Pahlaj Nihalani is the best thing to have happened to Bollywood
Can Pahlaj Nihalani - a man who has been the king of controversy ever since he joined the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) as its chief decision maker in January 2015 - be in fact a blessing in disguise for the film watchdog?
Can Nihalani, unwittingly of course, uncensor the "censor board" that routinely exceeds its brief and goes on scissoring films on flimsy grounds, like it tried doing in the case of Udta Punjab?
Looking at the tough responses from the government in the wake of the uproar over Udta Punjab censorship and certification issue, and the drubbing that Pahlaj Nihalani received on mainstream and social media, we can sense something positive may be about to happen.
Irony be damned, if Pahlaj Nihalani's term becomes a trigger for a real change in the CBFC, it will be a blessing in disguise.
And if so happens, it will be a reform much needed for the CBFC that has been languishing in turbid waters of outdated moral outrage at the drop of a cinematic hat.
India's CBFC has always been synonymous with thought policing and controversies. The pace has only exacerbated with Pahlaj Nihalani at the helm of affairs.
Sometimes he finds a children's movie like The Jungle Book scary enough to give it a U/A-certificate that requires adult supervision.
Sometimes he objects to kissing scenes, such as in the lastest James Bond offering Spectre. He finds Aligarh, a film on homosexuality, deserves nothing less than an A-certificate.
And, this is when legalising homosexuality is a raging debate in India and the matter has been sent back to the Supreme Court after a curative petition challenged its utterly orthodox 2013 verdict. This is when India has witnessed many gay pride parades in almost every big metropolitan city worth its name.
The list of Pahlaj Nihalani's antics is long, including his botched attempt to show a five-minute clip in theatres on Narendra Modi's achievements.
His attempts to insert the clip during the intermission of Salman Khan starrer Prem Ratan Dhan Payo failed miserably.
But CBFC's controversies go well beyond Pahlaj Nihalani.
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| Udta Punjab releases today. |
In 2002, War and Peace, a film by famous documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, was blocked by the censor board as it contained graphic scenes from America's 9/11 attacks and nuclear testing. The board asked for many cuts. The board's diktat was finally overturned by the court.
CBFC banned the 2003 film Gulabi Aaina (The Pink Mirror), a sensitive portrayals of transsexuals. The film has been critically acclaimed the world over but still remains banned in India. This is when India had already seen some brilliant films on eunuchs, like Kalpana Lajmi's Darmiyaan in 1997.
The board initially blocked the 2004 documentary Final Solution, based on 2002 Gujarat riots, but relented later on and cleared it without any cuts after protests.
Filmmakers of the 2011 global hit The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo didn't release the film in India after they found the CBFC's demand of cuts to be unreasonable.
These are just a few major instances on how erratically our censor board has been behaving for a long time now.
Also, it has been an open secret how money exchanges hands for a film to get the desirable CBFC certificate. The arrest of CBFC CEO Rakesh Kumar in 2014 on bribing charges had created a furore.
Many filmmakers then had come out in the open to speak on how difficult and financially cumbersome it had become to get a film passed through the censor board. The episode showed how corruption had become a way of life in the statutory body that regulates public exhibition of films in India.
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| The 'controversial' kissing scene from Spectre. |
In fact, corruption in the censor board/film certification watchdog has become common to the extent that no one now pays attention to it.
So it is fair to say that in case the censor board does see some fundamental overhaul, it would be because of Pahlaj Nihalani's stubborn illogic over Udta Punjab.
Nihalani's painful stint could be the bitter pill for everyone who holds freedom of expression dear and feels disturbed over the bizarre approach of the CBFC.
Fortunately enough, information and broadcasting minister, Arun Jaitley has given ample indications hinting at "radical changes" in the functioning of the film watchdog. Also, his deputy, Rajyavardhan Rathore, has tweeted: "Certification only, not censorship".
To cement the Pahlaj Nihalani angle here, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in a public snub, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't need sycophants.
The snub came after Nihalani tried to portray himself as a "Modi bhakt" and went on to proclaim "he would feel proud to be labelled a Modi chamcha (sycophant)".
Also, a central government counsel told the Delhi High Court on June 16 that the CBFC would not challenge the Bombay High Court order in the Supreme Court.
Later, the censor board issued an "A certificate" to the film. If we say that there has been a personal grudge on the part of Pahlaj Nihalani in the Udta Punjab controversy, as the filmmakers allege, it amply reflects in the certificate issued.
The certificate mentions names of two justices of the Bombay HC who thought the movie didn't merit as many cuts as was suggested by Nihalani-led CBFC. The censor board had never done so in the past, even if the courts had routinely overturned the board's decision.
Additionally, there have been allegations flying that the censor board is responsible for the leaked print of Udta Punjab that is available on many torrent websites.
It seems like Pahlaj Nihalani has already been on the radar even before the Udta Punjab issue split the country into warring halves. After a spate of controversies, the I&B ministry formed a CBFC revamp committee headed by eminent film personality Shyam Benegal this January and its draft report is already in.
To make matters worse for Nihalani in the Udta Punjab case, after watching the film, Benegal had remarked that it was a "very well made and technically sound" film.
After the Bombay HC verdict, he went on the say that a paradigm change in CBFC functioning is the need of the hour, that is, it must adhere to its role as a certification body and not some censoring watchdog.
Hope this happens now.
The CBFC should be made relevant once again. The changes in its structure and functioning should reflect the needs of the times we are living in. Kissing scenes were controversial once. Now they are quite common even in Indian TV serials.
As we debate logic behind the ban culture, from books, to films, to websites, to TV content, we should ask how can we follow this draconian practice of banning a film only because it highlights a social malaise.
We should, in fact, welcome such efforts. As alleged, petty politics should not be allowed to make the CBFC a theatre of the absurd with hopeless credentials.
The government should have no role in telling us what to eat, what to wear, what to watch, where to go - unless we violate the constitutional norms, unless we break the law.
And for Udta Punjab - the film is set to release today in theatres after clearing four court hurdles and CBFC. The Bombay HC on June 13 had cleared the film with just one cut against Nihalani's demands of multiple cuts, including omission of references to the names of all places in the film, including Punjab.
The court firmly backed the film fraternity's sincerity and its need for freedom of expression in choosing subjects. On June 15, it was in the Delhi HC and on June 16, in the Supreme Court and the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Each court refused to put a stay on the release of the film. Now let's make that into a habit for CBFC.