a la James Bond, these people are! Some of the members of team of leela Samson along with Ira Bhaskar have their kids working in the film industry. The curious fact is that they are not what one may call very famous, and they have not proved their acting mettle till now, but surprisingly they never fall short of plenty of work. Some of them have managed to work or bag good roles only after their parents joined the board.
We are not interested in individual mudslinging at all, but doesn’t it raise a question mark on the integrity and ethics of the very practice of film censorshipIJ While putting some people in a position of absolute power over film industry in this set up called censorship board, can we expect the members to be just and fair, particularly when they themselves become embroiled rapidly into play of interestsIJ We remember that in recent past the CEO of the board and another board member were arrested for taking bribes to clear the release of a movie.
Censor Board, like most other British colonial remnants, are fertile grounds for corruption, nexus, manipulation and nepotism, at odds with the very ideas of autonomy and freedom. But now let us come to the issue of the film, the release of which has triggered Samson’s resignation controversy.
Controversy related to the film Messenger of God
The abbreviation MSG often stands for message, sometimes it also stands for monosodium glutamate. Messenger of God is properly acronymed as MoG and not MSG, but this is not the only strange aspect of this movie. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan, as the chief of Dera Sachcha Sauda (a sect mostly consisting of the Dalits of Punjab and Haryana, as opposed to the SGPC, its main rival, the apex body of Sikhism, which is controlled and dominated by Jats) fashions himself, is strangeness personified in many respects.
But can the movie be banned just because it appears strange to some of usIJ After all, it can be shown that not a single flashy, over-the-top feature of this movie is alien to Bollywood. A larger-than-life hero performing miracles on the screen, religiously followed by his fans has been a regular spectacle of Bollywood and Southern film industry.
The only objection can be the one stemming from the question of privilege, that the Dera chief is not a Rajinikanth, and is therefore not privileged to portray such larger than life character on the screen, even when he is ostentatiously playing himself (the filmy hero does that all the time: he plays himself, plays the same persona with same mannerisms, and sometimes the character he portrays is named after and modelled on him). But then privilege is not logic, it is not reason. This term privilege literally means private law. It implies that there will be one set of law for the privileged and another set of law for the lesser folks. Perhaps, this is the same logic that has allowed the Censor Board people to enjoy their authority over us, while lecturing us about autonomy.
If we would care to compare between the Censor Board’s respective attitudes towards the two movies PK and MSG (the latter being the immediate cause of resignation of leela Samson and her supporters in the Censor Board), the first thing that we notice is that PK was cleared by the board despite a lot of litigations and protests, while the release of MSG was halted by the board in spite of the fact that Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) had cleared the movie and repeated compliance of the director of the movie to delete whatever board found objectionable in the movie.
The same leela Samson, who wholeheartedly supported freedom of expression for the movie PK and allowed this movie to be released without any cuts, despite its attack on all practices of Hindu religion, whether it is idol worship or visiting temple or the existence of Hindu gods and goddesses, stalled the clearance of the Malayalam movie Pitavinum Putranum, which, following its completion, applied for Censor Board clearance back in 2012. The reason for not clearing the movie was cited to be the portrayal of the lives of two nuns who wish to lead a normal life like that of other women of their age, but feel restricted by the rules of church. Another reason cited was the portrayal of a Christian priest in a negative light, which leela Samson found to be hurtful for the sentiments of the Christian community, and that movie has not been allowed to release since then.
In another example, the director of the movie Entertainment was asked to change the name of a comic character played by Johny lever from “Abdullah” to “Habibullah”, on the ground of the sacredness of the word “Abdullah”. These examples establish a brazenly biased face of leela Samson who has been ever so sensitive about the negative portrayal of priests and use of a so-called sacred name for a comic character. By the same logic she could not tolerate the glorification of the Dera chief in the movie MSG.
One of the reasons cited by leela Samson in her resignation was pressure from the religious sect to clear the movie Messenger of God (MSG), which she and other board members had refused to clear on the basis of four main objections, viz., the objection to the portrayal of Dera chief as god, some of the scenes depicting miracles not substantiated by logic, charges of rape and murder against Dera chief, and threat to the law and order situation in parts of Punjab and Haryana.
In fact, all these four objections could also be cited for the movie PK. The depiction of PK as alien is not logic, but fantasy; so is holding the hand of someone to read his mind and language. Dera chief have been charged of rape and murder (not proven guilty yet), but actor Sanjay Dutt in PK movie is convicted in anti-terrorism act, and is serving his jail term right now.
If an actor being accused is considered to be a criterion for not clearing a movie, then the all movies of Saif Ali Khan and Salman Khan would also have to be banned, as all of them are accused in some case or other. As far as the law and order situation is concerned this is again a superficial argument, as the protest against MSG by some of the arms of SGPC is limited to just Punjab and Haryana, while PK could have created massive law and order problem across the country if only the Hindu organisations chose to recreate the feats of their Islamic counterparts in similar cases. Further, rationalism is not a primary concern when it comes to literature and films. Supernatural and fairytale fantasies manifest themselves in our film industry, and a lot of our potboilers, otherwise not at all supernatural, are as remote from naturalism/realism as possible. We would not be able to watch most of our movies following the grounds based on which we might ban MSG.
Despite the fact that this movie doesn’t have any derogatory portrayal of any religion or sect, including those who are purportedly the rivals of Dera Sacha Sauda, this movie was considered to be objectionable because it (unduly) glorifies the Dera chief. The board was not ready to clear for the certification ostensibly fearing backlash from SGPC as they do not like the Dera chief. This is funny. Can you stop someone from glorifying himself on the celluloid without hurting the sentiments of others, given that our heroes have precisely done this all these years (albeit with a reasonably greater dexterity of acting and photogenic acumen than the Dera chief)IJ Moreover, law and order is a concern of the government, and should not qualify as a basis of film certification, so far as the autonomy of this artistic medium is concerned.
We are not in the favour of movies like MSG, because they somehow violate our aesthetic sense as filmgoers. If you do not like it, then simply do not watch it. But we are of the opinion that the clearance or certification of a movie should be given on the basis of a far more solid and standard ground than that of privilege. A film shall not be stopped just because some people do not like it and threaten to create law and order problem in the eventuality of its release. Submitting to such threats, we open a Pandora’s Box.
In conclusion, let us once more point out that this has been a long-held practice of the CBFC to allow a film which is derogatory for Hindus but disallow anything where an objection is raised by some minority groups. The Supreme Court took precisely this into cognizance when it said that it is fashionable for the activists to show just one side of the story, completely neglecting the Hindu underside, while it gave a judgement on a controversial movie related to Kashmir.
(Both Anish Gupta and Tamal Das Gupta are founder members of Shoptodina Foundation, and they teach Economics and English respectively at Delhi University)
