Lipstick Under My Burkha may be a terrible film for all I know. So many of the 1,902 films made and released in India last year were. But every one of them deserves to be seen because audiences bankroll this industry. Of the Rs 13,820-crore Indian films make, more than three-fourth comes from ticket sales. Indian audiences vote for a film with their wallets. If they don’t like it, they can bad-mouth it. If they do, they can spread the word and let the film fly.
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), however, has refused to give Lipstick Under My Burkha the certificate needed for public viewing. The ensuing controversy all through last week has focused on the CBFC’s ignorance on women’s issues, on the unfairness of it all and so on. What does one make of it all?
The CBFC is a content-certifying, statutory body set up under the Cinematograph Act, 1952, and functions under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The Act stipulates that a film not be certified if any part of it is against the sovereignty, integrity and security of India, friendly nations, public order, and decency or involves defamation, contempt of court or is likely to incite commission of any offence. The 1991 guidelines it uses to grant a certificate state that the film should be sensitive and responsible to society; creative freedom and artistic expression should not be unduly curbed; certification should be responsive to social change; it should be aesthetic and should provide clean and healthy entertainment.
Much of this then makes certification a matter of interpretation based on a few individuals and their idea of good and bad, moral and immoral. This has caused many conflicts between filmmakers and the CBFC. Last year, the government appointed a committee under film-maker Shyam Benegal. Its brief included studying the current process and guidelines and recommending changes. It gave its final report in April 2016.
Here is one of its first recommendations: “It is not for the CBFC to act as a moral compass by deciding what constitutes glorification or promotion of an issue or otherwise. The scope of the CBFC should largely be to decide who and what category of audiences can watch the depiction of a particular theme, story, scene etc, unless the film in question violates the provisions of Section 5B (1) of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, or exceeds the limitations defined in the highest category of certification recommended by this committee. In both such cases, the CBFC would be within its rights to reject certification to a film, but it is not authorised to dictate excisions, modifications and amendments. The CBFC categorisation should be a sort of statutory warning for audiences of what to expect if they were to watch a particular film. Once it has issued this statutory warning, film viewing is a consensual act and up to the viewers of that category.”
That pretty much puts things in perspective. The report is a sensible piece of work and a must-read for anyone interested in having an informed opinion on the issue. Why then is it still sitting in cold storage is anybody’s guess.
It repeatedly emphasises the importance of categorisation to protect children and other kinds of audiences. It offers a new set of general guidelines —context, theme, tone and impact of the film. In addition to this there are issue-based guidelines — discrimination, language, nudity, use of psychotropic substances, sex, fear etc. These will apply in varying degrees to all categories some of which it suggests be created — like “Adult with Caution” for films with explicit violence and nudity.
You could argue, rightly, that these new guidelines are open to interpretation, too. That it all boils down to the point of view of the chap with the rubber stamp. Lipstick Under My Burkha is about women exploring/discovering their sexuality. If the guy at the top thinks that this is bad for the morals of all viewers in India, there isn’t much to say.
The other option is to do away with the CBFC. But in a country where people are dying to take offence at everything, that begs the question — do we have the maturity to handle that?
Twitter: @vanitakohlik
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