Censor trouble

The new censorship policy proposed for film festivals and the national film awards has come as a shock to independent documentary filmmakers, says Saibal Chatterjee.

A bitter censorship row is brewing between New Delhi’s power wielders and the nation’s independent film professionals. But this standoff is not over any particular film. In the eye of the storm is the entire new censorship policy framework, a draft of which has already been submitted for the final approval of Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy.

Filmmakers are demanding a thorough rethink, which is surprising given that the draft censorship policy is supposedly based on the recommendations made by a special committee of respected filmmakers and academics.

The new censorship policy has been proposed for entries for film festivals and the annual national film awards (NFA). For India’s leading independent documentary filmmakers, it has come as a shock because they had expected the UPA government to liberalise rules and processes.

Senior ministry officials have authored the draft on the basis of the recommendations made by a committee constituted in February 2005 to examine the issue of censoring festival and NFA films. The draft policy was presented to the Information and Broadcasting Minister in August.

The filmmaking community is seething. Feisty Mumbai-based documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, who, along with a combative Anand Patwardhan, is spearheading the resistance, has gone to the extent of calling for "a comprehensive review of the Cinematograph Act itself".

Sharma’s long documentary film on the Gujarat riots, Final Solution, was involved in a face-off with the censors during the rightwing NDA regime. For Patwardhan, of course, battles with the Central Board of Film Certification and the mandarins of Doordarshan have been a perpetual professional hazard.

The committee that is purported to have made the new censorship policy recommendations included a slew of eminent people—veteran writer-directors Shyam Benegal and Jabbar Patel, showbiz entrepreneur Manmohan Shetty, New Delhi-based documentary filmmaker Rahul Roy, academician Prof. Dipankar Gupta, former censor board chairperson Asha Parekh and Information and Broadcasting Ministry joint secretary Afzal Amanullah.

Some independent documentary filmmakers feel that the proposed policy "actually tightens controls instead of liberalising censorship". The situation on the ground today, they allege, is therefore no better than it was during the rule of the BJP-led NDA.

They point to instances of police and bureaucratic intervention at film festivals and initial denial of censor certificates to films critical of the politics of hate, besides alluding to the continuing practice of handing out positions on various CBFC panels as favours.

Startlingly, the representatives of the independent documentary film fraternity have alleged that ministry officials presented the "final recommendations" to Jaipal Reddy without the guidelines being duly ratified by the committee members. In fact, the minutes of the last meeting (held on July 6) were not even circulated.

It has also been pointed out that Benegal and Shetty were unable to attend the confabulations of the committee because the meetings were all held in Delhi. In a strong protest letter to Reddy, Rakesh Sharma has said: "Though it might have inconvenienced your officials to hold at least a meeting or two in Mumbai, the filmmaking capital of India, it would have allowed the filmmakers and various trade associations to interact with the committee."

While proposing the grant of immunity from censorship only to film festivals funded by the government or affiliated to FIAPF (the international federation of film festivals), the draft policy lays down several grounds on which this exemption can be withheld–threat to internal security, impact on bilateral relations with other countries, risk to law and order, among other things.

The draft policy also retains what Rakesh Sharma describes as "the highly contentious requirement of a censor certificate for entry to NFA despite a boycott by over 200 documentary filmmakers for two years – 2004 and 2005".

Sharma has been particularly angered by a proposed provision that could deny censorship exemption to any film that "affects human sensibilities". He says: "Many of us make films in the hope of affecting these very human sensibilities. Under the ‘new policy’, any film can be ‘banned’ from film festivals on this count alone."

Anand Patwardhan has also shot off a separate letter to Reddy, highlighting the disappointment of all independent documentary filmmakers at the turn of events. "We had hoped that not only would the new government move forward from the position taken earlier, it would do so forthrightly and with pride," says Patwardhan’s missive.

Sharma says: "I, like most within the independent filmmaking community, fail to understand why the UPA government is introducing such totalitarian policies."

In his letter to the minister, Patwardhan says: "The present position`85is extremely ad hoc as although it grants government-run festivals like MIFF (Mumbai International Film Festival) freedom from censorship, all independent film festivals will be subjected to censorship`85 This is not acceptable to documentary filmmakers in India."

Patwardhan has pointed out that it is meaningless to pretend that MIFF was being granted exemption from censorship. Mumbai’s festival of short and documentary films was always free from the CBFC’s clutches. So the decision to grant an exemption is not a concession.

"The new formulations reached are in many ways worse than the status quo that already existed. MIFF has never had any censorship. Under the auspices of MIFF uncensored films were screened in cinemas across Bombay even for ticketed shows`85" says Patwardhan. "This was done probably with the understanding that documentary films after all are the eyes and ears of democracy."

Alleges Sharma: "With the new proposed measures, the UPA government is codifying as policy what the NDA was unable to do – introduce state control in the few rapidly shrinking spaces in which artistes can meet and share ideas."

In his long letter to Reddy, Sharma has appealed to the Congress politician’s liberal leanings: "Many within the filmmaking community sense a regressive pattern in several actions by your officials`85 I hope you are as perturbed about this pattern as most of us." It would be a surprise indeed if the minister, a long-term votary of creative freedom, isn’t perturbed."

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