Freedom’s Marred Festival

Only time will tell whether the police hounding of Sanjay Kak’s documentary on Kashmir is motivated or arbitrary

Shohini Ghosh

When Sanjay Kak called his documentary on Kashmir Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Freedom), he probably had no idea how ironic the title would be. On July 27, the Dadar police stopped a preview of the film for an invited audience at the Bhupesh Gupta Hall in Mumbai. Notwithstanding the irate protests of the audience, the police seized and confiscated copies of the DVD. Next, they issued a notice to Prithvi Theatres, where a subsequent preview had been scheduled, warning them of consequences were they to show the film. The justification for this action arrived in the form of a letter dated July 29 that MG Sankhe, Sr Inspector of the Dadar Police Station, wrote to Sanjay Kak. Quoting from the Cinematograph Act to support the seizure, Sankhe directs Kak to apply for a censor certificate because “the film contains inflammatory and provocative scenes based on terrorism in Kashmir”. It further states, “There are certain scenes that are objectionable and if the said film is shown to public (sic), it may create law and order problem.”

Jashn-e-Azadi has had a number of previews across the country and nowhere has there been a “law and order” problem. Made over two years, the 139-minute documentary is a meditation on the political crisis that has gripped the Valley for over a decade and is an articulation of the disillusionment and alienation that the Kashmiri people feel at this historical juncture. The film is no more or less “inflammatory and provocative” than the routine government propaganda on Kashmir that is tirelessly recycled day after day.

But since every idea is an incitement in any case, the prevention of provocation is a futile exercise. The compassion and respect with which Kak treats those brutalised by State repression and nationalist hysteria could certainly be provocative and offensive to those who hold national boundaries to be sacrosanct. But as novelist Howard Jacobson writes, “the very arbitrariness of offence — cruelly felt one day and not noticed the next — is reason itself to give it no quarter”.

In the last decade, documentary filmmakers have persistently campaigned against censorship and demanded the urgent review and amendment of the Cinematograph Act under which the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was set up in 1952. The three amendments urgently proposed regarding the role and functioning of the CBFC have a direct bearing on the Jashn-e-Azadi case. The first proposed amendment is that the CBFC should have only the power of certification (through ratings and classifications) and not the power to censor or delete. The second amendment proposes that non-commercial public screenings be decriminalised. According to the existing law, screening a film without a censor certificate, even within educational institutions and class rooms, is a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment (extending to three years) and a fine of a minimum Rs 1 lakh. The third amendment proposes that the CBFC should be an autonomous body, free from the stranglehold of the government. All three amendments are long overdue and essential for upholding the constitutional right of free expression.
While some documentary filmmakers have fought prolonged court battles with the censor board, others have chosen not to apply because they don’t believe that the State has the right to either endorse or reject their films. Moreover, the granting of a censor certificate does not guarantee the safety of either film or filmmaker. The extra-legal censoring of Deepa Mehta’s Fire, despite a censor certificate, is one such instance and there are innumerable others. Therefore, the “law and order” argument deployed in favour of censoring films carries a veiled threat. Paraphrased, it reads, “If some individual or group does not agree with your work and puts your life and work in danger, don’t count on us for protection. We will simply stand back and watch.” Mercifully, the CBFC for the most part functions randomly and does not stick faithfully to its regressive guidelines. But when it is not arbitrary, it can become a slave to the motivations of its political masters. Only time will tell whether the hounding and harassing of Jashn-e-Azadi is motivated or arbitrary.

At the start of the 21st century, we are confronted with a diversity of challenges around access to and circulation of information. Had Indian democracy been truly robust, then Jashn-e-Azadi should have circulated fearlessly. That it cannot should compel us to introspect on the state of democracy 60 years after Independence. As members of a democratic civil society we have the right to demand spaces for vibrant cultural sharing that lie outside State control and corporate interests. Demanding the decriminalisation of non-commercial public screenings will be an important step in creating a strong civil society that does not feel threatened by cultural experimentation, dissident expression or new and outrageous ideas.

The Jashn-e-Azadi crisis is not about Kashmir, it is about how India celebrates freedom.
.

Ghosh is Professor, Dr Zakir Hussain Chair at the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia