Ban ban you’re dead!
Censorship in India.
You name it, India has banned it. If the state overlooks something, the central government bans it. On some weeks it feels like we, as a nation, are frenetically trying to prove the big ban theory. In just one week in March this year it seemed that everything was off limits and had to be banned. Every day of the week seemed to bring news of another thing that was banned. Here’s a look at recent instances of our censorship hormones on overdrive.
Media censorship: Documentary film India’s Daughter
British director Leslee Udwin’s documentary “India’s Daughter” deals with the brutal gang rape of a 23-year old medical student on a moving bus in Delhi on 16 December 2012. The film highlights the issue and the mindset of the people in the country. In the documentary film when Leslee interviews Mukesh Singh, one of the convicts of the crime, he says the woman should not have “resisted” while being raped. Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the documentary would not be aired in India and accused its makers of violating “permission conditions” by not showing the complete unedited footage to the jail officials.
Food censorship: Beef
Grab a piece of beef in Maharashta and be ready to spend five years in jail and cough up a fine of Rs 10,000. According to the Maharashtra government, anyone caught possessing, selling or eating red meat will land in trouble. Beef, the popular red meat, was banned on March 3 in Maharashtra with presidential assent being accorded to the relevant legislation - two decades after the state Assembly had passed it when the Shiv Sena-BJP government was in charge in the state.
Media censorship: Feature Film Dum lagake Haisha
Apart from banning 28 swear words from film, Indian Central Board of Film Certification asked the makers of Ayshmann Khurrana’s Dum Lagake Haisha to mute the word 'Lesbian' along with ghanta, haramipana, haram ke pille and haramkhor.
Media censorship: Feature Film Dirty...