Unclean for the screen

The chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Pahlaj Nihalani, is controversy’s child, who never disappoints with his outdated statements and arbitrary attitude towards cinema. Recently, he supported his decision to give Abhishek Saxena’s Phullu (a film that addresses menstruation) an adult rating saying that “menstruation is an adult subject”. Interestingly, he is very eager to make Akshay Kumar’s Toilet: Ek Prem Katha tax-free. While both the films address women hygiene, why is one getting better treatment than the other?

Anand Gandhi, director of Ship of Theseus, calls this move absolutely ridiculous. “This is not new. It is in continuity of the juvenile attitude shown by the CBFC regardless of the movie in question,” he groans, evidently fed up by the display of such an erratic attitude.

This is not an isolated instance. He has had the habit of putting his foot in his mouth, picking up rows with filmmakers and making controversial statements. Earlier this year, Pahlaj had found himself in a controversial pit for banning Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha from screening on Indian theatres. The director suggests that certain facts need to be straightened out before ratings are allocated. “For the record, menstruation is not an adult issue. Girls as young as ten and eleven get periods! Only because a film addresses a taboo subject doesn’t warrantee it getting an adult rating,” she rolls her eyes.

Pahlaj, however, is known to stir controversies out of nothing — especially by making regressive statements. Harish Iyer, equal rights activist, doesn’t see why the CBFC thinks one film is more important than the other. “While Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is a very important story to be told, why is menstruation any less important an issue? I think these topics as well as topics of sex and sexuality need to be broached at an early age, so that not only women but men also know about them. This will help them later on in their work places as well,” he says. Bashing the move and the perpetrator, Harish further says that menstruation is not an adult issue, “You can’t tell a girl to not bleed till she turns 18; it’s a biological process.”

Alankrita fails to understand the concept of censorship in a democratic. CBFC likes to behave like an arbitrary, non-functional organisation by censoring films with a social conscience, she says. “We live in a democracy where adults can elect a government, but cannot watch what they want on the screen. Does that make sense?” she asks. In hindsight, she explains that India has always been a country of censorship, “We have been living under censorship for decades now. If you are a democracy, your cinema should reflect that.”

With no operative logic in place, Anand states that Pahlaj has managed to take censorship to a whole different level. “It has now become impossible not to see the uncouth, juvenile attitude of the certificate board. And we need to do something about this.”

Harish suggests the next best thing to do. “In the context of Toilet: Ek Prem Katha releasing, I think we need to drain out certain elements so that they don’t clog up the system and one of them is Pahlaj Nihlani,” he sternly adds.