Chai Chalk Chatter

India is a very plural Nation-State that allows its citizens to practice their beliefs and subsequent rituals in a reasonably free manner with little interference from the State. While I sing praises of this Nation-State, I have to confess that time and again I, individually, have also been critical of India's structural nuances. Every Nation-State is unique in itself and in their attempt to retain their novelty, they have certain innate traits that are influenced greatly but not limited to, by the history of the particular Nation-State. The problem with such traits though is the fact that they are too idealistic in nature and are rooted in tradition. Interestingly my dilemma today arises from a very minute yet thought-provoking visual of a good number of female school children running, probably because they were late for school, in their school uniform. This, you might think is a very common sight and as was not really of much concern to me. Now what really did catch my eye ...

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 a...