Holy *bleep*

'The Argumentative Indian' has come under censor board's scanner & being asked to make few cuts

Ever since Pahlaj Nihalani took over as its chairman, Censor (Scissorhands) Board has been making news for demanding ridiculous and arbitrary cuts in films and documentaries. Unsurprisingly, it has gone ahead and done so yet again.

This time round, its target is The Argumentative Indian, an hour-long documentary about economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. Uncomfortable letting words like “Gujarat”, “Hindu India”, “Hindutva view of India” and, believe it or not, “cow” pass, the censor board has asked the director to bleep them out. 

Understandably, the director is stumped — and furious. More so, with a board official turning around to say yes, it is true that the guidelines of the Cinematographer Act, 1952 can be interpreted differently, but then, as “public servants, we give our views based on good faith”. Good faith? Who is to decide what good faith — a term as subjected as this — is? What’s more, each board member is empowered to give his or her view independently. When confronted, Nihalani simply brushed aside the criticism that has been pouring in from all quarters with a dismissive: “This is our job.”

All hail the age of arbitrariness.

The way we are going and given the insecurities that are calling for nonsensical actions such as these, I wonder how far we are from the time when we as a population will be expected not to utter such “provocative” words at all — not on film, not in writing or not even while speaking to each other.

I remember as a child among the first essays we were asked to write, as soon as we learnt to string sentences together, was on the “Cow”, besides “My Mother” and “My Father”.

Let’s see how that essay would read if the censor board had its way all the way.

The *bleep*

The *bleep* is a domestic animal. It has four legs, two horns and a tail. The *bleep* gives us milk. It is a very useful animal. The *bleep* eats grass. *Bleep* dung is also useful. It is used as fuel. (It is also used as fertiliser and an insect repellent, but you cannot expect a child who has just learnt to string sentences together to also know how to spell ‘fertiliser’ and ‘insect repellent’.) The *bleep* is a gentle animal. In India, we worship the *bleep*.

That was fun. Now let’s try it with some metaphors and idioms.

• A cash *bleep*

• Until the *bleep* come home

• How now, brown *bleep*?

• Why buy a *bleep* when you can get milk 

• for free?

I could go on, but let’s get serious. I wonder how you feel about all that is going on in your name, dear cow — you gentle creature of soulful eyes. Do you know people are being lynched in your name? One of them was a boy of 15 who was returning home on a train after shopping for Eid. Does that shock you, dear cow, you who would not hurt a fly?

I have seen you often, sitting meditatively, your jaw busy, your eyes half closed. I have seen how they provoke you, those irksome flies. And I have also seen how you deal with them — with a lazy wave of your tail or a gently flap of your ear. They come back again and again, buzzing, annoying, but I have never seen you turn on them. I have never seen you get up on your feet in a huff to teach them a lesson. An epitome of patience, that’s you.

How then can these people who kill in your name claim to love you when they learn nothing from you? And now your name is being turned into a bleep!

Let us get the picture right, Mr Nihlani and Co. It is not the Nobel laureate or the documentary director whose words and work need to be bleeped. They are not the ones who are provoking. It is the lynch mobs that are doing that job. The argumentative Indian is only questioning this madness, as every argumentative Indian ought to.

veenu.sandhu@bsmail.in