#dnaEdit: Taking no chances

The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry’s decision to bar the release of the Punjabi film Kaum De Heere, based on the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, cannot be faulted in the context of law-and-order worries raised by intelligence agencies. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) advisory that preceded the Central Board of Film Certification’s (CBFC) withdrawal of certification warned that the film “may create enmity between communities and lead to communal tension”. Operation Blue Star and Indira Gandhi’s assassination are among the darkest chapters of modern Indian history. The anti-Sikh riots that followed soon after, and the Punjab insurgency, rocked the foundations of the Indian State and raised disturbing questions of its political and constitutional morality. It can be argued that though peace has returned, Punjab and the Indian State are yet to come to terms with many of the atrocities and the injustices perpetrated during those dark years.

Every artist must enjoy his or her fundamental right to free speech and expression (guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of Constitution) without the interference or censorship of State officials. But it is equally important that the hard-won peace in Punjab, for which many laid down their lives on both sides of the divide, survive. In ideal circumstances, the MHA advisory that also warns of the film’s “highly objectionable content” could have been discarded and the supporters of Indira’s assassins Beant Singh, Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh be allowed to tell their side of the story. But clearly, the title of the story, itself, points to the glorification of the assassination. CBFC chief Leela Samson has claimed the film’s plot too runs on a similar vein. This is something no peace-loving country can sanction.

The I&B ministry has also the Constitution to cite in its defence. In converse to Article 19(1)(a), is Article 19(2) which places reasonable restrictions on free speech that endanger the security of the State, affect public order, and the sovereignty and integrity of India. It is a fact that Article 19(2) also contains other “reasonable” restrictions like “decency and morality” that have harmed the freedoms of countless artists, writers and intellectuals. It is also admitted that, in the past, even the other Article 19(2) restrictions like public order and security of the State, applicable to the present case, have been wrongly used to curtail bona fide free speech. But the dangers of Punjab sliding into chaos are very real if troublemakers choose to act. To stake legitimacy for such actions, they have the precedent set by the highly influential Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) declaring the assassins as “martyrs”.

The issue of film certification and censorship sanctioned by Article 19(2) has seen generations of filmmakers approach the Supreme Court against The Cinematograph Act, 1952, that created the CBFC. In KA Abbas vs Union of India, 1971, the apex court, upheld the constitutionality of the Cinematograph Act as envisioned by Article 19(2) noting that films are “able to stir up emotions more deeply than any other product of art”. But in allowing the screening of the Tamil film Ore Oru Gramathile criticising the Tamil Nadu government’s reservation policy, the Supreme Court in 1989 ruled that “the anticipated danger should not be remote, conjectural or far fetched” and that the expression of thought must have a “proximate and direct nexus” with the danger to public interest. With the producers of Kaum De Heere certain to approach the courts, the onus will be on the MHA and the I&B ministry to prove that their fears of unrest are well-founded.