India : Dying Democracy in Films ???

Article 19 (1) (a) of the Indian Constitution says that all Indian citizens have the right to freedom of speech and expression. In this regard, media censorship should be completely unacceptable, yet the Government does implacably try to impose restrictions on media content. This does raise a lot of questions on how aware and how are we in protecting our rights. Talking only about films, on Introspection, the Cinematograph Act of 1952 and The Cinematograph (Certification) Rules, 1983 itself seems to be against the freedom of expression. Well, it’s quite contradicting when 1 article talks about the freedom of speech and expression and the other talks about censorship of films given that films are an art form and art is an expression.

Censorship in India has, in fact, increased the piracy of films in India which should not really make one dumbstruck, since many of the films are not cleared for public screening or distribution in India. Some film-makers have gone to the extent of allowing their films to be pirated so that their film is seen by a larger audience. One of the most famous of such filmmakers is Rakesh Sharma, who actually distributed free copies on condition that for every free copy make 5 pirated copies and distribute, his film “Final Solution” so that more audience could watch this film. The film, in fact, was banned in India by the Central Board of Film Certification for about a year. Film is an art and art is an expression and by censoring films, it can very well be regarded as curbing the freedom of expression on the part of the Government. Another film that needs a mention here is Sanjay Kak’s Jashn-e-Azadi (How we celebrate freedom) which is another film that has not been passed by the Central Board of Film Certification. Lately, this film has been in a lot of discussions after the screening of the film was canceled in Symbiosis and also because there were attempts to disrupting the screening in Delhi University.  Sanjay Kak, in an interview to the Times of India mentioned that the film would never be passed by the censorship board because of the content it carried. This is simply ridiculous; anything that is against Indian establishments has extremely little chance of being cleared. “Jashn-e-Azadi” talks about the plight of the Kashmiri people because of the lasting conflict between the Indian Army and the militants in Kashmir. Any person who is acquainted with the history of Kashmir will be well aware as to why the Kashmir conflict ever arose. Here is a filmmaker who is trying to tell the story from a different perspective and we have organizations such as the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad that is protesting against screenings of the film on grounds that it is an anti- India film. On a smart note, Sanjay Kak has actually made the film available online for free viewing on snagfilms.com after the screening was canceled in Symbiosis. Well, apparently he is a filmmaker who is trying to show something from a different angle, he might be right or he might not be but he does have the right to express his point of view. Whether people will accept it or not, it completely depends on them.

Internet is the only relatively free medium and has not yet been that highly censored like other media and now the Government wants to filter content there too especially with social media. Many will argue that censorship for a country like India becomes very important because of the diversity in cultures and the impending disasters that are very much probable because of the same, but censoring too doesn’t do much good either for there are always alternative means for obtaining censored content.  Censoring content will therefore only earn bad will for the government because after having obtained censored content the people will always see the government as villains who wanted to hide something from them. Censorship in a democracy is a disaster for democracy itself.