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Censorship in India mainly targets religious issues. It is justified by the government as necessary to maintain communal harmony, peace and tranquillity, given the history of communal tension in India.

The Constitution of India guarantees freedom of speech but places “reasonable restrictions” “in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India or public order or morality.”

The report Freedom in the World 2006 by Freedom House gave India a political rights rating of 2, and a civil liberties rating of 3, earning it the designation of free.

Contents

• 1 Obscenity law
• 2 National security
• 3 Press
• 4 Film
• 5 Dramas
• 6 Books
• 7 Internet
• 8 References
• 9 External links

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Obscenity law

Pornography is illegal and attracts several penal provisions. Some media dealing with sex are frequently banned. Films, television shows and music videos are especially prone, however if any literature is banned, it is not usually for pornographic reasons. Pornographic magazines are technically illegal, but many softcore Indian publications are available through many news vendors, who often stock them at the bottom of a stack of non-pornographic magazines, and make them available on request. In practice, the police usually ignores this as long as the display itself does not contain nudity. Most non-Indian publications (including Playboy) are usually harder to find, whether softcore or hardcore. Mailing pornographic magazines to India from a country where they are legal is also illegal in India. In practice, the magazines are almost always confiscated by Customs and entered as evidence of law-breaking, which then undergoes detailed scrutiny. But the enforcement is very lax and hardcore pornographic films are easily available in the smallest of towns and villages.

National security

The Official Secrets Act 1923 is used for the protection of official information, mainly related to national security.

Press

In 1975 Indira Gandhi government imposed censorship of press in the The Emergency. It was removed at the end of the Emergency rule.

Film

The Central Board of Film Certification, the regulatory film body of India, regularly orders directors to remove anything it deems offensive, including sex, nudity, violence or subjects considered politically subversive.

In 2002, the film War and Peace, depicting scenes of nuclear testing and the 11 September atrocities, created by Anand Patwardhan, was asked to make 21 cuts before it was allowed to have the certificate for release. Patwardhan objected, saying “The cuts that they asked for are so ridiculous that they won’t hold up in court” and “But if these cuts do make it, it will be the end of freedom of expression in the Indian media.” The court decreed the cuts unconstitutional and the film was shown uncut.

In 2002, the Indian filmmaker and former chief of the country’s film censor board, Vijay Anand, kicked up a controversy with a proposal to legalise the exhibition of X-rated films in selected cinemas across the country, saying “Porn is shown everywhere in India clandestinely… and the best way to fight this onslaught of blue movies is to show them openly in theatres with legally authorised licences”.

In 2003, the Indian Censor Board banned the film ‘Gulabi Aaina (The Pink Mirror)’, a film on Indian transsexuals produced and directed by Sridhar Rangayan. The censor board cited that the film was ‘vulgar and offensive’. The filmmaker appealed twice again unsuccessfully. The film still remains banned in India, but has screened at numerous festivals all over the world and won awards. The critics have appluaded it for its ’sensitive and touching portrayal of marginalized community’. BBC, YIDFF, Queer India

In 2004, the documentary Final Solution, which looks at religious rioting between Hindus and Muslims, was banned..

In 2006, seven states (Nagaland, Punjab, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh) have banned the release or exhibition of the Hollywood movie The Da Vinci Code (and also the book), However, the respective high courts lifted the ban and the movie was shown in the two states.

Dramas

In 1999 Maharashtra government banned the Marathi play ‘Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy” or ‘I am Nathuram Godse Speaking”

Books

In 1989, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was banned in India, as it was in many countries, for its purported attacks on Islam. India was the second country in the world (after Singapore) to ban the book.

The book Understanding Islam through Hadis by Ram Swarup was also banned. In 1990 the Hindi translation of the book was banned, and in March 1991 the English original became banned as well.

A book on the Maharashtrian prince, Shivaji, by Queens University Professor Jayant Lele was also banned. This book asked the question of who was the father of Shivaji. Shortly thereafter, the Central government of the time, which contained the Shiv Sena, banned Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, penned by American scholar James Laine, and another book The Epic of Shivaji, which contained the objectionable phrase “Oedipal rebel”, following an attack by Sambhaji Brigade activists on the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune.The subsequent UPA government has not revoked the ban.

In Punjab the Bhavsagar Granth was banned by the state government, following clashes between mainstream Sikhs and the apostate Sikh sect that produced it.

“It was said that the granth had copied a number of portions from the Guru Granth Sahib. In one of the photographs it showed Baba Bhaniara, wearing a shining coat and headdress in a style similar to that made familiar through the popular posters of Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth guru of the Sikhs. In another Baba Bhaniara is shown riding a horse in the manner of Guru Gobind Singh.”

The Polyester Prince, a biography of the Indian businessman Dhirubhai Ambani was banned nationally.

Internet

Main article: Internet Censorship in India

In 2004, a Yahoo! Groups discussion group was blocked because of fears the group, the Kynhun forum, had links with banned separatists.

In 2001, the Bombay High Court appointed a Committee to oversee issues relating to cyber pornography and Cybercrime. Report of the Committee Appointed by the Bombay High Court. The Court invited the petitioners Jayesh Thakkar and Sunil Thacker as special invitees to provide their inputs and recommendations on cyber laws. The Committee upon identifying key issues made recommendations such as licensing of Cyber cafe, introducing identity cards for Cyber cafe visitors, ensure that Cyber Cafe that have cubicles or partitions be required to ensure that minors are not allowed to use machines in cubicles or behind partitions, mandatory maintaining of IP logs by cyber cafe, and so on. The Committee made several other recommendations such as connectivity and authentication at Internet service provider level which provided that Internet service providers were responsible for time clock coordination and record keeping. The report addressed the issue of protecting minor children from accessing adult sites and made a recommendation that Internet Service Providers must protective parental software with every Internet connection. The committee placed a special emphasis on lack of technical knowledge in the police and recommended special training of cyber cops. The report of the committee was well accepted by the Courts and is being put in to practice by the Police and Cyber cafes jointly.

India has blocked Internet access to several blogs and web sites in July 2006 because of the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings.. As with the Yahoo! Groups case, the government had wished for a few blogs to be banned for spreading “hateful or inflammatory” material, but the internet service providers were either unable to ban a few blogs selectively or found it easier to block all the blogs directly. After outrage, blog service was restored within a few days.

An active community of bloggers came up and protested against censorship on internet. The complete documentation is available at Bloggers against censorship wiki and at Indiacensored.com

References

1. ^ {{PDFlink”The Constitution of India”}}, India Code. Retrieved 3 June 2006.
2. ^ “Freedom in the World 2006: Selected Data from Freedom House’s Annual Global Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties”PDF (122 KiB), Freedom House, 2006. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
3. ^ “The Official Secrets Act, 1923″, IndiaLawInfo.com. Retrieved 4 June 2006
4. ^ a b “India’s film censor wants to legalise porn”, BBC News, 27 June 2002. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
5. ^ “India cuts ‘anti-war’ film”, BBC News, 19 August 2002. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
6. ^ “Censorship and Indian Cinema”, Bright Lights Film Journal, November 2002. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
7. ^ “BIndia’s chief film censor quits”, BBC News, 22 July 2004. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
8. ^ “India bans religious riot movie”, BBC News, 6 August 2004. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
9. ^ “Censor Board Bans ‘Final Solution’”, Countercurrents.org, 6 August 2004. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
10. ^ “”. Retrieved 16 June 2007.
11. ^ “India extends Da Vinci Code ban”, BBC News, 3 June 2006. Retrieved 3 June 2006.
12. ^ “India censors clear Da Vinci Code”, BBC News, 18 May 2006. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
13. ^ “Rushdie ‘hurt’ by India ban “, BBC News, 10 October 1998. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
14. ^ Goel, Sita Ram: Freedom of Expression (1998)
15. ^ http://www.epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/10652.pdf Caste and Religion in Punjab Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 2007
16. ^ a b “Outrage over India Yahoo ban”, BBC News, 29 September 2003. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
17. ^ “Indian Net Ban Overshoots Its Aim”, Wired News, 30 September 2003. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
18. ^ “India blocks blogging Web sites”, CNN (2006-07-19). 

External links

• Ban this book
• Book banning
• Censorship in India - IFEX
• The Expressionist: Tracking the moral police in India

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_India”
Categories: Politics of India | Censorship in IndiaHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007