The abolition of the appellate tribunal for film certification has brought into sharper focus the politics of film censorship by the state, which shows continuity in its implications from pre- to post-independence India.
India's film censorship machinery and its agenda has been criticised for being caught in a colonial past. But in reality, the censorship regime in India presents a problematic engagement between the colonial past and the post-colonial present that supersedes any 'Victorian' legacy. The need is to examine how far the 'present' departs from the 'past' and to what extent the 'past' still resides in the 'present'. While modes of content control characteristic of colonial times still exist, these too are constantly being manipulated in response to emerging modes of address - seeming to create a facade of change.
The recent drama around the resignation of the chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification has served to focus attention on some basic issues of film censorship/certification in India and the limits of tolerance and sensitivity associated with the current censorship regime. But it has also overshadowed the issue of politically motivated film censorship, cases of which are becoming all too frequent.
