Clip udta Pahlaj Nihalani's wings. Bollywood speak up
You are an outcast in the Mumbai film industry despite being Govind Nihalani's brother (sure he cringes at the thought). Your chief achievement if it can be called has been to organise parties for Shatrughan Sinha. Pahlaj Nihalani, the current chief of the Soviet-style censor board, maker of the dubious "ode to Modi" video - "Modi Kaka" - is known for a series of forgettable movies.
As the tasteless Modi ode video shows, Nihalani is clearly aware of why he is heading the censor board and why he continues to head it despite ludicrous decisions such as cutting the kissing scene in a Bond film, and banning the Sunny Deol-starrer Mohalla Assi - a film on the commercial exploitation of Varanasi. Purely incidental is the fact that his benefactor, India's Prime Minister, is the Lok Sabha MP from Varanasi.
Which brings us to Udta Punjab - a gritty film on the rampant drug problem in Punjab. So what does the censor board do? Under Nihalani it proactively orders more than 80 cuts and then to make the resemblance to North Korea even more stark, it orders that all mention of Punjab be deleted.
Yes, the makers should voluntarily bowdlerise their own film. The equivalent of taking a hatchet to one's own child.
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| Censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani. |
Incidental to the controversy over Udta Punjab is the fact that Assembly elections are due in Punjab in January 2017 and the Akali Dal-BJP alliance currently in government is widely expected to lose. Sukhbir Singh Badal and his family, however, have taken off on a vacation abroad to get away from the sweltering heat of Punjab secure in the knowledge that Nihalani will charge to their rescue.
And the Badals and the BJP's faith is not misplaced. Nihalani has personally viewed the film and held that it "defames the fair name of Punjab". And sixty percent of Punjab being addicted to drugs does not, a well known minister's links to the drug trade and mafia does not. Only a film which the Akali Dal and BJP fear will depict the reality of Punjab does.
So what do the rulers in the world's largest democracy do? Send in the butcher/clowns - it's interchangeable for the apparatchiks of the censor board - to bat for you.
Creativity, freedom of expression and cutting edge is anathema to the keepers of morality. You want to make cheap patriarchal sex comedies? Please do so and we are thrilled that the formula worked and you laughed all the way to the box office. But meaningful cutting edge cinema? No chance.
Already the Akali Dal and BJP are working hard to destroy Udta Punjab's credibility. Mutterings are heard that lead actor Shahid Kapoor is - yes you guessed it - "anti-national" because he worked in Haider set in Kashmir and which via Shakespeare's Hamlet, beautifully depicted the heart-wrenching reality of Jammu and Kashmir today.
The Akalis control the entire cable business in Punjab and just in case the poor makers of Udta Punjab managed to run the censor board gauntlet they will ensure that the film is sabotaged, say industry insiders in the state which it is set.
The only hope for filmmaker Anurag Kashyap lies with the courts because the censor board and the Central government which appointed them are not known to like or side with free expression. At this point in the sorry tale, do remember that the suave and urbane Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who also doubles up as the information and broadcasting minister appointed these gentlemen and the peerless adult film actor Gajendra Chauhan in FTII. Jaitley also called award wapsi a "manufactured rebellion" so you know which side he's on.
Udta Punjab's treatment by the censor board should have seen an uprising from Bollywood. Right? Creative rights being curbed. The is butchering of expression. The usual lions such as Padma awardee Anupam Kher, Rishi Kapoor and Raveena Tandon, and BJP MPs from Bollywood such as Hema Malini should have intervened and loudly protested with march for freedom threats. Or even the doyen of the film industry and brand ambassador for Swachh Bharat, Amitabh Bachchan, should have spoken to those in authority who clearly adore him.
Nope. Not a word. The silence has been deafening. People who went on long marches for tertiary reasons don't care about censorship.
You see a message has been quietly sent to the film industry: say a word out of line and we will make an example out of you the way we branded superstars and icons Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan who spoke against "intolerance".
Economic boycott as was done in the case of Aamir with Snapdeal deciding to not renew his contract as the brand ambassador, and the actor being dropped as the brand ambassador for the government's "Athiti Devo Bhavo" campaign made sure the entire film industry got the message.
An undeclared emergency prevails. Stick to the schlock and you are fine. As the makers of Udta Punjab are discovering do not try to broaden the Indian mind about the realities of India. The current dispensation would prefer that sanskar prevails.
As for Nihalani, he knows how to serve from drinks to Shotgun to riding shotgun for the BJP in Bollywood.