“Amol Palekar Has No Idea What He’s Talking About,” Pahlaj Nihalani

 Pahlaj Nihalani Lashes Out AtAmol Palekar’s Judicial Petition For Censor Reform

Pahlaj Nihalani who has been fighting  a  lone battle against  charges  against the censor board of obsoleteness says Amol Palekar  has no idea what he’s talking about.

“He has no  idea what he’s talking about.He wants the Cinematograph Act to be scrapped, that films shuld be given censor certificates without any cuts or without even viewing. But how can the content of a film be determined  or evaluated until seen? If Sholay had been made by Hrishikesh Mukherjee instead of Ramesh Sippy it would’ve been a  different film altogether. Every film is a reflection of the direct’s personal vision.It has to be certified accordingly. The  kind of films that Amol Palekar worked in , hardly gave him any experience in the field of censorship. Films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjeenever needed to be censored,”  says Pahlaj Nihalani who also rubbishes Shyam Benegal’s report of censor amendments.

“Basically Mr Benegal is only saying what I’ve been saying since I came in as chairperson of the CBFC. We need to  extend the ratings system. While the certification for non-adult films has relatively more clarity in terms of classification, the Adult rating gets harder to define, as the content is invariably unresponsive to a uniform code of evaluation. How does one equate the Adult content of Grand Masti with the Adult content of Aligarh?There is, therefore a need to create different certifications in the ‘Adult’ category. Films with a clearly risque, ribald and raunchy content must be granted an ‘A++’ certification so as to make it very clear to the audience that they getting into a specific kind of adult content which may not be palatable to all adults.At the same time an ‘A+’ category of  certification needs to be created for films with a highly-sensitive yet significant adult content.Films that insult or ridicule any caste creed community religion culture or nationality should not be certified at all.”

Nihalani reiterates the scraping of the Cinematograph Act would serve no  purpose. “The basic guidelines are a fine measure of what goes and what does. The family value-system has not changed in our country. Unmonitored content on television and on the internet has parents deeply worried. We have Indian soaps showing women in incestuous relationships.We have internet content being created by reputed production houses where we have  a wife saying, ‘Mujhe khana banana nahin aata lekin mujhe banana khana aata hai’ Would Mr Palekar and Mr Shyam Benegal like to rate that for moviegoing audiences?”