Sreelatha Menon: Dasmunshi code

BACKSTAGE

Decoding Minister for Information and Broadcasting Priyaranjan Dasmunshi and his move of consulting with religious groups before releasing a film is not nearly as complex as understanding the Da Vinci Code. The reasons are right there in the party which the union information and broadcasting minister represents and in what it has done in the past to works of art and fiction.

Under Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress government banned the Satanic Verses much before a fatwa was issued against author Salman Rushdie, in the process sacrificing freedom to revanchism. Before Dasmunshi took over as minister of information and broadcasting, his predecessor watched helplessly even as Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee ordered a preview of another film, Rang De Basanti, at least five times for the satisfaction of the armed forces.

Dasmunshi has cited this precedent before a group of priests led by himself to preview the Da Vinci Code before permitting it for a public viewing.

That the legitimate authority for censorship, the Censor Board, had cleared the film with an A certificate was not considered sufficient. Dasmunshi himself declared he needed to act as a "super censor".

Although the motive behind the move was to keep everyone happy, Dasmunshi hasn't succeeded in his objective. Christian groups are now complaining even more. Many of them feel left out of the whole consultative process. Others who were part of it feel that the government wriggled out of its job by burdening Catholic group with the task of deciding on the merits of the film.

The minister withdrew his predecessor's order banning cigarette-smoking in films on the first day he assumed office. But he felt obliged to kow-tow to various religious groups to permit the screening of a film which is being viewed all over the world by the Christian community.

The book, on which the film is based, has been in circulation for the past two years without raising any significant protests. The film is about a sect which guards the supposed truth about Jesus Christ's life as a husband of Mary Magdalene and as a father of their child. It suggests that his very future as a divine being was decided on by a council after a close vote.

Dasmunshi, tongue firmly in cheek, says he is merely acting as custodian of the larger public good, in much the same way the CPI-M did when it banned Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen's book Dwikhandita, on the basis of fears that it may offend conservative Muslims. Politics has once again overtaken art.