The Supreme Court recently issued a notice to the makers of the popular Amazon Prime serial Mirzapur, seeking their response to the PIL filed by certain people and sections of society alleging that the show had shown Uttar Pradesh in a bad light, and had thus hurt their sentiments. Incidentally, this PIL came shortly after the newly released web series on Amazon, Tandav, drew not just criticism but rage and anger from certain sects and communities accusing the show of outrageously insulting Hindu deities and gods, through some of its scenes. According to them the (very volatile) pride and honor of the entire Hindu community was under attack. In November last year, the Indian government had come up with a proposal to set up a board, which would go on to ensure that all the Over-the-top (OTT) platforms were strictly adhering to the Guidelines set up by the board itself. This said proposal was received with fierce criticism by a pantheon of artists and intellectuals belonging to the media industry as well as the consumers of the content they make, saying that such censorship guidelines are bound to restrain the artistic voice of society at large, as well as being a violation of the right to speech and expression provided as a Fundamental Right by the Indian Constitution.
What is really fascinating is the role the Supreme Court is currently playing over this issue - the apex court itself had asked the Centre to create such a board for regulating the OTT platforms - reason being the huge criticism and general unrest rising among the people over their content.
Currently there is no such body which regulates or censors the content created by Streaming Services such as Netflix, Amazon, Sony liv and many more. Although the television industry, including the news channels, and the mega movie industry (Bollywood in particular) has been under the watch of certain boards created by the central government, which certifies and censors the material before its release, there have always been certain said regulating guidelines which the media houses are bound to follow. The same are also applicable to the radio channels across the country.
It was only with the rise of OTTs that this absolute power of censorship was wrested from the hands of the Government, although under the IT Act, there are certain provisions which gives the government liberty to remove any material containing any obscene, pornographic or unlawful content which might harm minors. The Government also has power to remove any content that is objectionable and/or harms India's sovereign interests under Section 69A of the IT Act i.e., “Power to issue directions for blocking for public access of any information through any computer resource”. The said section has been dubbed as the Internet Kill Switch. This was the way chosen to remove an episode from the John Oliver talk show which had premiered on Hotstar, allegedly showing the Indian Prime Minister in a bad light. Similarly the Netflix show, Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act faced such results when the host had made criticizing jokes on Modi. The disregard and anger over criticizing content is not always just from the government itself, many a times it’s the public who instigate the charges. People who associate themselves with a certain wing of ideology are enraged whenever they feel that a particular scene or the whole show is against their set political beliefs and pose a threat to the general public. Following this these protests gather momentum, mostly through Whatsapp forwards and hearsay, so that people who had not even actually bordered to watch the show or episode come out onto the streets and start to protest demanding the removal of the show. The makers of the show are brought under the spotlight getting vilified and death threats, with their entire future prospects and careers in jeopardy. Incidentally they are not just the ones who suffer the consequences of the outrage, but it is the whole industry as well. This atmosphere of fear deters other content makers from writing extraordinary scripts, which could have led to the development of revolutionary content for the masses. Instead of that, the creator is forced to automatically self-censor themselves and end up producing mediocre lacklustre content without being able to bring forth the issues and crises our country is facing. This clearly shows that restricting the freedom of speech and expression of not just one individual but of a whole industry is a direct indication of an authoritarian government in making. Countries where democracy has slowly eroded over time such as Russia and China are living examples. In the advent of artistic liberty, movies with masculine patriotism which belittle certain marginalized communities, or invoke communal hatred against them can prove to be really fatally dangerous for our nation. Also, content glorifying fake news and state propaganda, directly or indirectly, can manipulate and keep people away from true and accurate information which they have a right to know. If we see the culture and trends induced by movies in the early '90s which glorified and normalized stalking and harassment of women acceptable, the consequences become clearer, and there seems to be no control over that. There needs to be deep and critical analysis from anybody who tries to understand where the line should be drawn, otherwise movies with problematic content such as Kabir Singh are passed without any objections and end up getting glorified and eulogized. On the other hand, movies with a context to show something relevant and much needed in society, such as Black Friday end up in legal disputes with bans being imposed upon them.
Not just India in its current time, but democracies around the world are going through a very similar obstacle to give their citizens the right to speech and expression but at the very same time, restrict it as well. With the modern age where the term expression is becoming the synonym to social media and internet, the issue becomes a convoluted mess with multitudes of different artistic viewpoints and laws and regulations. The next few years might be a great struggle between the governments and their citizens - about what we can say and how we can say it. Meanwhile in no way can it be underestimated how big of a weapon the internet is for the Governments to manipulate and show people the reality comfortable to the ruling party’s narratives. Only after ages of struggle and activism may the end of the storm appear bright.
(Cover picture courtesy: The Statesman)
Comments