Tuesday, October 19, 2004

More on Anupam Kher: The Hindu

Via Locana, I saw this Editorial in The Hindu, on Anupam Kher.

It basically reiterates the points that people have already made (including many good points made by readers in response to my earlier post), but adds a couple of other incidents to the list of indictments of Kher's tenure:

It has taken decisions that have shown it up as being too priggish (example: it objected to Nagesh Kukunoor's Hyderabad Blues because the word "blue" could be misleading), too arbitrary (Mahesh Bhatt's Zakhm, which went on to win an award for national integration, was initially refused a censor certificate on the ground it could promote `communal disharmony'), and too confused (double entendres and titillating dance sequences are routinely cleared while a close embrace between two adults may attract the scissor). The second issue relates to the need to ensure that appointments to Censor Boards are apolitical and that their functional autonomy is not impaired in any way.

But they also criticize the way in which he was fired, and worry about the continuing potential for political censorship by the Congress Party.