Reason: They insult my intelligence and, I presume, of most of the audience. If not the entire programme, can idiocy not be made a ground for banning at least some of the anchors?
To be sure, they could argue with equal force that I be banned for making such an outrageous suggestion. But somehow I suspect no one will pay much heed.
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The astonishing lack of proportion in their ersatz indignation - which ironically is often justified - could also be a ground if mere idiocy is insufficient.
The point I am trying to make is this: All bans must be seen in context. A few are justified, even if only temporarily, even for a mere week or so.
But one must say most emphatically that there is no context at all to the ban on the Nirbhaya documentary. It is silly to think, as the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to do, that it is all being done to bring shame to India and show it in a poor light.
If, on the other hand, there is indeed a genuinely valid context, the government must explain it much better than it has done so far, instead of resorting to reasons that attract an equal number of opposite reactions and muddy the waters completely.
One other reason why bans must be avoided: They provide a chance to all sorts of parvenus and charlatans to promote themselves on television. Inevitably, the government emerges looking stupid, which is another reason why it should ban only if the context is right, and with a proper explanation.
India is not unique
That said, this being the era of lazy research, I looked up Wikipedia. Two things emerged from it.
One is that every country bans some film or the other from time to time. The other is that since 1947, India has banned over 100 films.
But so has the US. The UK has banned around 200. France, which pretends to be liberal, has the longest history of censorship among Western democracies. I could go on with the list but you can check for yourself.
This, however, is not the important thing. What is important is the context of the ban, which, it turns out, is almost always political in the sense that the ruling party imagines things. Then it goes ahead and uses its power to ban.
In India, there is an added dimension - blackmail by religiously oriented political groups. They help create the context.
Also, it doesn't matter in which country the ban is imposed. Almost always, it happens because some twit in the bureaucracy thinks it will create problems for the government.
Then, in order to win some brownie points, he or she makes a case for it. No one has the courage to tell him or her not to be silly, not even heads of government who choose to err on the side of caution.
After all, who has ever lost an election for banning a film or a book? Better safe than sorry is the guiding principle.
Common sense, please
It is no use saying, as some suggest, that nothing should be banned. That is not going to work.
Nor is it any use for the government to say that there should be no restraints on its power to ban. That, too, will not work.
The question the anti-ban people need to answer, therefore, is this: Under what circumstances would they agree that a ban is justified? Can they lay down criteria that set out the chief elements of the context that would be acceptable to all?
The challenge is to find a solution that does not rely on the words "we think", which vest so much discretion in the hands of one or two prejudiced individuals in positions of power.
Hurt sentiments and threat to public order, we now know, can be misused as much by the ruling party as by the Opposition.
Or is this one of those things where judgement - or prejudice - will continue to play a large role in providing the context? Yours versus the government's?
There's no easy answer but simple common sense - if you ban you attract attention, if you don't no one notices - should do the trick.