January 22, 2025

The CBFC is up to its dirty tricks once more. This time it has refused to certify “Lipstick Under My Burkha,” saying the movie is “lady-oriented” and “oral pornography” whatever that means. This basically means that if the movie was not about women and if male protagonists had uttered similar dialogues, it would have been good with the Censors. This is highly misogynist view that needs to be condemned.

Pahlaj Nihalani, the chairman of CBFC, has said in a subsequent interview that it is the job of the CBFC to preserve Indian culture. It is not and never has been CBFC’s job. The job of the body is to certify films, which are works of art, according to its guidelines. If it finds anything objectionable, it can ask the makers to take suitable corrective action. The makers may, or may not, comply with it. It should not refuse certification. It can allow the film for restrictive viewership.

Further, what exactly is culture? Is it a one-dimensional and static thing? Culture, if viewed in the context of the past, makes a nation inward-looking, narrow-minded and inflexible. It does not allow changes which a majority of the citizens want. If culture is to be imposed by the administration, it is no culture at all since it is culture as perceived by those who happen to rule at a given point of time. Hence, culture has to be viewed as an ever-changing concept that absorbs inputs from various sources. It evolves with time and generations adopt and adapt to what they come in contact with.

Women talking about sex, either in company of other women or even in company of men, has become commonplace in India. Not having seen the full film but just the trailer, one found that the scene where Konkona Sen Sharma talks about condoms with her paramour is perfectly in tune with how women behave nowadays. One feels that it is not so much the dialogues that talk about sex but the very fact that the film shows the sexual desires of four women that has got CBFC’s goat.

A certain class of Indians is still not comfortable with seeing emancipated women talk about sexual desires. Even more people are uncomfortable in listening to women talk dirty. It is as if women should continue to live in purdah. Men lusting after women are fine, but women are ‘respectable’ beings (although never respected by a majority of Indians, as the ever increasing number of rapes and molestation show) and should keep their feelings in check. It is fine for men to call women with assorted names loaded with sexual innuendo (maal, cheez, pataka, fuljhari) but it is unacceptable if women use similar words for men.

The CBFC cannot close its eyes to the change sweeping India and Indian culture. A story that shows women talk about their sexual desires and use dirty language is representative of what is actually happening in India’s cities and towns. In villages too, it is not uncommon to see middle-aged women out-compete their male counterparts in giving choicest gaalis. So which Indian culture is CBFC talking about? At this rate, we will either see only films like Kya Supercool Hain Hum that denigrate the Indian male or sugary family melodramas that ‘celebrate’ Indian culture but do not show reality. Meaningful films about contemporary women and what goes on inside their minds will never be allowed. This is a sure way to hide reality and it will never allow emerging changes in Indian culture to be highlighted. The world will keep viewing us as prudes, which a good many of us are not.