May 31, 2010 - 15 See letter from Ravi Mehra to the Police Commissioner, R. H. Mendonca, ..... addressed to the producer of the film, Vidhu Vinod Chopra,.
The Central Board of Film Certification Correspondence Files (1992–2002): A Discursive Rhetoric of Moral Panic, "Public" Protest, and Political Pressure Nandana Bose Cinema Journal, 49, Number 3, Spring 2010, pp. 67-87 (Article) Published by University of Texas Press DOI: 10.1353/cj.0.0217
For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cj/summary/v049/49.3.bose.html
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The Central Board of Film Certification Correspondence Files (1992–2002): A Discursive Rhetoric of Moral Panic, “Public” Protest, and Political Pressure by NANDANA BOSE Abstract: This article constructs a chronological narrative based on a decade of epistolary communication involving India’s Central Board of Film Certification, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry, the police, right-wing parties, and the citizenry in order to trace a continuum of state and right-wing interventions in the process of censoring 1990s Hindi cinema.
his essay constructs a chronological narrative based on a decade of epistolary communication1 involving India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B), the police, rightwing parties, various secular and religious, political and cultural organizations, cinephiles, and Indian citizens in order to trace a continuum of state and right-wing interventions in the process of censoring Hindi cinema.2 The essay is
© 2010 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713
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1 I examined the 1992–2002 files at the CBFC headquarters in Walkeshwar, Bombay, and was given access to the deletion lists for selected controversial films. Many of the letters were originally addressed to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting or to the police (particularly from 1998 to 2002) and thereafter forwarded to the CBFC, but the burden of responsibility to respond to these letters almost always rested with the CBFC. 2 During the early twentieth century, the emerging medium of cinema in British India became a distinctly contested political issue, revealing the tensions and limitations of the Empire. Archival research on cinematographic censorship indicates a number of competing interests and changing views. See Madhava Prasad, “The Natives Are Looking: Cinema and Censorship in Colonial India,” in Law’s Moving Image, ed. Leslie J. Moran, Emma Sandon, Elena Loizidou, and Ian Christie (London: Cavendish Publishing, 2004), 161–172. For historical accounts of Indian film censorship, see Aruna Vasudev, Liberty and License in the Indian Cinema (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1976); and Miriam Sharma, “Censoring India: Cinema and the Tentacles of Empire in the Early Years,” South Asia Research 29, no. 1 (2009): 41–73.
Nandana Bose received her PhD from the University of Nottingham; her dissertation is entitled “The Cultural Politics of the Hindu Right in Hindi Cinema (1992–2002).” She has published articles in The Velvet Light Trap, Studies in South Asian Film and Media, Feminist Media Studies, Mediascape, and the Journal of the Moving Image and is coediting an e-book for Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies with Lee Grieveson. An earlier version of this essay was the winner of the 2008 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Student Essay Award.
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structured in three broad chronological, thematic divisions: Moral Panics, 1992–1995; Communal Insecurities, 1995–1998; and Policing Cinema, 1998–2002. Judging from the volume of letters in the CBFC files, preoccupation with sex and violence predominated during the first period, while religious sensibility and alleged misrepresentations of minority communities (ethnic, religious) and of public authorities (such as the police and politicians) became burning issues from 1995 to 1998. In the 1998–2002 period, the police became proxy film censors, and the imagined denigration of Hindu sentiments instigated protest. It should be noted that these were overlapping, recurrent anxieties that persisted in the Indian public sphere throughout the decade, particularly the rhetoric of the deleterious effects of sex and violence on women and youth, transcending my three temporal divisions. I also attempt both to map, through instances of censorship of certain films, the field of power relations that existed among the CBFC, the state machinery, the citizenry, and various interest groups, as well as to locate various competing yet often hierarchical, shifting, and diffused sites of political pressure and influence in the public sphere. Annette Kuhn suggests a shift of perspective on power that focuses on events or instances since “power relations can only be analyzed at work in specific social and historical ‘instances’”;3 her approach recognizes the central object of study to be “not so much the historical event per se as the ‘causal mechanisms’ that brought it about.”4 Following this approach, case studies of censorship controversies provide a “snapshot . . . of an historical moment, of an instance or set of practices.”5 In 1998–1999 there was a change in government in India following the victory of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 1999 general elections. Throughout the 1990s, there were escalating right-wing interventions that gathered momentum from 1998 to 2002, coinciding with the tenure of the right-wing government. The political context is of utmost importance in understanding the anxieties and concerns expressed by the correspondents who often wrote to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in reaction to state decisions pertaining to the media and the film industry, political events, new censorship policies and appointments to the CBFC, newspaper reportages, and controversial film releases, all of which took place against the backdrop of the rise of Hindu nationalism in the 1990s. Hindu nationalist discourse played a catalytic role in the raging censorship debates, in many instances causing or exacerbating the 1990s “censor wave.”6 Analysis of the correspondence forwarded to the CBFC—much of it originally written to the police or the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting—reveals a censorious regulatory space marked by moral outrage and intense public demands (even threats) for more stringent censorship. I contend that the discourse arising from these letters is significant, as it re-creates a public space at a particular historical conjuncture 3 Annette Kuhn, Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909–1925 (London: Routledge, 1988), 8. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Brinda Bose, “Introduction,” in Gender & Censorship, ed. Brinda Bose (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2006), xxxix. For more details see my recent article, “The Hindu Right and the Politics of Censorship: Three Case Studies of Policing Hindi Cinema, 1992–2002,” The Velvet Light Trap 63 (Spring 2009): 22–33.
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that gestured toward social and moral conservatism, growing intolerance of pluralism, and a movement toward authoritarianism unparalleled since the repressive censorship measures unleashed on the press during the 1975 Emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, measures linked to the Congress Party’s eventual electoral defeat in 1977.7 Moral Panics, 1992–1995. This period was characterized by an overwhelming number of letters addressing the potential danger of imitative reactions from excitable audiences, particularly from impressionable children and youth, to “violence and vulgarity” in Hindi cinema. Filmmakers, who were clearly the villains of the piece, were held responsible for the rise in violent crimes, sexual harassment, and the degeneration of Indian society. The case studies of The Villain (Khalnayak; Subhash Ghai, 1993) and Andaz (David Dhawan, 1994) exemplify the kind of rhetoric used by the BJP and its affiliates to instigate and mobilize public outrage and moral panic regarding sexually explicit and/or violent films. Films such as Khiladi (Abbas Ali Burmawalla and Mastan Ali Burmawalla, 1992), Khal-Naaikaa (Saawan Kumar Tak, 1993), The Eyes (Aankhen; David Dhawan, 1993), Vijay Path (Farogh Siddique, 1994), and Khuddar (Iqbal Durrani, 1994) also provoked numerous complaint letters for their “vulgar” songs and lyrics. Multiple arenas of state power became involved in the call for greater stringency in censoring Hindi films. Players included the Supreme Court, the I&B Ministry, the Rajya Sabha,8 and even, at the diplomatic level, the Indian High Commission in Hong Kong (from where Murdoch’s STAR TV was uplinked), although the police and the executive office were not yet major players. This was a foundational period that paved the way for future interventions and set the tone for conservatism and illiberal state policies such as the Supreme Court judgment and the state-sponsored 1994 censorship guidelines that prohibited the negative portrayal of public officials, violation of which was now taken as a serious threat to the state. Previously, during the 1970s and 1980s, mockery of state officials such as the late arrival of the police on the scene, a popular motif in Hindi cinema, was considered symptomatic of societal disillusionment with authority figures, ineffectual state power, and rampant corruption in post-Emergency India.9 The early 1990s ushered in a period of unprecedented cultural contestation and heightened anxieties about the “effect” or “impact” of sexually explicit and/or violent cinematic representations on the moral fabric of Indian society. Many of the letters received by the CBFC, from late 1991 onwards, reflected the popular perception of the deleterious influence of Hindi films, particularly film songs, on youth and children 7 A State of Emergency, imposed from June 1975 to 1977 under Article 352 of the Constitution of India on the grounds that the security of India was threatened by internal, divisive forces, is one of the most controversial and darkest periods in the history of Indian democracy. Draconian laws were passed to suspend the freedom of the press, elections, and civil liberties, and copies of Tale of the Throne (Kissa Kursi Ka; Amrit Nahata, 1997) were destroyed because the film was interpreted as an unflattering critique of the Gandhi family. 8 The Council of States, or the Upper House of Parliament. 9 See Madhava Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), and his chapter, “The State in/of Cinema,” in Wages of Freedom: Fifty Years of the Indian Nation-State, ed. Partha Chatterjee (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998); also Anupama Chopra’s monograph, Sholay: The Making of a Classic (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000).
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in inciting various kinds of antisocial behavior, including juvenile crime, delinquency, sexual experimentation, and immorality. In a letter to the CBFC Chairman,10 a concerned citizen expressed his outrage at “perfunctory prurient obscene scenes such as rape and other amorous gestures” that were “offensive to female modesty.” He continued, “As people are imitative by their nature, particularly youths and teenagers tend to imitate such filmy [sic] activities in their real life. Today’s widescale [sic] violence and sexual immorality mostly owe to modern films. What is shown will be reflected in reality. Therefore, kindly restrict the exhibition of criminal, violent and obscene scenes in the films and save the society from more degeneration.”11 In a letter to the Minister for I&B12 the Chairman of the All India Film Goers Association complained, “[F]ilmmakers are doing their best to destroy the social and cultural values of the people only to earn more and more money.” The Chairman accused filmmakers of “playing with the life [sic] of our children which can easily be spoiled,” claimed that the CBFC had “completely failed to check sex and violence,” and protested against “dirty, naked and sexy film posters” displayed near schools, colleges, and temples which, he feared, would negatively affect youth.13 Yet another citizen, “highly concerned” about “vulgar and blue films sweeping the country,” reminded the I&B Minister that he owed “an explanation to the nation as to why [his] ministry [was] irresponsibly permitting such dirty films,” pointed out the prevalence of AIDS in India and that such films were “causing great harm to the fibre and fabric of this country,” and concluded by demanding stricter censorship rules and the banning of such films on Doordarshan, the state television channel.14 Thus, there was a conflation of sex with disease, coupled with the notion that if “obscene” images and songs were allowed to circulate freely in the public sphere they would encourage promiscuity and potentially lead to the further spread of AIDS. Similar anxieties would resurface in 1998 as Deepa Mehta’s film Fire (1996) would be condemned for encouraging lesbianism, which was conflated with the spread of venereal disease and AIDS.15 Filmmakers were accused of peddling sex for profit, appealing to the prurient interests of the masses, and thus catering to the lowest common denominator of taste. These accusations were even leveled by the English-language, mainstream press, which is often considered liberal compared to its vernacular/regional counterparts. An article in the Indian Express, forwarded by the Chairman16 to all regional officers, 10 Henceforth, wherever “Chairman” is mentioned it implies the CBFC Chairman. 11 Letter from V. A. Borase from Aurangabad, November 28, 1991, File No. M/33/91. 12 K. P. Singh Deo from the then-ruling Congress Party. 13 Letter from Krishna Kumar Bansal, February 22, 1993, File No. M/33/93. 14 Letter from N. S. Venkataraman, March 15, 1993, File No. M/33/93. 15 See letter from Ravi Mehra to the Police Commissioner, R. H. Mendonca, December 18, 1998, File No. M/33/98. Similar anxieties about hygiene and disease in cinema halls arose in early cinema in America. See Lee Grieveson, Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early-Twentieth-Century America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 16 The longest-serving Chairman of the Board during the period under consideration here, from 1991 to 1998, Shakti Samanta was sensitive and responsive to any press reports on the performance of the Board and the censorship process in general. Therefore, during his tenure the files contained newspaper and magazine articles, photocopies of which he would forward to regional officers.
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claimed that “celluloid sex peddlers” had developed a fascination for rape scenes; that indecent, obscene, and violent films produced imitative behavior; and that the unique conditions for cinematic exhibition, in “the darkened auditorium of a cinema hall—a legitimate place where vulnerability could hope to be roused and rewarded,”17 would lead to the excitation of prurient interest among illiterate, gullible, and easily excitable audiences. Hindi films were held responsible not just for moral corruption but also for the criminalization of society, the desensitizing of children18 to violence, and the “glorification of the criminals.”19 Although these sets of anxieties about the “impact” or “effect” of the cinematic medium were a continuation of past preoccupations,20 what was unprecedented in the 1990s was the historical conjuncture of unstable coalition politics, the concerns over globalization and the vulnerability of geographical boundaries and indigenous national/cultural identity to indiscriminate Westernization, and the remarkable growth of Hindu nationalism that exacerbated the insecurity and often persecution of minority communities through its orchestration of communal pogroms.21 The reactionary cultural agenda of the Hindu Right politicized past anxieties about cinematic sex and violence by either creating or encouraging cinematic censorship practices and debates through either implementation or conservative interpretations of preexisting censorship regulations. The Khalnayak Controversy and the BJP. In 1993, debates about obscenity, morality, female agency, and sexuality gathered momentum with the release of the controversial film Khalnayak, which featured the provocative film song “Choli Ke Peechey Kya Hai” (“What’s Behind the Blouse?”) that self-styled moralists believed plunged the nation into an abyss of moral turpitude. The film song prompted nearly 200 complaint letters to the CBFC Chairman; many of the letters were from BJP members such as the President of the BJP Women’s Wing, who wrote, “‘Choli ke peechey kya hai’ is an obscene song and as a result of which new anti-social elements have got the excuse of singing this song on seeing girls. Many incidents of eve-teasing22 have occurred. The
17 Bikram Singh, “Peddling Sex on Celluloid,” Indian Express, October 3, 1992, File No. M/33/92. 18 Letter to the I&B Minister from the Confederation of Residents Welfare Associations—Madurai, June 6, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 19 Letter from Pramila Dandavate of Mahila Dakshata Samiti, a New Delhi–based women’s organization, April 23, 1993, File No. M/33/93(II). 20 On censorship and the persistent anxieties over sex and violence in Indian cinema, see C. K. Razdan, ed., Bare Breasts and Bare Bottoms (Bombay: Jaico Publishing House, 1975). G. D. Khosla, Pornography and Censorship in India (New Delhi: Indian Book Company, 1976) advances liberal arguments for greater freedom in screening sex and pornography, which he defends by tracing a long history of Indian (Hindu) traditional, scriptural, mythic, and literary references to sex and sexual imagery. He was the Chairman of the 1969 Enquiry Committee on Film Censorship. Kobita Sarkar, a long-serving member of the Censor Board, provides a behind-the-scenes, anecdotal account of the practices, policies, and internal politics of Indian film censorship in You Can’t Please Everyone! Film Censorship: The Inside Story (Bombay: IBH Publishing, 1982). See also Derek Bose, Bollywood Uncensored—What You Don’t See on Screen and Why (New Delhi: Rupa, 2002). 21 See “Death March” (from In Defence of Democratic Rights, September–December 1990), reprinted in The Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri Masjid Dispute—A Secular Perspective (Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana, March 1991). 22 Eve-teasing is a euphemism used in India for sexual harassment or molestation of women by men.
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film song singers only just to earn money are shamelessly singing such type of songs which are against the public interest.” Another BJP member observed that because of the song’s being sung by antisocial elements, “it had become very difficult for girls and women to go out. In case the above song is going to continue, the next song would be: ‘kachi ke peechey’ (behind the underwear) and ‘peti cot ke peechey’ (behind the petticoat).”23 The public outrage over the song’s unabashed, self-reflexive celebration of female sexuality and the female body was not contained within the geographical boundaries of the nation-state; the rhetoric of moral indignation was expressed in letters from the expatriate Indian/Hindu community in Canada.24 Recent scholarship has made explicit links between the growth of diasporic Hindu nationalism and the overseas saffron bond, the emergence of the diaspora film in the 1990s, and the creation of lucrative, overseas markets for the consumption of Hindi cinema by diasporic audiences often considered a conservative and reactionary segment of the transnational viewing public.25 Thus, increased censorship demands from the diaspora were consistent with such an imagined community. A similar rhetoric of threatened Indian/Hindu culture, society, and traditional values under siege from a degenerate Western cultural invasion found expression in a series of letters from the President of the BJP Film Cell in 1994 to the Chairman:26 “There are still people in India who care about our pure and pristine cultural heritage and traditions and who are hurt by such brazen display of vulgarity in the name of mass entertainment. Since [the] Censor Board is supposedly the custodian of our moral values in society, [w]e request you to take immediate steps. . . . If that does not happen right away then, the responsibility for our drastic protest will lie at your door only.”27 In another letter, fearing “epidemical [sic] repercussions on our society of this reprehensible display of smut,”28 the BJP Film Cell President threatened dire 23 Quoted in Monika Mehta, “What Is Behind Film Censorship? The Khalnayak Debates,” in Brinda Bose, Gender & Censorship, 174, 175. 24 In a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister, Hindi radio and TV personalities in Toronto protested “against bowdy [sic] film songs and lewd dancing being presented in Hindi films like The Villain (Khalnayak; Subhas Ghai, 1993), Khal-nayika (Saawan Kumar Tak, 1993), Aankhen (David Dhawan, 1993) and Khiladi (Abbas Ali Burmawalla and Mastan Ali Burmawalla, 1992).” 25 See Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta, “Hindutva in the West: Mapping the Antinomies of Diaspora Nationalism,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 3 (2000): 407–441; Sheena Malhotra and Tavishi Alagh, “Dreaming the Nation: Domestic Dramas in Hindi Films Post-1990s,” South Asian Popular Culture 2, no. 1 (April 2004): 19–37; Arvind Rajagopal, “Hindu Nationalism in the US: Changing Configurations of Political Practice,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 3 (2000): 467–496; Biju Mathew and Vijay Prashad, “The Protean Forms of Yankee Hindutva,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 3 (2000): 516–534; Parita Mukta, “The Public Face of Hindu Nationalism,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 3 (2000): 442–466; Dhooleka Sarhadi Raj, “‘Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?’ Promoting Religious Identity Among Young Hindus in Britain,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 3 (2000): 535–558; and Anthony C. Alessandrini, “‘My Heart’s Indian for All That’: Bollywood Film Between Home and Diaspora,” Diaspora 10, no. 3 (2001): 335. 26 Four letters (January 1, 1994; February 22, 1994; April 5, 1994; and April 15, 1994) from Shashi Ranjan, the President of BJP Film Cell, were sent in quick succession to the Chairman. 27 Letter from the President of the BJP Film Cell, Shashi Ranjan, to the Chairman, January 19, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 28 Letter from the President of the BJP Film Cell, Shashi Ranjan, to the Chairman, April 15, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I).
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consequences. The letter was also printed in the leading film industry journal, Trade Guide: This is our last exhortation to you. If this spurt of vulgarity is not immediately curbed by you, then, we will have to take the issue to the streets and indulge in “Mass Protests” [sic] against and gheraos [boycott] of those who are instrumental in bringing about this wave of vulgarity, as well as those who have aided and abetted it by way of condoning it. However, we still hope that good sense will dawn upon you and you will see to it that stringent measures are taken against the purveyors of prurience in our films.29 Under the aegis of the BJP Film Cell, right-wing propaganda espoused that sex and female sexuality could not have a cinematic representation in public places as such representations were inherently un-Indian and damaged the moral fiber of the nation.30 According to Kanta Nalvade of the BJP Mahila Morcha (women’s wing): [O]ur culture and tradition has always shown tremendous amount of respect to women in our society. Unfortunately, these days in films women are shown as mere pleasure dolls and to satisfy the lustful part of our society. . . . Men giving pelvic thrusts, women lifting their skirts and all sorts of obscene gestures has become a way of our popular cinema. This is not our culture and this is not our society. And if some people try to destroy our society in the guise of popular cinema, we shall not tolerate it.31 Requesting that the Censor Board “maintain the inherent culture of the country . . . to cleanse and purify the Indian celluloid . . . in order to meet moral and ethical commitment,” a BJP Member of Parliament (MP) was keen to point out that “[o]ur country is still traditional in outlook and maintains a special quality attached to the woman and treats sex in private. Therefore, it is the bounden [sic] duty of the Censor Board to restrain any variations or departures from this accepted and traditional mode of human and moral ethics.”32 The Andaz Controversy. In the wake of the 1993 Khalnayak controversy, another protracted campaign for censorship, incited by the BJP Film Cell call “to save the society from the grave dangers of this smut and obscenity,”33 ensued over the lyrics of the song “Khada Hai” (“It’s Standing”) from the film Andaz. The Examining Committee (EC) took exception to a visual of the hero holding up his lungi34 for a split second 29 “BJP Film Cell Warns of Action,” Trade Guide, April 9, 1994. Identical to Letter to the Chairman, April 15, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 30 There were many more letters of this ilk in File No. M/33/94(I): for example, from Bimal Dey of Calcutta “warning of the pernicious effect of sex and violence” (April 18, 1994), and L. Hussain from Jaipur protesting against vulgar songs (March 2, 1994). 31 Letter from Kanta Nalvade to the Chairman, February 22, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 32 Letter from Bandaru Dattatraya to the Chairman, January 16, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 33 Letter from the President of the BJP Film Cell, Shashi Ranjan, to the Chairman. April 5, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 34 A garment, usually of cotton, worn around the waist like a kilt by men in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.
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(“this fleeting visual was first missed by me and two other members,” confessed the regional officer35). According to the EC recommendations, it allegedly imparted a slight element of vulgarity . . . as the beginning words were Khada hai [It’s standing] and not Khada hum [I’m standing] or Ashiq khada hai [The lover is standing]. The words khada hai and the visual of lungi imparted vulgarity only when they are together and deletion of either, preferably the visual, was enough to remove the vulgarity. When the alternatives were proposed the producer opted to delete the visual. With the visual gone now, even the slightest element of vulgarity is removed and it becomes a simple romantic song between husband and wife.36 The aforementioned correspondence between the Chairman, who was eager to expurgate “any possible element of vulgarity in the lyrics,”37 and the regional officer in Hyderabad reveal the paranoia, Victorian prudery, and heightened anxieties about double entendre and allusions to sex and/or sex organs. They also provide an insight into the excision methods of the CBFC and how altering one word or deleting a single visual often made all the difference in resolving an explosive situation and providing a film safe passage. The BJP involvement in this controversy was criticized by the editor of the popular film magazine Showtime, who opined that “the BJP’s moralistic stand against the film has given front-page attention to Andaz that should simply have been ignored,” while observing that “the BJP film cell would rather set out its parallel laws and have a goonda raj (rule by criminals) than follow what’s legal and staid.”38 Such contestations, essential to the democratic process, were often incommensurate with the rising tide of mob violence and right-wing-sponsored rhetoric in favor of increased censorship. Legal and State Directives to the CBFC. Mid-1994 signaled the beginning of overt state interventions and reactionary censorship guidelines issued under pressure from right-wing opposition parties that indicated a movement toward a repressive, homogenizing regime that would curtail liberal, diverse representations. This was a crucial turning point which laid the foundation for future attempts throughout the decade to monitor cable and satellite television (e.g., STAR TV) that were logistically and legally beyond the ambit of the state. In April 1994, the Supreme Court, while delivering a death sentence to a criminal who claimed he had been misguided into the criminal world by films depicting sex and violence, issued a stern warning39 to the Censor Board to stop the release of such 35 Letter from D. Kailasa Prasad, the regional officer (RO) in Hyderabad, to the Chairman, Shakti Samanta, April 18, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 36 Ibid. 37 Letter from the Chairman, Shakti Samanta, to Kailasa Prasad, the Hyderabad RO, April 15, 1994, File No. M/33/94 (I). 38 S. Pradhan Bharathi, “The War Cry Against Vulgarity,” Daily, April 24, 1994. 39 Justices K. Jayachandra and G. N. Ray pronounced in their seventy-six-page judgment, devoting four pages to films, the following: “We are at a loss to know whether it is compulsory that a heroine should invariably appear on the screen with accentuated angularities, deepened depressions and exaggerated proturbances [sic] of the body?”
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films and to clear only those that did not “affect the values of life.”40 Concurring with the counsel that filmmakers were vicariously responsible for turning him into a criminal, the Court declared, “[F]ilms and television had key roles in modifying human behaviour.”41 Under duress from the Supreme Court and the aforementioned pressure groups, the Censor Board was compelled to take cognizance of the public moral outcry, affirming the workings of the democratic machinery responsive to a wave of conservatism that swept the nation in the 1990s. Screen, another trade publication, reported that the I&B Ministry had asked the Censor Board to “take a firm view while censoring Hindi films due to various controversies regarding its attitude towards ‘lewd, bawdy lyrics, vulgar dialogues and pelvic gyrations’ ” and “to deal strictly with the obscenity and vulgarity in songs which had become a rage.”42 It was also noted, quite significantly, that “due to issues raised by some political parties on the road and in Parliament, the I&B ministry has decided to take [a] stern view to please these quarters.”43 In September 1994, the Censor Board issued revised censorship guidelines that the Union Government was eager to enforce.44 These rules (mostly dealing with sexual and violent representations) forbade unfavorable portrayal of politicians or senior police officials, maligning the police force, or making allegations against politicians. Although previous guidelines in Section 5B of the Cinematograph Act of 1952 considered films that brought into “contempt the armed forces, or the public services or persons entrusted with the administration of law and order”45 unsuitable for public exhibition, it was the eagerness to implement and the narrow interpretation of these erstwhile rules that was unprecedented in a period of national flux caused by globalization and coalition politics which was increasingly more intolerant of any assault on state credibility. By casting the police or politician as villain, the government felt the film industry undermined the constitution and caused the people to lose faith in the political system. This was a blatant attempt to curtail the fundamental rights of the citizen-viewer in a liberal democracy, and an excuse for future police participation in the censorship process of previewing films and becoming members of various CBFC regional boards. The state justified its move under the guise that it was acting in the interest of the nation. Oppositional rhetoric in the form of an editorial from Vir Sanghvi, editor of the now-defunct English-language news magazine Sunday, condemned such infringement on free expression and exhorted all liberals to oppose the new censorship guidelines: “The censorship restrictions are not just about the film industry. They are about the 40 “Films and Television Had Key Roles in Modifying Human Behaviour: SC Asks Censor Board to Stop Sex, ViolenceSoaked Films,” Indian Express (Bombay), April 7, 1994, attached to a letter from the Regional Officer in Calcutta to the Chairman, April 13, 1994, File No. M/33/94(I). 41 According to the judges, “One can easily observe the effect of movies and TV on all children, adolescents and youths in dress, action and expression and even the modus operandi adopted by some criminals to commit crimes has been found to be akin to that of the hero or villain in a particular movie.” 42 Padmaraj Nair, “CBFC to Stem Vulgarity in Film Songs,” Screen, April 8, 1994, 1–2, File No. M/33/94(I). 43 Ibid., emphasis mine. 44 “Government Enforces Strict Censorship Rules,” Navbharat Times, September 16, 1994, File No. M/33/94(II). 45 Part 1. E of the General Principles of Section 5B of the Cinematograph Act, 1952.
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nature of freedom of expression in India. They are about our commitment to a liberal society. And they are about the establishment’s desire to look after its own. . . . [I]f there was a loss of faith in the political system, it won’t be because of Hindi cinema.”46 As the editorial suggests, the new guidelines reflected the insecurity of the state about the growing cynicism and public “loss of faith in the political system” that bred unstable coalition governments. I would suggest that these were signs of a state moving to the right, under pressure from Hindu nationalist propaganda that appealed as a stable alternative to a pliant Hindu majority and portentous of the eventual electoral victory of the BJP in 1998. There would be further political interventions by the state in censoring the “other” (in terms of gender/politics/religion) out of the national imaginary as the right-wing electoral campaign gathered momentum from the mid1990s. In its efforts to appease the right wing, which had insidiously become a veritable extra-constitutional site of power by repeatedly resorting to terror tactics and mob censorship, the state would, on many occasions, continue to infringe on the rights and undermine the values and aspirations of a liberal democracy. Communal Insecurities, 1995–1998. With the rise of Hindu nationalism there were growing concerns about the protection of minority rights and communal anxieties about forced homogenization in keeping with the Hindu Right’s reductive vision of a Hindu India. There is a growing body of scholarship on how minority communities felt increasingly threatened and insecure during the 1990s.47 Thus, against this political backdrop, it is hardly surprising that this was a volatile period characterized by state anxieties about law and order problems, communal violence, and internal security issues. Along with the recurrent concerns about vulgarity (Bandit Queen [Sekhar Kapur, 1995], Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love [Mira Nair, 1996]), violence, and cultural invasion continuing from the previous period, issues of the alleged misrepresentation of minority communities such as Muslims, Rajputs, and Christians gained currency in the public sphere in films such as Bombay (Mani Ratnam, 1995), Matches (Maachis; Gulzar, 1996), Train to Pakistan (Pamela Rooks, 1998), and Wound (Zakhm; Mahesh Bhatt, 1998), and, later, the caricature of Sikhs in Mission Kashmir (Vidhu Vinod Chopra, 2000).48 The CBFC’s handling of the film Bombay, which portrays a love story between a Hindu man and a Muslim woman, would become a showcase of bad practice as the police, the Chief Minister, and the right-wing politician Bal Thackeray would be asked to act as proxy censors, setting a sinister precedent for future mob censorship as 46 He also noted how the print media, which enjoys greater freedom from state interference, had failed to protest against these rules, thus reflecting its disregard for the film industry. Vir Sanghvi, “The Politician as Villain,” Sunday, September 11–17, 1994, File No. M/33/94(II). 47 See Catarina Kinnvall, Globalization and Religious Nationalism in India: The Search for Ontological Security (London: Routledge, 2006); Sathianathan Clarke, “Hindutva, Religious and Ethnocultural Minorities, and Indian Christian Theology,” Harvard Theological Review 95, no. 2 (2002): 197–226; and Thomas Blom Hansen,”Recuperating Masculinity: Hindu Nationalism, Violence and the Exorcism of the Muslim ‘Other,’” Critique of Anthropology 16, no. 2 (1996): 137–172. 48 Complaint letter from the Sikh Brotherhood International addressed to the producer of the film, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and to the Minister of Cultural Affairs, File No. M/33/2000–2005.
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exemplified by Deepa Mehta’s Fire in 1998 and Water in 2005.49 Such escalating interventions, shifts in power, and constrictions of the public sphere marked by growing intolerance and homogenization were encouraged by the strident demands of correspondents for the outright banning of films, a tendency more in keeping with authoritarian regimes than a liberal democracy, and secondly, by the frequency with which letters were now directly addressed to the Police Commissioner, Prime Minister, and Chief Minister instead of the CBFC, a trend that would accelerate during the rightwing rule resulting in the literal policing of cinema in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Indeed, during this period increasing calls for the outright banning of films such as Jung (Rama Rao Tatineni, 1996), Rajkumar (Pankaj Parashar, 1996), Rangeela (Ram Gopal Varma, 1995), and Raja (Indra Kumar, 1995) reached a fever pitch.50 Significantly, a large volume of letters, particularly from conservative Muslim groups opposing the screening of Bombay, were directly addressed to the Police Commissioner, Prime Minister, and Chief Minister of Maharashtra, not to the CBFC (though they were, in fact, forwarded to the CBFC). This was, in other words, a marked shift in the public perception of the power of the CBFC. Demanding a ban on Bombay for the “very depiction of the reported love between the Hindu Boy and Muslim Girl” which, for religious reasons, brought shame on the community, the Secretary General of the Raza Academy, a Muslim organization, expressed his concerns as to “why such stories or themes are represented in the films which instead of fostering amity . . . between the two communities ignates [sic] hatred, anger and frustration which might result in [an] ever widening gulf between the two communities. Such themes and stories should be discouraged at all times and the filmmakers should be stopped from making such films.”51 He also mentioned sending letters to the Police Commissioner, that many other Muslim social and religious organizations were protesting, and that, although the film had been censored, it had been viewed by the former Chief Minister and Bal Thackeray, suggesting that they were the unofficial, parallel, if not proxy, censors to the Board.52 The Indian Union Muslim League sent a telegram conveying their “emphatic request to withdraw certificate issued in favour of film Bombay which is anti-Muslim, highly offensive and prejudicial to communal harmony.”53 The Bombay Aman Committee, yet another Muslim organization, demanded the excision of seven objectionable scenes.54 In a confidential letter addressed to the I&B Minister, the high-profile Muslim MP Syed Shahabuddin, apprehensive of “widespread 49 For a detailed account of the protracted censorship controversy on Bombay, see Lalitha Gopalan, Bombay (London: British Film Institute, 2005). 50 Complaint letters from the Cine Film Reform Association of India, Warangal City Consumers Council, and All India Film Goers Association, File No. M/33/96. 51 Letter from the Secretary General of the Raza Academy to Manohar Joshi, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, March 28, 1995, File No. M/33/95. 52 Ibid. 53 Letter from the President of the Indian Union Muslim League to the Chairman, April 7, 1995, File No. M/33/95. 54 Letter from Wahid Ali Khan, President of the Bombay Aman Committee, to the Chairman, April 7, 1995, File No. M/33/95.
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protests,” explained that the love story was objectionable to Muslims, “primarily because the Muslim girl even after marriage is shown as a devout Muslim. . . . [T]he Muslim community does not regard such an inter-religious marriage as sanctioned by the Shariat. The status of the Muslim partner is that of a renegade.”55 In a resignation letter alleging religious discrimination, a Muslim member on the Bombay advisory panel, who was not informed about the viewing of the film, wrote, “I feel very sorry because I am from the minority and muslim [sic] and that is why I was not called. I feel I should give my resignation in this ‘PROTEST.’ ”56 In his appraisal of the polyphonic censorship debates that raged around Bombay’s contentious depiction of communal culpability for the violence that took place in the aftermath of the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid, Ravi Vasudevan discerns that by “figuring aggression as residing within the [Muslim] community . . . the film may have brought about an alignment between mainstream cinematic fiction and the popular Hindu imagining of the communal other.”57 He suggests that the excisions of anti-Muslim incendiary rhetoric and action, firstly, reveal the conscious attempt by the government to prevent “the rekindling of anti-government sentiment among the Muslim”;58 secondly, reflect state anxiety about depicting the government as “ineffective or opposed to the community”; and thirdly, indicate that the state “must not appear vulnerable to popular assault.”59 His interpretation supports my argument that the imperative to curtail perceived threats against the Indian nation, from within and without, fueled the 1990s censor wave. The extraordinary role played by Bal Thackeray, the leader of the Shiv Sena, in the censorship of Bombay is further evidence that the CBFC was no longer the primary site for regulating Hindi cinema; other extra-constitutional sites of power had been vested with the powers of excision. India Under Cultural Invasion. A poll conducted by Times of India—a leading English-language national newspaper—on Independence Day in 1998 revealed interesting statistics on what the public regarded as “Threats to Indian Culture.” An overwhelming 79 percent agreed that explicit sex in movies was a threat; pubs/discos came in next at 46 percent, followed by 38 percent believing that MTV/Channel V were threats. Surprisingly, satellite TV was considered threatening by only 22 percent.60 The inclusion of a newspaper clipping of the poll, filed among the CBFC’s letters, indicates that the CBFC was both aware of and in touch with the mood of the people, and also emphasizes the burden of responsibility placed upon the CBFC to curtail such threats and to justify its practices. In one of the first letters from the right-wing Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), its President, Ashok Singhal, well known for his extremist positions, outlined 55 Letter to K. P. Singh Deo, which was forwarded to the Chairman, January 7, 1995, File No. M/33/95. 56 Letter from Anwarali H. Nanji to K. P. Singh Deo, the I&B Minister, April 7, 1995, File No. M/33/95. 57 Ravi S. Vasudevan, “Bombay and Its Public,” in Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Consumption and Politics of Public Culture in India, ed. Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 194. 58 Ibid., 195. 59 Ibid., 195–196. 60 Times of India, August 15, 1998, File No. M/33/98.
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six resolutions taken at a meeting “on matters of immense concern for the Hindus.” Resolution Number Four, under the heading “Cultural Invasion,” expressed concerns about: the cultural invasion being carried out on India. To pollute the high sanskars [culture] of this country rich in righteousness and liberalism by invading its high civilization and culture through the hollow policies of liberalisation and globalization and by using Doordarshan and other media is a matter of great concern. . . . [T]o misguide the citizens particularly the youths of this country and to deter them from their religion by showing them shallow and nonideal programmes . . . which will lead to the separation of this country form [sic] its great culture and civilization is highly undemocratic and undesirable. This sammelan [meeting] strongly demands from the govt. of India that all the programmes should be reviewed before telecast. . . .”61 From 1998 onwards, under the aegis of a BJP-led government, the outcry against “threats to Indian culture” and paranoia about “foreign cultural invasion” became increasingly a convenient ploy to stifle any dissent through the threat of censorship. Policing Cinema, 1998–2002. The frequency of right-wing state interventions reached a peak during this period, a period representing the pinnacle of religious nationalism as espoused by the Hindu Right. The heightened sensitivity about alleged attempts to denigrate the Hindu religion was illustrated by the gayatri mantra (a sacred Hindu chant) controversy in Mohabbatein (Aditya Chopra, 2000), created by outraged Hindu priests in Varanasi who believed the film was “a conspiracy to finish the Hindu religion.”62 It prompted the Film Producers Guild to submit “a strong letter of protest” to I&B Minister Sushma Swaraj against the “‘self-styled censorship of films by certain extremist organisations . . .’ that forced cinema theatres in Varanasi to delete some scenes . . . on the grounds that they hurt religious sentiments.”63 Such imagined harm to Hindus would result in casting the net wider than ever before to censor objectionable representations in foreign films such as The Guru (Daisy von Scherler Mayer, 2002) and Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999). Certain letter writers even demanded censorship at the preproduction stage by making it obligatory for scripts to be approved by the CBFC before shooting. Mob censorship of Deepa Mehta’s films Fire and Water highlights the manner in which the Hindu Right, by creating law and order problems, could legitimize and delegitimize the entry of representations into the public sphere, acting as gatekeepers to an “unsullied” Indian culture. It also exemplifies the degree to which extra-legal methods were increasingly employed to censor films and the noticeable shift toward totalitarianism. The police, whose involvement was actively solicited by the new CBFC Chairman, became a key factor in the censorship process during this period. 61 Letter from Ashok Singhal, Working President of Vishva Hindu Parishad, to Prime Minister Deve Gowda, forwarded to the Censor Board, August 5, 1996, File No. M/33/96. 62 “Amitabh Targeted Over Gayatri Mantra in ‘Mohabbatein,’” Film Information, December 2, 2000, 59. 63 “G.U.I.L.D Appeals to I. & B. Minister,” Trade Guide, December 2, 2000, 24.
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Trade Guide (one of two influential trade publications) reported the industry’s appeal to the then Home Minister against the “. . . decision of the Censor Board to get films approved by the Mumbai police before they [were] granted Censor Clearance.”64 It questioned the I&B Minister’s suggestion that filmmakers “submit the screenplay of their films before commencing the shooting,” which was “totally unacceptable to the industry,” as the “Government [had] no right to curb the filmmakers’ freedom of expression.”65 The letter also pointed out “how censorship had become a nightmarish experience for most producers lately, especially producers of small films who [were] being refused certification for trivial reasons.”66 In mid-1998 when the BJP came into power, the new right-wing I&B Minister Sushma Swaraj launched a drive to purge the nation’s media of sex by promulgating a new broadcasting bill called the Prasar Bharati, which would check the overdose of sex and violence on TV. According to Swaraj, although the government wanted to make the best use of information technology to speed up the country’s development, it would not be at the expense of the country’s culture and heritage. Swaraj further warned that efforts should be made by the Centre and state governments “to protect ourselves from the potential danger of cultural wreck due to misuse of technology.”67 In a related move the government, under Swaraj’s aegis as Communications Minister, blocked all international phone sex lines by setting up monitoring cells which would track and block advertised numbers. Phone sex lines, Swaraj explained, “offend the moral fibre of the country and amount to cultural invasion.”68 The Trouble with Fire. In 1998, Fire (about a sexual relationship between Radha and Sita, two unhappily married sisters-in-law in a joint family in Delhi) became a rallying point for liberals and an excuse for conservatives to abandon legal-judicial channels of protest and take to the streets to protest for and against the release of the film. It was an exemplar of right-wing protest politics, symbolizing a schismatic moment created by the expression of transgressive sexuality. The vandalism and violence by the Shiv Sena and other right-wing parties generated enough heat for the CBFC to reconsider its surprisingly liberal verdict (to pass the film without any cuts), under pressure from the I&B Ministry, which undermined its decision-making process. Complaint letters addressed to the Police Commissioner in Bombay exhorted him to use his powers to ban the film for a bewildering variety of reasons: it would create law and order problems; by promoting illicit sex, lesbianism, and homosexuality it would encourage the spread of AIDS; it would provoke passions that would “ignite illicit sexual urges which may ignite the city”; and if withdrawn, “future generations and 1.75 crore [17.5 million] Mumbai Public shall be obliged.”69 Condemned 64 “AMPTPP Appeals to Home Minister, I&B Minister on Censorship Issue,” Trade Guide, December 5, 1998. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 “Cable Firms Will Have to Beam DD Channels on Strong Bands,” Times of India, August 15, 1998, File No. M/33/98. 68 “Sushma Blocks International Tele-Sex Lines,” Business Times, August 15, 1998, File No. M/33/98. According to her, phones in some government departments were being misused for these purposes. 69 Letter from Ravi Mehra to R. H. Mendonca, Police Commissioner, December 18, 1998, File No. M/33/98.
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as pornography that promoted “unnatural, abnormal relationships,” it would allegedly hurt women in India.70 According to one correspondent, homosexuality was such a minor part of the lives of a tiny fraction of people that it didn’t deserve representation.71 Of particular interest are two letters, both addressed to the Police Commissioner, and written on the same day by a young woman in Bombay. In the first letter, carrying many signatories supporting the screening of Fire, she opined that the film was bold and should be screened.72 The second letter, unique in its fearlessness and possibly the only one of its kind in the CBFC files, was a complaint against Bal Thackeray, asking him to apologize for his derogatory remarks about Muslim women in general and to Saira Banu, a famous film actress, in particular.73 She accused him of promoting enmity between different religious groups and of spreading seeds of disharmony and disaffection, and asked the police to look into the matter.74 This letter provided an alternative perspective that was often absent from the CBFC files. A broad-based “Campaign for Lesbian Rights” was formed in New Delhi to create awareness that “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation/preference is a violation of basic human rights.”75 It was clearly a moment of rupture of the dominant as oppositional discourses were voiced for the first time in the public sphere. The controversy provoked a media blitzkrieg of extensive reportage and editorials in leading newspapers and magazines such as Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, The Hindu, and Manushi and elicited wide-ranging and multivocal critical responses.76 Fire provided a platform for people of alternative sexuality to exercise their democratic right of expression and to participate in demonstrating and discussing their sexuality in the dominant cultural arena. Besides providing provocative, subversive visual images and a narrative that bestowed agency on Hindu women within a joint family, Fire was significant because it was produced at a particular sociohistorical conjuncture when the Hindu Right was at the height of its political power.77 According to Tapti Roy in The Asian Age, Fire “tries to address the problem of identifying and defining the attempt of ‘victims’ or ‘subjects’ to create room for themselves within the existing 70 Ibid. 71 Letter from Ravi Mehra to Dilip Kumar forwarded to the CBFC, December 15, 1998, File No. M/33/98. 72 Letter from Nishi Tripathi to R. H. Mendonca, Police Commissioner, December 15, 1998, File No. M/33/98. An edited version of this letter appeared in the “Letter to the Editor” column of the Indian Express. 73 Bal Thackeray had made a derogatory remark suggesting that the Hindu names of Radha and Sita, which have mythic connotations, be replaced with Muslim names, Shabana and Saira, implying that Muslim women could be lesbians but not Hindu women, thus demonizing the female “other.” 74 Letter from Nishi Tripathi to R. H. Mendonca, Police Commissioner, December 15, 1998, File No. M/33/98. 75 Mary E. John and Tejaswini Niranjana, “Mirror Politics: ‘Fire,’ Hindutva and Indian Culture,” Economic and Political Weekly 34, nos. 10&11 (1999): 581–584. 76 “Shiv Sena Activists Attack Delhi Theatre Screening ‘Fire,’” Times of India, December 23, 1998; Sunil Sondhi, “No Smoke Without Fire,” Hindustan Times, December 24, 1998; Deepak Hiranandani, “Dealing with Fire,” Hindustan Times, March 4, 1999; “SC Orders Protection to Fire Petitioners,” Indian Express, December 12, 1998; Ratna Kapur, “‘Fire’ Goes Up in Smoke,” The Hindu, December 13, 1998; Madhu Kishwar, “Naïve Outpouring of a SelfHating Indian: Deepa Mehta’s Fire,” Manushi, no. 109 (November–December 1998): 3–14; and “Deepa Mehta’s Fire Creates Controversy and Protests in India,” SAWNET, http://www.sawnet.org/news/fire.html (accessed December 15, 2005). 77 Ratna Kapur, “Too Hot to Handle: The Cultural Politics of ‘Fire,’” Feminist Review 64 (Spring 2000): 53–64.
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power relations.”78 Alluding to the moral panic caused by the homoerotic Fire, Ratna Kapur observed, “the continuous targeting of representations of sex and sexuality betrays an underlying fear that sex is threatening [emphasis mine] to Indian cultural values, to the Indian way of life, to the very existence of the Indian nation.”79 This again sustains the aforementioned argument that the 1990s censorship wave was driven by the popular perception of a threatened India, which had to be protected at all costs. CBFC Solicits Police and Popular Support. Multiple players remained beyond the ambit of the CBFC, their cooperation being vital for the effective functioning of the censorship process. Responding to a complaint letter80 about Sir (Mahesh Bhatt, 1993) the Secretary of the I&B Ministry acknowledged “the perennial problem or dilemma of balancing freedom of artistic expression, conventional as well as changing social values and the absolutely undeniable need to eliminate or minimize obscenity, violence and even crudity and vulgarity from films as well as other visual media[.]” He conceded that the problem of effective censorship was that “it is not amenable to purely legal or regulatory measures and a certain degree of continuing support from outside is essential.”81 The nature of this “support” was made explicit when the newly appointed Chairperson, Asha Parekh,82 responded to a complaint from the editor of a monthly magazine against, predictably, “sex, nudity, and violence in films.”83 She had controversially referred Mahesh Bhatt’s film Zakhm, set against the backdrop of communal riots, to the Home Secretary without even viewing it, although it had been “cleared by the censors with an ‘A’ certification and one cut.”84 Parekh thereby abdicated her responsibility and undermined the CBFC’s independence, since the film’s release was considered a risk to national security. Indeed, its release was condemned by the trade press.85 Parekh welcomed the involvement of alert citizens and the police, thereby attempting to absolve the CBFC from lapses, oversights, and failures: “I, therefore, solicit the cooperation of persons like you in curbing such violations by promptly informing the local police [emphasis mine] to take action under Section 7 and Section 7A of the Cinematograph Act 1952 Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.”86 In response, one letter proposed censorship at the preproduction stage by making it obligatory for scripts and possible 78 Tapti Roy, “A Fiery Fire to Create Room Within Power Relations,” Asian Age, February 15, 1999. 79 Kapur, “Too Hot to Handle.” 80 Letter from Y. N. Chaturvedi to P. G. Mankad, Secretary, I&B Ministry, October 14, 1998, File No. M/33/98. 81 Letter from P. G. Mankad, Secretary, I&B Ministry, to Y. N. Chaturvedi, October 16, 1998, File No. M/33/98, emphasis mine. 82 She was a famous actress during the 1960s and was appointed by the BJP-NDA government as Chairperson of the Censor Board. Her tenure lasted from June 25, 1998, to September 25, 2001. 83 Letter from Dr. M. P. Agarwal to the I&B Ministry, August 28, 1998, File No. M/33/98. 84 Taran Adarsh and Manisha Deshpande, “Wake Up Call!” Trade Guide, November 7, 1998. 85 Censors objected to a key sequence in which a police officer shoots a Muslim youth dead, and another where a marauding mob is shown wearing saffron headbands implicating the right wing. “The Crisis After the Cuts,” Times of India, August 23, 1999. 86 Letter from Asha Parekh, Chairperson, to Dr. M. P. Agarwal, October 14, 1998, File No. M/33/98.
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scenes to be approved by the CBFC before shooting, ominous for any liberal democracy.87 This suggestion of preproduction censorship was prescient since in 2000, after nearly two years of right-wing rule, the script for Water had to be approved by the Prime Minister. Despite this, the film was subjected to mob censorship as Hindu fundamentalists allied to the ruling BJP destroyed film sets and threatened both cast and crew.88 The film, considered an affront to Hindus, was abandoned before a single shot had been taken. This was another instance of the infringement of secular-democratic values enshrined in the Constitution of India. The Police as Villain/Hero/Film Consultant. My argument about the growing influence of the state’s executive office during this period is supported by the frequent involvement of the police, whether as correspondents protesting the vilification of the police force by the film industry, as recipients of complaint letters from aggrieved members of the viewing public, or as ultimate arbiters called upon to investigate anonymous phone calls and citizens filing criminal cases against directors and producers for creating TV serials offensive to religious (Hindu) feelings. Although in colonial times police commissioners had constituted regional film boards, this return to past practices exemplified postcolonial India’s struggle to exorcise vestigial structures of colonial power. Criticizing the proposed move of installing a police officer on the Censor Board, Bhatt noted, “This hasn’t happened even during Emergency, the darkest hour of Indian democracy. The police should do their job of policing the city. Movies should be left to the film industry. This is a dangerous trend, an intrusion into a film-maker’s creative space.”89 I further suggest that the growing prominence of the police-as-censor reflected a lack of faith in, and impatience with, legal procedure as well as a preference for strong-arm tactics and mob censorship. Referring to the 1994 revisions in the Censorship guidelines that proscribed the representation of the police and politicians in a bad light, the Kerala Branch of the Indian Police Service (IPS) Association lodged a complaint with the Censor Board against the negative portrayal of the police force in Hindi films such as Badal (Raj Kanwar, 2000), which depicted a senior IPS officer as villainous. Arguing that “making mockery and showing police in villainous role and bad light do not augur good for society,” the Association believed that “any misdemeanour of a policeperson which had happened a decade ago can not be cited in films as bad police at present.” Expressing concerns that since “cinema and TV’s serials influence viewers’ mind greatly, more so, the tender 87 Letter from Dr. M. P. Agarwal to Asha Parekh, CBFC Chairperson, October 22, 1998, File No. M/33/98. 88 “500 supporters of Sangh Parivar, the alliance of Hindu fundamentalist organisations associated with the BJP, marched to the Ganges River where they destroyed the set. Among the participants were members of the Rastriya Swayangsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Forum), Shiva Sena (Shiva’s Army) and the Kashi Sanskriti Raksha Sangharsh Samithi (KSRSS), an amalgam of several Hindu fundamentalist organisations. After wrecking the set, the mob held a meeting and vowed to stop the film. Police officers made no attempt to arrest any of those responsible.” Richard Phillips and Waruna Alahakoon, “Hindu Chauvinists Block Filming Deepa Mehta’s Water,” World Socialist Web site, February 12, 2000, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/film-f12 .shtml (accessed November 15, 2006). 89 Satish Nandgaonkar, “Film Makers Make Peace with Censor Board, but Mahesh Bhatt Wants a Fight,” Times of India, November 26, 1998.
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minds of children and adolescents and youth, unnecessary portrayal of police in such bad taste and manner in films tarnishes image of police irreparably before common citizen.”90 In another letter expressing similar concerns, the Police Commissioner of Greater Mumbai referred to an interview with children in The Asian Age that apparently reflected how Indian cinema had eroded public confidence and seriously impaired the credibility of the police. He further complained that the police were frequently portrayed as outlaws, corrupt, oppressive, and debauched, which was far removed from reality. As the Police Commissioner of Mumbai, the “headquarters of bollywood,” he was taking the initiative to convey his hurt sentiments to the film industry by “writing to all governing bodies of the film producers and directors and requesting them to be more objective in picturising any scene involving a policeman or officer.”91 Also, quite significantly, he concluded by offering to engage in a dialogue with the industry: “[ The] Mumbai police can work out an arrangement by which glaring mistakes about police uniform, roles of different police ranks[,]” and other related matters could be explained to film directors.92 This, I believe, was a convenient ploy to justify further interventions at the preproduction stage, and to monitor the creative process under the guise of achieving verisimilitude. The police were again involved, albeit this time in the more traditional role of investigator than of costume consultant, when CBFC Chairman Vijay Anand93 intimated in a letter to the aforementioned Police Commissioner that he had “received an anonymous letter at [his] residence making derogatory remarks of our Prime Minister and urging the President of India to ban the films Lajja [Rajkumar Santoshi, 2001] and Asoka [Santosh Shivan, 2001]”94 followed by anonymous phone calls. In late 2001, the Chairperson received a copy of a First Information Report (FIR) filed with the New Delhi police by the BJP MP, B. P. Singhal. The report epitomized heightened Hindu chauvinism. Complaining against the “very horrible slackening in the implementation of the Guidelines laid down for the Board of Film Certification,” he writes that “[i]f there are failures again, specially on the religious front, you should not feel surprised that cases u/s 120B, 295A and 298 IPC can get registered involving the Producers, Directors and Actors of films, along with the members of the Panel as well as the members of the Board of Film Censors, and the Chairman of the CBFC. Such a development will not do credit to either your reputation or the reputation of
90 Letter from Sanjeev Patjoshi, Joint Secretary, IPS Association, Kerala, to the CBFC Chairperson, February 16, 2000, File No. M/33/2000–2005. 91 Letter from M. N. Singh, Police Commissioner, Greater Mumbai, to the CBFC Chairperson, January 10, 2001, File No. M/33/2000–2005. 92 Ibid. 93 Vijay Anand was the Censor Board Chairman from September 25, 2001, to March 19, 2003, before he was ignominiously sacked from the post after unwittingly initiating a thorough reappraisal of the Cinematograph Act with a view to its liberalization. He had announced the designation and segregation of certain cinema halls for the exhibition of sexually explicit films, a new certification category “X,” and proposed that appointments to various advisory panels of the CBFC be made based on professional considerations and not on political affiliations. 94 Letter from the CBFC Chairman, Vijay Anand, to the Police Commissioner, Mumbai, M. N. Singh, October 12, 2001, File No. M/33/2000–2005.
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the CBFC.”95 In the FIR, Anand perceived “a world conspiracy by the Christians and Muslims alike to systematically denigrate the Hindu scriptures, the Hindu deities with the object of completely brainwashing the Hindus of this country[.]” Anand further accused Doordarshan of ridiculing aspects of Hindu faith publicly, advertisements and television being the worst offenders. He inveighed against Deepa Mehta for her thwarted efforts to film Water and even vilified M. F. Hussain for his bold painting of the Goddess Sarawasti.96 An FIR was filed against the CEO of Prasar Bharati and the entire creative team behind a television serial entitled Sach for allegedly “ridiculing Hindu religious practices” in an episode featuring a “Devi Pooja.” Anand concluded, “I would . . . urge you to kindly register a case u/s 120B [Criminal Conspiracy], 295A and 298 of the IPC and investigate it vigorously. I would further urge you to immediately seize all the episodes and the scripts of past and future episodes to make sure that this offence is not repeated.”97 The police as ultimate arbiter reflected an ominous movement toward the shrinkage of the democratic space for the expression of oppositional discourses and representations. As Monica Juneja observes, “Any move to artificially deny and suppress plurality, which lies at the heart of the enterprise of Hindutva,98 is necessarily premised on the use of fascist methods as an ultimate decisive means to destroy the public sphere within which multiple perspectives and identities can find expression, engage with, contest, subvert and replenish one another.”99 Conclusion. Inferring from the decade-long correspondence, it is my contention that from 1992 to 2002, there was a noticeable shift in power relations away from the legal-judicial machineries of the state. Instead of legal appeals challenging the CBFC’s contentious decisions, the police in various Indian states were now frequently involved in settling disputes as the “public” realized that the CBFC had no power to enforce its decisions. Lapses and failures on the part of the censors alarmed the public while reaffirming their belief in the urgent need for stricter censorship, reminiscent of Foucault’s comment that “failures” are crucial enablers for the continued existence of regulatory and disciplinary practices and institutions.100 Also, the Censor Board’s abdication of duty by referring to the police caused the public to lose faith in them. Repeated recourse to the police by the CBFC, MPs, and citizens in seeking assistance in resolving disputes, controlling potentially unruly mobs, and filing criminal cases (for instance, FIRs) and lodging complaints with the police further undermined the beleaguered CBFC’s authority. 95 Letter from B. P. Singhal to the Chairperson, Asha Parekh, September 30, 2001, File No. M/33/2001–2002. 96 Hussain is the most famous painter in India, a Muslim, and is notorious for walking barefoot. 97 FIR filed by B. P. Singhal with the Station House Officer, Police Station, New Delhi, September 30, 2001, File No. M/33/2001–2002. 98 “Hinduness,” coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, denoting nationalist, revivalist, chauvinistic Hinduism that forms the basis of Hindu right-wing ideology and the movement for a Hindu nation. 99 Monica Juneja, “Reclaiming the Public Sphere: Husain’s Portrayals of Saraswati and Draupadi,” in Brinda Bose, Gender & Censorship, 152, emphasis mine. 100 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison, 1971), trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon, 1978).
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The unquestioning demand for more stringent and effective censorship by almost all the correspondents reveals the persistence of a blind spot regarding the influence of the cinematic medium in 1990s India. Regulatory concerns about Hindi cinema could be linked to anxieties around the irreparable loss of Indian/Hindu culture, its traditional value system and family structure—anxieties stoked by a right-wing agenda seeking to impose a “normative moral code” that all Indians (Hindus and minority groups alike) had to conform to. These concerns were also linked to the confusion over and obfuscation of national identity and what it meant to be Indian in the 1990s and early 2000s, to the defense of the private that was threatening to enter the public sphere, and to internal security issues of communal violence and tension between an increasingly hostile and aggressive Hindu majority and insecure religious/ethnic minority groups. A homogenizing and exclusivist definition of Indian-ness inhibiting cultural plurality gained currency in the public sphere and was vitiated by the Hindu Right, who increasingly played a gatekeeping role, often setting the political and media agenda and controlling the terms of the censorship debates in 1990s India. The postcolonial Indian state was particularly sensitive and responsive to the Hindu nationalist discourse and to the demands of the BJP and its allied parties. These files reveal the extent to which the changing political context impinged upon the censorship mechanism, determining the fate of filmmakers and film releases. While many of the anxieties and concerns about the cinematic medium and its impact harked back to colonial and postindependence eras, I argue that it was the rise of nationalism in the 1990s which provoked extreme responses from both the state and its citizens. Just as Monika Mehta, in her recent article on the surprising and anomalous CBFC decision to ban the film My Husband, My God (Pati Parmeshwar; Madan Joshi, 1989) in the late 1980s, underlines the primacy of various defining historical events influencing decisions taken by the CBFC, noting that “to understand the CBFC’s decision, we need to consider the context of the film’s reception,”101 I also argue that it is the political context and the historical conjuncture that are all-important in gaining a fuller understanding of the kind of rhetoric of moral panic, protest, and political contestation revealed by the CBFC files. I conclude this essay by providing a relay of “secret” correspondence from the Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs to the I&B Ministry which resulted in a cautionary missive to the CBFC. In a letter entitled “Objectionable Documentary on Jinnah,” sent to the Joint Secretary of the I&B Ministry, the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau reveals that a preview of a documentary, Mr. Jinnah: The Making of Pakistan (Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Christopher Mitchell, 1997), produced by the Pakistani nation and scheduled for commercial release in Pakistan and India, had been held at Mumbai University to a select audience in order to “obtain feedback on its possible reaction in India. . . . According to an article captioned ‘Film Depicts Traitor Jinnah as Patriot’ appearing in the May 24 Issue of ‘Organiser’ [RSS mouthpiece], the film shows genocide of Muslims by Hindus and is a subtle attempt to incite the Muslims. The article condemns the film as a conspiracy to create another Pakistan. . . . 101 See Monika Mehta, “A Certification Anomaly: The Self-Sacrificial Female Body in Bombay Cinema,” Studies in South Asian Film and Media 1, no. 1 (2009): 121.
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In view of [this], it will be desirable to seek an official pre-view of the film, before a decision is taken to release it.”102 Acting on the advice of the Intelligence Bureau, the Secretary sent a cautionary letter to the then CBFC Chairman with the following intimation: “It is reported that the film portrays India and Hindus in a poor light and may incite communal passions. . . . In view of the sensitiveness of the matter, you may kindly advice [sic] all the Regional Officers to inform the Ministry as soon as the film is presented for certification. Further course of action to be adopted will be communicated on receipt of intimation about the receipt of application for certification.”103 This chain of correspondence is illustrative of the extraordinary influence that the Hindu nationalist discourse exerted over the state, via the Ministry of Home Affairs and the I&B Ministry in the mid-1990s. It also foregrounds the disturbing implications of the state’s preemptive, alarmist measures to withhold a film release (including documentaries, which usually have limited circulation compared to Hindi commercial cinema) based on nothing more substantial than a partisan film review published in the extremist right-wing, agit-prop, RSS mouthpiece, the Organiser. 102 Letter dated June 3, 1998, and classed as “secret” from K. B. Gokulachandran, Deputy Director, Intelligence Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, to Raghu Menon, Joint Secretary, Ministry of I&B. 103 Letter dated June 8, 1998, and classed as “secret” from Raghu Menon, Joint Secretary, Ministry of I&B, to Shakti Samanta, then Chairman of the CBFC.
I would like to thank SCMS and the members of the 2008 SCMS Student Writing Award committee for an award that I will always cherish, as well as to acknowledge Heather Hendershot’s and Frank Episale’s editorial assistance in the publication of this essay. My thanks and gratitude to Monika Mehta for her detailed and insightful comments and suggestions. This essay would not have been possible without the cooperation of Vinayak Azad, the Regional Officer of the CBFC in Bombay, and his helpful secretary, Vijaya Chawak. To my supervisors Roberta Pearson and Peter Urquhart I am especially thankful, not only for their helpful feedback on the first drafts of this essay but, more importantly, for their support and encouragement through the ebbs and flows of the trajectory of my doctoral research.
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