Congress ‘Rajneeti’, cut & paste

BY Arun Jaitley| IN Censorship | 30/05/2010

           Reprinted from the Indian Express, 29 May 2010

It is uncertain how well Prakash Jha’s film Rajneeti will be received by the audience. However, the Congress Party doesn’t seem to be pleased with the film in its original form. Besides the censor board and the appellate tribunal, a pre-censor viewing was undertaken by three representatives of the Congress party — Tom Vadakkan, Pankaj Sharma and Sanjeev Bhargava. The film was threatened with an "Adult" certification which would obviously have significantly reduced the commercial prospects of the film. It is only after the film-maker accepted the deletions suggested by the Congress party representatives that the film has been cleared with a "U/A" certification.

Moral policing has been rapped repeatedly by many in the electronic and print media. Curiously, crusaders against moral policing have mostly maintained an eloquent silence on political policing by the ruling party. This is not the first time that political policing has been undertaken when the interests of the first family of the Congress party is at stake. The White Paper on the Misuse of the Mass Media during the Internal Emergency published in 1977 by the Government of India, provides a list of such political censorship. The film Aandhi was cleared in January, 1975. The Congress party believed that the leading actress had a character similar to the then prime minister. Immediately, after the imposition of the Emergency, it was banned in July 1975. It was only when the producer agreed to cut out certain scenes from the film and restructure the story, that it was again cleared in March 1976. The film on Watergate titled All the President’s Men was blocked by the government during the Emergency, and released only after the Congress Party was voted out of power in the Lok Sabha elections of 1977.

A film titled Kissa Kursi Ka, which was submitted for clearance to the censors during the Emergency, was destroyed by burning reels of the film — for which criminal prosecution was separately initiated.

The celebrity playback singer Kishore Kumar refused to sing at a Youth Congress Rally. All his songs were banned on All India Radio and Doordarshan. The White Paper states that "it was also decided that gramaphone companies like HMV and Columbia were asked to freeze all records of Kishore Kumar and no records of his songs should be sold. It was to be found that how BBC was playing Kishore Kumar’s songs and under what contract and what should be done to stop this. A list of films were also required to be obtained from the chairman, CBFC and steps taken to not release any of those films etc. It was required to be examined whether such films could be refused censor certificates".

Kishore Kumar was not the only film celebrity to have faced censorship of this kind. Two of the tallest actors of that period, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, were asked to appear on television to carry out propaganda in favour of the Emergency. Dev Anand, in his recently published autobiography titled Romancing with Life recollects the episode: "When Dilip also hesitated to go to the TV centre to participate in any propaganda in favour of the Emergency, I vehemently and vociferously opposed the suggestion, with the result that not only were all my pictures banned from being screened on television, but also any mention of, or reference to, my name on any official media was forbidden, along with Kishore Kumar’s, who had also refused to go and sing in one of the programmes. My conscience revolted at the dictatorial act, and I called the information and broadcasting minister in Delhi and sought an appointment with him. He received me very politely, and guessing the nature of business, brought up the subject of my non-cooperation with the government on his own.

‘What’s your problem?’ he asked.

‘I am seeking an answer in my disturbed mind,’ I said,

‘To what?’

‘To the state of affairs in our country?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are we living in a democracy or in a police state?’

‘A democracy’

‘Then why are these calls being sent to us? To appear on TV to propagate the Emergency?’

‘Isn’t it a good thing to speak for the government in power?’

‘Under compulsion?’

‘No, by your own sweet will.’

‘How can the government pressurise one’s ‘will’ into ‘sweetening’, if the ‘will’ thinks to the contrary?’

‘Don’t do it, if you don’t want to,’ he said after a pause.

‘That’s exactly why I sought this meeting, to tell the authorities that nothing should be forced on our conscience.’

‘I repeat — don’t do it.’

‘Thank you, minister," I said, and we parted ways cordially. Back in Bombay, I met Nargis, who was very close to the Gandhi family, casually at a party. She started cajoling me into not going against the government circular of appearing on television whenever asked. ‘I don’t agree with your convictions!’ I told her. ‘You are being unnecessarily stubborn!’ she said, and we left that matter at that. But I knew I had become a marked man for the Sanjay Gandhi coterie"(P.255).

In the last few years, we have seen an effort to politicise the Election Commission through partisan appointments. The CBI has become a political tool. Parliament has recently expressed concern over both authorised and unauthorised telephone tapping. The Congress party now has become a national censor of what entertainment we will watch. I hope the list of aberrations does not continue to increase.

The writer is a BJP MP and leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha