Banning Films or Article 19(1)(A) [Video]

Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.

Potter Stewart (former US Supreme Court Justice)

Few months back, incidents of vociferous protests of many Christian communities against screening of films like The Da Vinci Code have dominated the press and media. Numerous opinions and counter-opinions of politicians, religious leaders, experts as well as ‘aam janta’ have been circulated with great zeal on the issue. The outcome we witnessed: one after another seven Indian states[1] imposing a ban on the movie in their territories. The reason cited by almost all the Governments was that the movie is ‘blasphemous and offensive’ and might hurt the ‘emotions’ of the people of the minority community; hence, disturb the ‘peace and tranquility of the State’. However, this is not an unusual phenomenon. Banning books, movies, art has been ‘Indian tradition’. Only fact is that it seems to have taken an upward slope in the recent times. Da Vinci is the latest edition on the line of Water, Final Solution, War …