CBFC must wake up: Rajan Zed

In a statement given to the media on Monday, well-known Hindu and Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) of India to "wake up", stating that after seeing the continuous increase in the unnecessary vulgarity and violence in Indian films, the Board appeared to have lost the sense of India’s cultural milieu and was ignoring the directions given in the Cinematograph Act.


Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that they were fully supportive of artistic freedom and expression and did not want any unnecessary censorship, but were highly concerned about the increasing presence of the explicit scenes in the movies which were there simply for “mercantile greed” having nothing to do with cinematic elements.


Rajan Zed appealed to CBFC chairperson Sharmila Tagore to view the films as a regular Indian mother who was struggling to raise her children to become moral and successful citizens of India of tomorrow, not as a mother whose children attended night-clubs and late-night parties and knew no moral boundaries.


Zed stressed that the country’s Cinematograph Act lays down that a film has to be certified keeping “morality” in mind, besides other things. CBFC objectives of film certification reportedly include: "The medium of film remains responsible and sensitive to the values and standards of society", "the medium of film provides clean and healthy entertainment."


He also said that CBFC website was non-functional for a long time and the taxpayers had no easy access to information about certified films, CBFC guidelines and procedures, its contact information and officials, Cinematograph Act, etc. Its certificates, dating back about half-a-century and only in English and Hindi, were very low in visibility, he pointed out.