The Grand Cinema of Taking Offense
A still from Maharaj (2024)
Considering the polarizing socio-political climate in the country, Sneha Bengani examines censorship and outrage in Hindi cinema, and the consequences of heightened intolerance towards this democratic, transformative medium.
On July 16, the Delhi High Court dismissed the plea of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to ban the release of Netflix’s web series Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper, slated to premiere on July 18, 2024. Several members of the CA fraternity and netizens claimed that the limited series—which features actor Manav Kaul as the eponymous protagonist—is vulgar, sensationalized, and defames the profession.
Created by Puneet Krishna—one of the key minds behind Prime Video’s blockbuster show Mirzapur—Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper has Kaul play a Chartered Accountant in Noida, who takes up sex work on the side to stay afloat. The ire directed at this series comes close at the heels of the massive backlash against Maharaj (2024), another Netflix project that angered the Vaishnavite Pushimarg sect for apparently showing one of their religious leaders in poor light. The brouhaha around the movie was such that its producer Yash Raj Films could not do any kind of publicity before its purported release, including sharing the film’s trailers or promotional songs.
However, nothing stopped Hindu fringe groups from moving the Gujarat High Court to stay the film’s premiere. The HC stalled the movie a day before its scheduled release on June 14 only to give it a go-ahead a week later.
A still from Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper (2024)
In all this hullabaloo and clownery that followed Maharaj, the audiences lost the showcase of a promising acting debut. Directed by Siddharth P Malhotra, Maharaj marked the debut of superstar Aamir Khan’s son Junaid Khan. In the film, the younger Khan plays Karsandas Mulji, a real-life journalist and social reformer, against whom Maharaj Jadunath (Jaideep Ahlawat)—a prominent leader of the Pushimarg sect—had filed a defamation case in 1862, which was famously argued at the then-Supreme Court of Bombay. Remembered as the Maharaj Libel Case, this turned out to be a watershed moment for hordes of followers of the sect as it finally put an end to the socially established, sexually predatory practice of ‘charan seva’, which forced devotees to offer their women to the gurus for sex in the garb of religious service. Mulji exposed the godman’s exploitative sexcapades in his newspaper Satyaprakash, thereby calling out the darkness that was until then revered in broad daylight. An adaptation of Saurabh Shah’s 2014 Gujarati book of the same name, Maharaj also features actors Shalini Pandey and Sharvari in important roles.
Maharaj and Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper are the latest entries in a long list of Hindi films and shows that have made audiences uneasy over the years by trying to tell a story outside of their rigid notions of the content which should be allowed on screen, and how it should be eventually portrayed.
The Hindi film industry has always had an uneasy relationship with censorship. When Billu, (starring the late Irrfan Khan and Shah Rukh Khan) was released in 2009, it angered the barber community, forcing its makers to drop the word ‘Barber’ from the film’s title. Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s Jodhaa Akbar (2008) enraged the Karni Sena to such an extent that they ensured the film didn’t get a release in Rajasthan.
The fringe group Karni Sena was also inconsolably furious with the making and the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2018 period drama, initially titled Padmavati. They vandalized the film’s set, physically abused the director, burned effigies, threatened to chop off the lead actor Deepika Padukone’s nose, and even shut down the Chittorgarh Fort for a day in protest—an unprecedented event for the historical site. The bullying and intimidation worked: The film’s name was changed from Padmavati to Padmaavat, Padukone’s midriff was digitally covered in the song “Ghoomar”, and Alauddin Khalji was never allowed to set eyes on the ethereal queen in the film.
With every new call for boycott or ban—even before the uproar around the previous one can subside—cracks are beginning to show at the seams across the industry. Our filmmakers have never been more afraid, and our films never more timorous
Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab (2016)—which focused on the drug menace in the state—too, couldn’t release without controversy, cuts, and a good fight. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had famously given 13 suggestions which translated to 94 cuts, including omitting every mention of the word ‘Punjab’ from the title, removing expletives and several others such as ‘parliament’, ‘legislators’, and ‘elections’. Disappointed by the censor board’s ham-fisted treatment, the film’s producers moved the Bombay High Court, claiming CBFC’s arbitrary demands, if agreed upon, could set a “dangerous precedent.” Notably, the court dismissed the censor board’s objections and the film, which stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor, and Diljit Dosanjh, released in theatres with just one cut.
Miffed about Aamir Khan being critical of the Hindu religion and gods in his 2014 film PK, a certain section of the viewers made sure that Laal Singh Chaddha—his passion project that released eight years later—tanked at the box office, with boycotts called across the nation. Meanwhile, Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man is still waiting to be released in India (which, likely, it never will).
Considering the increasingly charged, polarizing socio-political climate in the country, it feels opportune to ask how much is too much, whether we are getting too angry too easily, and to examine the consequences of such heightened intolerance and hostility towards a medium as democratic, entertaining, and transformative as cinema. With every new call for boycott or ban—even before the uproar around the previous one can subside—cracks are beginning to show at the seams across the industry. Our filmmakers have never been more afraid, and our films never more timorous.
Take Maharaj only for instance. Though it is courageous in the topic it chooses to dissect, the film loses all its valor in the execution. Maharaj painfully plays to the gallery, too mindful, too cautious to not offend. It starts and ends with lengthy disclaimers over-clarifying its stance. Though it shows Mulji as a curious man of reason who questions inequality and discrimination every chance he gets, the YRF film is too afraid to declare him an atheist. On the contrary, he is shown as a staunch Vaishnavite, the ‘good believer’ in contrast to the fraudulent godman.
In 131 minutes, the movie has countless scenes shouting at you that Mulji’s fight is against one predator, not the entire religious sect—which is presented as noble and sacred. As if all of this fearful, coerced messaging is not enough, the film’s post-credits features an extended voiceover, just to make doubly sure it hits home. Maybe it was this forceful underlining that convinced the Gujarat HC of the film being inoffensive enough to be allowed to stream on Netflix.
One is reminded of director Karan Johar reiterating his love for the country and his unquestioned patriotism on national television ahead of the release of his 2016 film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which ran into trouble for featuring Pakistani heartthrob Fawad Khan as a parallel lead alongside Ranbir Kapoor. Khan’s screen time had to be eventually sliced down to a negligible few minutes, and yet, Johar had to bend over backwards and then some more to make the romantic drama reach the theatres.
Not long after the release of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, the celebrated lyricist-screenwriter Javed Akhtar told the BBC that, “censorship in India has always been quite erratic and quite irrational and ad hoc.” Actor-director Konkona Sen Sharma, who won widespread applause and acclaim for her Netflix anthology film The Mirror agrees, adding that there is a “lot of self-censorship” even in the web space. “Everybody is very careful about what they are saying, you never know when an FIR will come. A lot of self-censorship is happening, which was not there a decade ago,” she told Hindustan Times.
Akthar believes that one solution to this debilitating handicap is getting people who understand the importance of creative freedom involved in decision making and positions of power. “People who are from the arts, theatre, are familiar with literature and drama should be on the panel,” he said.
He is right. For the Indian filmgoer hoping to reverse these curbs on creative expression, we need to vehemently oppose the appointment of government mouth-pieces in the CBFC. Suffrage isn’t the only marker of a democracy; it’s also trusting that the populace is sensible enough to decide what it should or shouldn’t be allowed watch on screen. If the censor board continues to dictate filmmakers to edit or add disclaimers to their artistic products, our renowned film industry would be reduced to nothing more than a measly medium of mass propaganda.
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Sneha Bengani is a film and culture critic. She has written extensively on cinema, gender, books, and pop culture for some of India’s leading news publications, such as CNBC-TV18, Firstpost, CNN-News18, and Hindustan Times. Over the years, she has lived in various cities across the country but her home and heart are in Jaipur. You can find her on Instagram: @benganiwrites and Twitter: @benganiwrites.
