Bollywood wants Censor Board chief Nihalani out

Censor Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani on Wednesday faced heat on multiple fronts in the escalating row over Bollywood movie Udta Punjab, with demands for his sacking, including over his allegation that its maker Anurag Kashyap may have taken money from the Aam Aadmi Party to make the film.

Addressing a jam-packed news conference, Mukesh Bhatt, president of the Film and Television Producers Guild of India, and Ashoke Pandit, president, Indian Film and Television Directors Association, accompanied by a host of producers and directors, urged the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to sack Nihalani forthwith.

“It used to happen in the previous government... it’s happening in this government... but now, it is crossing the limit,” said Bhatt. “I appeal to the government to remove him (Nihalani) immediately. There is a vicious system prevailing in the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification). The producers guild does not want him as the CBFC chief; we are united on this,” he added.

“Nihalani has made the entire board redundant... whatever is happening is not good,” Pandit said. “Filmmakers should be respected and encouraged for making such good issue-based cinema,” he said. The film delves into how the youth in Punjab have succumbed to drugs.

Kashyap said: “We don’t want a Censor Board, we want a



certification board... it is distressing, financially distressing... they are breaking the back and the backbone.”

Talking about Nihalani, veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt said that at one point in time, both of them had together fought against the Censor Board. “There is no freedom without free thought,” he said.

Director of the film Abhishek Chaubey said they had been under so much pressure that he almost agreed to the cuts suggested by the board. “It is a good beginning...we are all fighting together,” added Sudhir Mishra.Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali said: “Anything that attacks freedom of thinking is frustrating. Good thing is we are together over here. We will see what happens.”

The producers have now moved the Bombay High Court seeking a copy of the order passed by the Censor Board’s Review Committee suggesting “13 changes” and removing reference to Punjab in the film.

For his part, Nihalani said the producers themselves did not collect the order until Wednesday and instead went to the media making the matter public. “We met the producers on Monday and told them about the cuts. They said, ‘If we get cuts, will you give us the certificate?’ I said, ‘Of course, yes’. But they did not turn up to collect the letter. They directly went to media. Today they came to collect the letter.”