Banned Works at a Computer Near You

Filmmakers are letting go of revenue, uploading their work online, even aiding piracy of their own films, just so that you watch what the government doesn't want you to. Anuradha Varma reports.

Twenty-four hours after Oscar-nominated director Ashvin Kumar uploaded his latest film, Inshallah, Kashmir: Living Terror, he struck 50,000 views.

A rare documentary that sees Kashmiris open up about the brutality they suffer at the hands of militants and the Indian state alike, it was released for free viewing on India's 63rd Republic Day. Kumar decided to bypass the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) after his earlier work, Inshallah, Football was banned until media outcry saw it release a year later with an 'A' certificate.

"If I approach the Supreme Court, I'd probably win the battle but getting there is a long process. I'd lose valuable time. What happened on January 26 was a triumph for the online medium," says the Delhi-based filmmaker.

In a country that has the third largest Internet user population in the world, with over 120 million users as of December 2011, an innovative protest move like Kumar's makes censorship redundant. The Internet, says Nikhil Pahwa, editor of Medianama, is the final frontier for free speech; especially because of the anonymity it offers the user. Two days after Kumar's online screening, news of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (nominated for five Academy Awards) not making it to Indian screens, was out. Director David Fincher refused to cut love-making and rape scenes as specified by the CBFC. "The film is already available online for download, as is the case with most movies, whether banned or not," adds Pahwa.

The irony is just as blatant in the case of literature. Run an Internet search for Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which was in the news all over again when the author was refused entry at this year's Jaipur Literature Festival, and there you have the entire work for your reading pleasure. Delhi-based publisher Nitin Jain of BJain Books says it's the case of Pandora's Box. "The more you censor, the more popular it gets. Book sales figures reveal censored titles are most sought-after in ebook format. The online community will never respect censorship. In fact, the more physical bans the government and puritans impose, the greater online avenues such works will find."

Rakesh Sharma agrees. "The more they tried clamping my freedom, the more determined I was to be heard," recalls the filmmaker who battled long till he won a clearance for Final Solution (2003), a study of the politics of hate, set against the Gujarat riots. Sharma encouraged piracy of his own film, handing out DVDs to the public, giving permission to individual private servers to upload the film. "When you approach the courts, you lose time. The film is no longer topical. I decided to forego revenue just so that I could get my film across to viewers." The film went viral, and the last time he checked (nearly three years ago), the hits had totalled over 6,00,000.

With negligible revenue streams for documentaries, distributors shying away from theatrical release, and broadcast channels paying as little at 50,000 for a screening (that's less than the cost of two days' shooting, scoffs Sharma), the Internet is the only option for experimental filmmakers like Sanjay Kak.

Kak's US distributor put his controversial film, Jashn-e-Azadi (2007) online for free viewing via the Snag site. Students of Pune's Symbiosis College of Arts & Science will have to log on to watch it after a recent screening at their institution was disrupted when the BJP's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad bullied the principal, saying a film about demanding azadi in Kashmir encouraged "separatism". Kak never applied for a censor certificate, because he didn't intend to screen it in theatres or sell it in shops. Neither did he expect to get a clearance. "In the absence of an online presence, mischiefmakers are free to misrepresent the film. Once it's there (online), people can make up their own minds," he says.

But with the government in the mood to control what you view, and Union information technology minister Kapil Sibal demanding that social networking sites run a toothcomb through online updates for 'objectionable' content, how long before we lose this final freedom frontier? "Growing Internet surveillance is a trend across the globe, with governments, copyright holders and religious conservationists finding a common cause. But there are enough virtual private networks and encryption softwares to circumvent surveillance," says Sunil Abraham of The Centre for Internet & Society.