It’s a ban on maturity

Yet the question of whether a play can sully his reputation and deserves to be banned leads to the question of whether censorship itself kills opinion.

Should you kill a play? Like this Marathi one for instance? Or a movie like Lolita which gets under the skin of a paedophile and renders his desire so honestly that the audience may empathise with his desire for young flesh? And to see the child as an object of desire? But snuffing out the movie or blindfolding the viewers doesn’t stop people thinkingabout such things.

If a play glorifies the assassination of Gandhiji, it does not undo the good he stands for. Opinion can be met only with opinion. Recently, a play staged in Delhi suggested that selective killings assure justice to deprived sections of society. When asked about his Sabse Udaas Kavita, playwright Swadesh Deepak supported selective political killings. Yet he described terrorism as a common crime that had nothing to do with idealism.

While Sabse Udaas Kavita made one livid at the injustice rampant in places like Bihar — the play is based on the recent massacre there — it did make one consider its subtle exhortation to take up arms. But that was just for a moment. For every individual has his own mind, which is not exactly soft dough waiting to be kneaded to the shape of another’s desire. What the play does is to make the viewer think about an issue, ponder and form an opinion of his own.

A work of art like Hussain’s nude goddess, a play glorifying Godse or a movie on apaedophile cannot transform mass opinion. Feroz Khan’s recent play on Gandhi which depicts him as an insensitive father only adds to whatever opinion already exists about Gandhi. It does not take away what is already there. Besides, a work of art triggers the thought process, encouraging an exploration of one’s own mind. It occasions debate and conflict and, ultimately, clarity of thought. Where thought and debate are allowed to be stimulated, a community gets the opportunity to grow and mature. When an artist like M F Hussain is inspired to draw a goddess in the nude, it is just another contemplation on the principle of divinity. It can best be countered with a contrary opinion or a critique in the form of another work of art.

When a society is excessively dependent on the props of censorship and bans, it is as escapist as the man who takes to alcohol or drugs to cut himself off from the unpleasant facts of life.

With mass communications making information more accessible than it has ever been,censorship and bans are looking increasingly redundant. There are pornographic sites on the Internet as well as sites that provide formulae for making bombs. There are an increasing number of channels on television. There are films, songs, opinions… as numerous as there are people. How many mouths can be shut? How many plays, films and paintings can be banned?

A song like biwi hai cheez sajawat ki from Sawan Kumar Tak’s latest Hindi film may make women livid but banning the song cannot eliminate the attitude from which it springs. Opinions have to be countered with opinions. Bad films with good films, exhortations to violence with other options. A hundred Godses cannot kill Gandhi just as any number of Lolitas will not turn the world into a society of paedophiles. For the mind is an organic entity. And it is art and debate that keep it alive and vigilant.