WHEN the Prime Minister himself warns film producers to curb vulgarity or face action, it is obvious that the malaise is serious. Double-meaning lyrics have invaded Indian homes in recent months and need to be banished. But the wielding of the coercive axe by the state has to be done with great care to ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease. As if to underline this danger, the police recently went out, arrested and handcuffed the editor of a girlie magazine. That is how it always happens. Sex is suppressed with excessive force and as a result a pressure cooker situation develops, finding many undesirable outlets. In fact, the outrage felt by some is a result of “mindless media policing”. In the zeal to curt Obscenity, people usually forget that it is a self-limiting disease. I erupt like a rash. After a few Weeks, or at best months, explicitness loses its novelty value and the makers of films gradually shift to softer, decent themes. On the other hand, curbing the tendency with a help of law leads to many unwanted side-effects. There is no clear demarcation line between erotica and obscenity. Even courts have not given any definite definition of obscenity. Leaving this task in the hands of the police is to rely on subjectivity and an invitation to possible Khomeinism.
Enforcement of morality leads to the opening of other loopholes which are not punishable but equally suggestive. Overzealous moralists banned kissing in Indian films and that led to all those poisonously suggestive postures and camera angles. And suppressed sex also got transformed into mindless violence. Writers like Khushwant Singh and Mrinal Pande are right when they argue that obscenity is dangerous only when it falls in the realm of criminality, its definition changes from time to time and society to society. If the demand to excise from telecasts everything that one cannot watch along with one’s family is conceded, it will also require the banning of contraceptive promotion jingles, After all, how many Indians can sit comfortably with their grandmothers when the spot is on? It is not the government but society in general which has to decide what is right for it. Leaving the job to the state can only complicate matters, Let it not be forgotten that the ban on D,H. Lawrences Classic, “Lad Chatterlys Lover”, continued for decades, and had Mr. Narasimha Rao not intervened personally, there was every chance that these called nudity scenes in “Schindlers List” would not have seen the darkness of Indian cinema halls.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 12, 1994
