Hindus ask India film Censor Board to 'wake up'

Hindus have asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) of India to 'wake up'.

Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that seeing the continuous increase in the unnecessary vulgarity and violence in Indian films, it appeared that the Board had lost the sense of India’s cultural milieu and was ignoring the directions given in the Cinematograph Act.

Zed, who is the president of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that they were fully supportive of the artistic freedom and expression and did not want any unnecessary censorship, but were highly concerned about the increasing presence of the explicit scenes in the movies which were there simply for “mercantile greed” having nothing to do with cinematic elements.

Rajan Zed appealed to CBFC chairperson Filmfare winner Sharmila Tagore (Aradhana) to view the films as a regular Indian mother who was struggling to raise her children to become moral and successful citizens of India of tomorrow and not as the mother whose children attended night-clubs and late-night parties and knew no moral boundaries.

Zed stresses that the country’s Cinematograph Act lays down that a film has to be certified keeping “morality” in mind, besides other things. CBFC objectives of film certification reportedly include… “The medium of film remains responsible and sensitive to the values and standards of society”, “the medium of film provides clean and healthy entertainment”…What happened to the CBFC “guidelines for certification” like “human sensibilities are not offended by vulgarity, obscenity or depravity”, Zed asked.

Rajan Zed argued that cinema was a highly powerful medium and had the potential of impacting the audience and altering the psyche, especially the impressionable minds of younger generation.

CBFC website was non-functional for a long time and the taxpayers had no easy access to information about the certified films, CBFC guidelines and procedures, its contact information and officials, Cinematograph Act, etc. Its certificates, dating back about half-a-century and only in English and Hindi, were very low in visibility, Zed pointed out.

CBFC (popularly known as Censor Board) is the body responsible for certifying films suitable for public exhibition in the country. India has reportedly about 13,000 cinema halls and according to an estimate, every three months an audience as large as India’s entire population (about 1.17 billion) flock to the cinema halls.

--SAMPURN