Boycott menace

JUST as Bollywood is busy celebrating the stupendous success of Pathaan, it has found another reason to rejoice. Days after PM Narendra Modi admonished his party members and beseeched them to stop making ‘irrelevant remarks’ on films, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, too, has spoken in favour of films and filmmakers. The minister’s candid admission that ‘such talk vitiates the atmosphere’, while inaugurating the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Film Festival, is heartening. Such sane words could have been proffered much earlier, but as they say, ‘better late than never.’

The boycott culture has been affecting the fortunes of Hindi films for quite some time. The vitriolic trend threatens to consume Hindi film business in 2023 as well. Indeed, the entire blame for the nose-diving of box office collections cannot be apportioned to growing intolerance and increasing belligerence of misguided sections of society. Content, too, determines box office success. But, as Thakur has rightly pointed out, unwarranted calls to boycott films do send a wrong message, besides hampering the creative process. However, his assertion that ‘there should be no restriction on creativity’ can only be taken with a pinch of salt. It’s all very well to drive home India’s soft power, especially in the context of Indian cinema which is earning accolades on the global stage. But given its track record, the government will have to walk the talk.

Apart from the abolition of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, which gave filmmakers a platform to air their grievances, the government’s proposed amendment to the draft Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill 2021, too, has not pleased the movie industry. Fortunately, the government is reconsidering certain provisions, especially its proposed revisionary powers — the right to recall/reverse the certification of a film. In days of borderless entertainment, censorship itself has become a vestigial exercise. Calling out the brigade of self-styled censors who deem they are a law unto themselves is most desirable. Hopefully, the remarks of both the PM and the minister would set the wheels of creative freedom, so far inhibited, if not completely stalled, in motion.