: Filmmakers on Tuesday cried hoarse saying no one should tinker with their products, adding that it was regulation and not censorship that was required.
This thought got a shot in the arm when eminent filmmaker Shyam Benegal himself said it at a panel discussion on ‘Censorship in India: The Hot Debate’, held at the Ramoji Film City on the concluding day of Indywood Film Carnival 2016.
A person like Mr. Benegal echoing these feelings drew attention and raised interest because he himself headed a Committee on censorship and submitted recommendations to the government earlier this June, suggesting amendment to the Cinematography Act of 1952.
Other panelists were directors Goutam Ghose, Jayan Cherian and General Secretary, All India Confederation of Film Industry Employees, Unnikrishnan, while the Central Board of Film Certification was represented by its member Uday Shankar Pani. Director Vivek Agnihotri of ‘ Buddha in a Traffic Jam ’ fame, who moderated, set the ball rolling by recalling how he had to face the Board twice in his 10-year-long career.
Mr. Benegal started by saying the word ‘censorship’ did not figure anywhere in the rule and said it was only ‘certification’. Pointing out that India being a very diverse society with more languages, religions, grammar and communication, he said a word that was accepted in one geographical location in India would be seen as an insult in another. He took the gathering through a journey - from how a ‘censorship’ code was first introduced by the British in 1928, to how the Cinematography Act, 1952 came into being. “The British imposed it considering dissent in any form as being ‘seditious’. As the years, decades rolled past, he said factors like social norms got added and how the focus shifted from films being brought under the scanner as having political criticism, to the spotlight turning on sex and violence.
Mr. Goutam Ghose wondered why films with a strong political and anti-establishment content, calling a ‘spade a spade’, were not being made and that censorship in any form was against the ‘Right to Speech’. “Television has a wider reach but no censorship - why only on cinema,” he asked, finally summing up by raising a slogan demanding ‘Freedom from censorship’.
Mr. Uday Shankar Pani said that being a director himself, he hated censorship of any kind and that it was like asking a director to chop off a part of his body. “But yes, we have to be more specific and clearly outline what can be allowed and what cannot,” he said, in what seemed like he was in agreement with the filmmakers.
