Earlier this month, India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) removed a 33-second kissing scene from the new 'Superman' by James Gunn, deeming it “overly sensual” for Indian audiences. Last year, when Christopher Nolan’s 'Oppenheimer' released in India, the board obscured Florence Pugh’s nudity with a digitally inserted CGI dress. Even middle-finger emojis in Hollywood blockbusters like 'F1' were censored, so was the profanity in Marvel's 'Thunderbolts'. These are not fringe titles or subversive risqué indies. These are big-budget, globally acclaimed productions that still couldn't escape the scrutiny of the CBFC.
In our rhetoric about the Western society, India has always painted it as a morally corrupt place where children talk back to their parents and divorce is casual. We are taught to contrast this with our supposedly superior values — of restraint, family loyalty, cultural dignity, and sexual conservatism. We project an image of the West as self-indulgent and reckless which by default also applies to their films. And by extension, we imagine ourselves as a morally upright culture, unpolluted by Western deviancy.
But that moral superiority begins to unravel when we look at the kind of stories we celebrate in our own films. There's a litany of Indian films where violence, misogyny, stalking, and non-consensual romantic pursuits are normalized, even celebrated. In 'Arjun Reddy' (2017), toxic masculinity becomes glamorous; the protagonist’s abuse is romanticized as 'passion'. 'Kasaba' (2016) drew condemnation from the Kerala Women’s Commission for a sexually charged threat about menstruation. The 'Masti'/'Grand Masti' franchise traffics in everyday sexism, while 'Desamuduru' and 'iSmart' Shankar base entire jokes around rape. And Kantara, despite its national award, normalizes peeping on a woman bathing, waist‑pinching, stalking, and non‑consensual slaps as 'harmless' romantic quirks.
Yet none of these films triggered CBFC intervention. This double standard — allowing sexual violence, harassment, and misogyny in local cinema while censoring genuine expression of love reveals deeper truths about cultural control.
The CBFC’s actions are not rooted in moral concern. The board, a state‑appointed body under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, was created by the Cinematograph Act of 1952 as a 'certification' board, not a censor board which is what we have come to generally call it. Its mandate is to only certify films into categories based on age like U (Universal), U/A 7+ / 13+ / 16+, A (Adults Only), and S (Specialist). If a scene is meant for mature audiences, it should simply be placed in the appropriate category. Instead, the CBFC repeatedly interferes with a filmmaker’s vision — cutting into plots, disrupting emotional arcs, and flattening the intent behind entire narratives.
This editorial meddling is authoritarian in nature. Cinema is among the most potent platforms to give voice to the voiceless, highlight social issues, and challenge power structures, yet the CBFC’s interference forces artists to shape their art around an unspoken, arbitrarily enforced code. This code wears the mask of 'virtue', but beneath it lies a system designed to preserve power and maintain an increasingly outdated and puritan 'status quo'.
And we know this because displays of affection and nudity aren’t the only things the CBFC censors. Films that attempt to tell inconvenient truths about caste, violence, or the state are often stalled or silenced altogether. 'Punjab 95', a biopic about human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, was held up for months, with over 100 cuts reportedly demanded. 'Phule', based on the lives of social reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, faced scrutiny for its caste references and critique of Brahminical privilege.
These interventions reflect a broader impulse to manage which narratives are allowed to enter public consciousness. It’s far easier to trim a kiss and call it moral integrity than to openly admit that you are stifling dissent and stories that question the social order. That violence, harassment, and regressive gender supremacy remain untouched while everything else is questioned by the CBFC reveals the board’s true priorities.
Over time, this kind of gatekeeping and constant pruning of language, intimacy, and history doesn’t just restrict what we’re allowed to see; it reshapes what we believe is worth seeing. Millions of people watch these stories and internalize the vocabulary through which they are told. When things are erased from the story, they also disappear from the social dialogue. Even in its most benevolent form, cinema is a form of protest that often drives change. If left unchecked and in the wrong hands, censorship can warp this freedom of expression to the point where art bends to the comfort of power and storytelling is dulled into nothing but half-truths and propoganda.
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