I served the Central Board of Film Certification for ten years, between 2005 and 2015. I was a part of the CBFC’s examining committee, and ...
I served the Central Board of Film Certification for ten years, between 2005 and 2015. I was a part of the CBFC’s examining committee, and later a board member. The examining committee represents the first layer of certification. Then there is the revising committee and, before it was disbanded, the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal.
We used to have about a hundred-odd examiners at the Mumbai office (the CBFC has centres in other cities too). Many of the examining committee members were political appointees. They were mostly from the Congress party at the time, and were gradually replaced by Bharatiya Janata Party supporters after Narendra Modi came to power. Sharmila Tagore and later Leela Samson were the chairpersons. By the time I left the CBFC, Pahlaj Nihalani had come in. You could already see the changing contours of censorship.
When I was with the CBFC, it was a far more liberal time. At least I never faced any pressure from the outside or from above. Even the CBFC regional officers and the revising committee members who were also government officials were rather liberal.
Why do we need a super-censor?
The Union government’s proposal to amend the Cinematograph Act and re-certify a film that has already been...
