MOVIE REVIEW

New wings to Udta Punjab will it fly?

There is unity, there is quality and then it’s as crushed- the Indian Freedom of Expression. “The court’s time is too precious for this case”, remarked the Bombay HC Judge while presiding over the petition filled by the Director/Producer Anurag Kashyap’s Phantom Films against 18 cuts suggested {demanded} by CBFC a.k.a Phalaj Nihalani to Udta Punjab. The verdict to introduce just one cut and award an ‘A’ certificate has made it clear that the creative autonomy prevails in India; the right to Freedom of Expression is supreme. The Indian politics and the Indian cine world have both been complementing each other for a long time, with mild contentions at regular intervals. However, the Udta Punjab controversy will go down in the history books for the reason that it saw the divided film industry coming together to safeguard its autonomy and creative freedom for the very first time. Politics and Cinema these days go hand in hand while politicians have started turning into actors for their political campaigns, film celebrities turned politicians like: Hema Malini, Raj Babbar, Jaya Prada, Anupam Kher, Rekha, Shatrughan Sinha and many more but what baffles is that none of these celebrities turned politicians came forward to defend the creative freedom of their friends and peers- the United Directors and Producers of Mumbai. 

The film industry has been in a crisis situation ever since the appointment of Phalaj Nihalani to CBFC and something of this sort was being anticipated for long. The grotesque decision to introduce 85 cuts, changing of title, removal of words like_ Election, MP, Parliament and then suggestion to base the story completely on imaginary land other than Punjab created a major storm on the limits of CBFC which is primarily there just to give certificates.  This new verdict is going to act as a game changer in the process as Shyaam Benegal committee is reading itself to introduce sweeping changes in CBFC.

CBFC a.ka. Phalaj Nihalani has been the centre of unnecessary controversies in the past always demanding some rigorous changes in the film either on the pretext of morality or obscenity. The decision to cut kissing scenes from James Bond resulted in illegal downloads ofuncensored versions online, the decision to withheld the BBC documentary on Nirbhaya led to illegal downloads, ultimately these decisions failed to alter the moral behavior of we Indians.