Censoring, these days in India, has achieved varied meanings. It seems that each new person in the forefront of running the country pops out with a different meaning of the term. Taking the Indian context, it is not very wrong to say that censoring in our land means drastic and fanatic cutting down of material, which tend to annoy the interests of those in power. Time has flown since the unfortunate event of the resignation of Leela Samson as the chief of the Film Censor Board on grounds of corruption and her replacement with the vaguely appreciated Pahlaj Nihalani, who does not have a proper good film to his name. His winning credentials for the post being the documentary he made for our present prime minister. The matter is not related to films only and not restricted to the present ruling party solely also.
Books, and yes, good books too, over the years have faced bans on the grounds of creating communal tension and such in the country by people, who have not yet read the book. The most recent case being that of Perumal Murugan, who was forced to withdraw all his works from the public domain following the fiasco over his book “Madhorubhagan”. His fault was that his books dealt with the defunct practices of the society, his books make heroes out of Dalits which in turn hurt the sentiments of the caste Hindus and the RSS, and thus he had to face the cut. His whole town revolted against the author, people who did not have the slightest idea regarding what the book was all about shouted hate slogans, but forgot the simple fact that it was Perumal only, who almost singularly put the Kongu region in the literary map of the state. Such incidents are not new to the country. Political muteness, even by the DMK, is unexplainable as yet.
The memories are fresh when an extremely carefully scripted book by Wendy Doniger, “The Hindus: An Alternative History” was banned in the country because the ruling class thought it harmed the sentiments of the Hindus, while it lifted the ban on the book, “The Red Sari” which is a dramatized biography of the opposition’s spearhead, Sonia Gandhi. Though Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History was published in 2009, to which the then UPA government had no opposition to, and was a No. 1 bestseller in its non-fiction category in the week of October 15, 2009. It is heart rendering to see writers facing the axe every time the rulers of the country change, while Doniger’s book was not objected during the UPA, it is banned by the NDA and conversely “The Red Sari”, banned by the UPA but freed by the NDA. It is easily interpreted that the putting and lifting of bans on intellectual matters like this is a direct political decision rather than a cultural one.
Salman Rushdie, was forced to cancel his visit to the Jaipur Literary Festival because the of protest demonstrations by the various Muslim organizations of the country. MF Husain, another famed son of India was forced out of the country by Hindu fanatics because he tried to perceive the Hindu deities in his own way, and according to the Hindu forces, he had no right to perceive Hindu deities in his own ideas, being a Muslim.
The Hindu forces even inflicted numerous intellectual atrocities on the film, “Rang Rasiya” based on the life of the pioneer of Modern Indian, Raja Ravi Verma because of the same reasons. They forgot the fact that it was Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings only which gave the poor and the untouchables the scope to worship their gods and goddesses, who were at that time not allowed to enter temples and shrines (still in certain parts of the country, such practices are followed). They could not accept the fact that the film showed a different viewpoint and that he brought the temples out of the singular clutches of the rich and privileged had already been their long drawn dagger at Raja Ravi Verma. These unfortunate incidents and attacks on the art and culture of the renowned personalities like Rushdie, Verma and Husain are not taking our country forward, but rather are putting the country back to where it was back in 1947, filled with communal tension.
The ruling class has a clear mandate; it wants to eliminate the antithesis from its own thesis. They do not want the common man to synthesize their own ideas, but rather they want to trap them in their own bourgeoisie ideas. The recent demonstration against the Aamir Khan starrer “PK” by the various religious communities is also a glaring example of the intolerance of the political heads towards the sensibilities of the different religions. Among the various political organizations fighting for the goodwill of the people and their political aims, it was the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) only, which screened a free screening of the film. The progressive forces of the country sided with “PK” because it showed the true scenario of the “market” that is religion in India, though the film is based on an imaginary plot. The rightist organizations suggested that the film hurt the religious sentiments of the people, but they must remember that the film still became the highest grosser in history. These statistics show that the people have matured and have no objection to the material, which they know is true to the society and its bad practices. It’s about time, that the ruling class too, should leave the people taking their own decisions and refrain from influencing them emotionally for their own “dirty” political benefits.
Attempts such as the one by Rajkumar Hirani in “PK”, and Perumal Murugan in “Madhorubhagan” must be supported whole heartedly because they expose the flaws in the society that we live in. The people, the common man must understand that having flaws is just natural or any society until it reaches the pinnacle of human satisfaction of needs. Having flaws only means that the society can be still be bettered. The ruling class must be made to remember that cultures are made by the people for their own benefit and can be changed, when the people think the time has come to a certain practice to be abolished and the rulers have no right to take that authority from the people.
Featured Image Credits: Jennifer Moo
