Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2001 3:16 am
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http://www.shekharkapur.com/letter.htm
Shekhar Kapur's open letter to Asha Parekh, Chairperson of the Censor Board of India.
Madam,
I accuse you, in your capacity as the chairperson of the Censor Board, and those members of your team on the examining committee of being ignorant, irresponsible, arrogant and arbitrary.
My accusations are not directed at you or your team personally, but only in your professional capacities as custodians of Indian morality. I deliberately use such strong words because it is time for a public debate on the criteria by which persons are chosen and empowered to impose moral strictures on the people of India.
I deliberately use such strong words in order to persuade you, if you really believe you are right, to have the courage to join me in an open debate on this issue on any TV channel that you choose. Because I fervently believe you are wrong.
I accuse you of ignorance because person who has any idea of the process or art of film making would insinuate that removing two shots and one scene from a film would make absolutely no difference since ``you have left most of the film intact''. Madam, in the middle of your most dramatic lines as an actress, if three words were suddenly chopped off, would you say they would make no difference to the dramatic impact of those lines?
Or do you believe that if one eye was taken out of Mona Lisa, it would be OK because it still leaves most of the painting intact? Ah... you would, of course, say that this arrogant fellow is now comparing himself with Leonardo da Vinci, which brings me to the next issue...
How would you know, Madam, because you have not even seen Elizabeth! Or so you claim anyway. Don't you feel it is downright irresponsible of you not to have done so? You say it is not your job to see every film.
Every film? If a film is considered important enough to be selected by the Government of India to be the opening film at the International Film Festival of India, and your team subsequently imposes cuts on it, don't you think it is part of your job to at least view the film?
Madam, if you devoted only 3 hours a day to your job, 5 days a week, you would still be able to see 250 films every year. Surely Elizabeth could have been one of them.
Perhaps you feel viewing films is not your job. In that case we would like to know what is the job of the Chairperson of the Censor Board? If you would at least claim publicly that yours is merely a `rubber stamp' job, I would respect you for your honesty.
You said publicly that you trust your team, to do your job for you. Whoever that is. Is this not the same team that refused Mahesh Bhatt a certificate for his film 'Zakhm', on the grounds that is provoked racial disharmony, only for the Government of India to give the same film an award of the Best Feature on National Integration11 Surely you must see the irony in this.
I accuse you of arrogance because when a film maker stands against your (or your team's) decisions, you accuse him of being a mere publicity seeker. Madam, I have a fundamental right under the Constitution of India to protest against your (or your team's) arbitrary decisions. I am exercising my rights to appeal to a higher authority than yourselves. As chairperson of the Censor Board, it is downright arrogant, irresponsible and indeed slanderous of you to accuse me of seeking publicity when I am merely exercising my rights guaranteed to me.
Nelson Mandela once said this to DeClerk : "If you beat a man he screams. You then accuse him of screaming only to get attention. So you beat him some more. So he screams some more. But if you did not beat him in the first place, he would have never screamed.
You cut my film. I protested. And when I protested, you accused me of seeking publicity. Is that not ridiculous?
In any case I get publicity by making films that are appreciated critically and by the audiences all over the world, including India. I do not need this publicity. Perhaps it is the members of the Censor Board that do.
I accuse you and your team of being arbitrary because you have no accountability. Even in the smallest of cases, a judge in India is required to give an extremely detailed judgment on how he arrived at his/her conclusions on the case. The Judgment must take into account the individual case in context of the individual circumstance, interpret the Law of the Land as it applies to that context, and similarly interpret the Law as Precedence and the Rights guaranteed or violated under the Constitution before the Judgment is delivered.
The judgments are written, so they might stand up to an appeal in the higher courts.
Madam do you not think it is your responsibility to give to the film maker, and indeed make public, similar detailed reasons by which you have arrived at your (or your team's) decisions?After all, you being the custodians of public morality, we all have the right to know whether you or our team are competent to be so. Whether you understand the medium you judge - which is film.
Or whether you are aware of the ground realities of mainstream life in India, or merely isolated people viewing society from ivory towers.
Or even whether you have a clear understanding of how the Constitution of India asks you to interpret Censorship of an artistic work.
For Madam, judging from the number of times that the decisions of the examining committee have been overturned by the higher authorities, I would say you (or your team) are incompetent.
Yours sincerely,
Shekhar Kapur
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