Shyam Benegal hallucinates about human beings morphing into scissors whenever he hears the word 'censor'. Nagesh Kukunoor can't stop talking about his seven films that have been snipped before they have been declared fit for proper viewing. This when the board has passed other films which have had cusswords tossed around for special effects and violence against women/animals proscribed in the Cinematograph Act as their running theme. "There is an enormous amount of ambiguity that allows the censors to play god," says Kukunoor.
What is obscenity? How much liberty can a filmmaker take when showing violence? What film is suitable for viewing by a teenager and what makes watchable fare for a 'mature adult'? Filmmakers have long grappled with these questions with the censor board giving them cuts instead of satisfactory answers. No more perhaps. For, 53 years after the Cinematograph Act was passed in Parliament, the Union information and broadcasting ministry—that arbiter of the fine print on middle-class morality—embarks on an exercise to overhaul it systematically. Officials in the ministry promise the act will be liberal, in keeping with the times, though they concede there may be problems in getting Parliament to approve it.
This is the fourth time such an exercise to spell out the details in the act—seen as vague and confusing by filmmakers at the receiving end—is being attempted. The first two attempts—in 1982 and 1991—proved futile. Vijay Anand, briefly censor board chief during the nda era, tried to bring in some rationalisation on the question of adult content. But to no avail. His successor, Anupam Kher, too tried to modify the act, but failed.
This time round, say ministry officials, "we are overhauling the act completely so that it takes into account all the changes in technology and content that are taking place today." In the process, both the proposed Broadcast Regulatory Authority Bill, which will look at regulating content on television, and the new Cinematograph Act will be reviewed together as both music videos and short films require certification before they are put on air.
The proposed guidelines include the following changes: