CBFC action against docu on Sen absurd

The Argumentative Indian, a documentary made on Nobel laureate Amartya Sen by Suman Ghosh, is the latest victim of the scissor-happy ways of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), commonly known as the Censor Board. Even for those who are used to the Pahlaj Nihalani-led body’s predilections and past actions, the move against the documentary comes as unbelievably strange and absurd. The board has said that the documentary cannot be allowed to be screened unless the words and expressions ‘Gujarat,’ ‘cow,’ ‘Hindutva,’ and ‘Hindutva view of India’ used by Sen, are beeped out of it. It is clear why these words offend the board and its masters. They make references to some of the most unacceptable policies and actions of the present government, the party that leads it and its leaders, and invoke some terrible memories that still haunt the nation.

Amartya Sen is an internationally renowned economist and is among the country’s foremost public intellectuals. To effect such crude censorship of his words and views is to insult and humiliate a person who has made important contributions to the country’s intellectual life. But the matter goes beyond the ill-treatment of an eminent personality. Amartya Sen has been a critic of the BJP and its government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The CBFC has been loyal to the government and has acted in support of the worldview of the government and the Sangh Parivar. Its action against the document­ary was punishment of a critic of the government. It again shows the shrinking space for free speech and expression in the country. There is pervasive intolerance of criticism and of difference of opinions, and even a rejection of the very idea of difference. It is officially sanctioned and practised. Those who talk about intolerance are also calumnised and harassed. It will not go unnoticed that the government has not made a comment on the CBFC’s action.

The director has refused to accept the CBFC directive, so the film will not be officially available for viewing in India. The missed documentary would be a reminder of the growing threats to a range of constitutionally granted freedoms of citizens. The words objected to by the CBFC specifically denote many such freedoms — the freedom to practise one’s religion, to earn one’s livelihood, to eat whatever one wants to eat and to hold views different from the official view. The threats to these freedoms constitute a threat to democracy and the country’s inclusive traditions. Ironically, the CBFC has blacked out a film named after a celebrated book by Amartya Sen which extolled the tradition of argument and dissent in India.