Jun 15, 2026 7:14pm IST
Censor Board Rot Runs Deep: No Uniformity or Conformity, Maintain Industry Folk
A week after the film’s release, the conversation around the hyper-sexualization and objectification in “Peddi” is refusing to die down. Everyone – from the director and editor of the film to its lead pair – is being held accountable. Actors check out monitors after every shot; there is no way any of this came as a surprise to them. What did, however, was the unanimous media and public backlash. The reactions, however, came after the collections took a hit due to this outrage. Director Buchi Babu Sana put out a statement accepting responsibility for the scenes (if not the gaze) and the film went in for a re-edit.
When asked about the “Peddi” controversy, the current Chairman of the CBFC, Shashi Shekhar Vempati (who took over from Prasoon Joshi in May this year) maintained, “It would not be appropriate for me to comment on individual cases, as there is a well-laid-out committee process by which films are certified and included for any subsequent revisions. Feedback on the effectiveness of the process is always welcome."
The big question remains: How did the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) pass the objectionable scenes? When Board members often behave like moral guardians of what is allowed on screen, how did “Peddi” breeze past? India is the world’s largest film-producing nation, and oddly there seems to be no uniform understanding of what is permissible on screen.
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Calling it akin to “playing darts in the dark, producer Mukesh Bhatt, notes “You can't tell what people from the CBFC can have an objection to. They'll imagine something which you'll never dream of and they'll take an objection to it. Sometimes, they let go of something which you think might get cut.”
Different strokes for different folks
While “Peddi” gets a green signal with all its objectionable scenes and camera angles, Varun Dhawan starrer “Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai” is made to trim dance sequences and zoom in on the faces and upper bodies of female dancers because undergarments were visible in the original cut.
Pankaja Thakur, who was the CBFC’s CEO from 2010-2013, offers a more nuanced explanation on why a “Peddi” is certified differently than “Hai Jawaani Toh Ishq Hona HaI.” She admits she hasn’t watched either film, but “going by the media reports the explanation for the different treatment of these two films is simple, yet deeply complex. In India regional sensibilities dictate certification. A film certified by the Mumbai panel will reflect the cultural and social values of Mumbai's panel members. Conversely, a film passing through Hyderabad or Chennai will be viewed through the lens of those specific regional communities.”
“The underlying problem is not a malicious double standard,” she maintains, adding, “It is that the exact same Cinematograph Act of 1952 is being interpreted differently by different human beings on Examining Committees across India. When a David Dhawan song is given cuts while similar scenes sail through in another we are simply witnessing the sharp differences in regional, human sensibilities.”
Trade analyst Ramesh Bala says that it needs to be understood that different regional committees exist for certification of regional films. “There is no single scale by which one committee looks at all the movies of India. Every industry makes hundreds of movies, and different panels review them. There is a rotation system. It is not like the same five or six members watch every movie. So there is no uniformity in applying the rules. They know the rules, but then they apply their judgment. It depends on the deliberation and what they discuss among the committee members. That is why there are all these discrepancies.”
Out of touch
Filmmaker Amit Rai (“OMG 2”) shares how when they asked the Board why they were asking for 24 cuts when they were anyway giving the film an ‘A’ certificate, their answer was, ‘The film was going to get banned. We’re actually saving you.’ Rai says they asked the Board members, “‘Do you think kids wouldn't watch the film after you give it an A certificate?’ Once the film is out in theatres, anyone who wants to watch it can watch it because of piracy. How do we educate today's generation? I'm of today's times and so is the younger generation. Those who refer to old ways of thinking will always have an ideological clash with today's generation.”
He addresses the non-uniformity in censorship/certification with an example. “One-and-a-’half years post OMG 2,’ Akshay Kumar played Lord Shiva in the film ‘Kannappa.’ Nobody had an objection to that. Then why only ‘OMG 2’? The same actor played the same character. I had to cut and edit a lot of things as the board was adamant on not letting Akshay Kumar's Lord Shiva character pass. I had to give in as the producer told me to adhere to the Board’s diktats, as a lot of money was riding on the film.”
Pankaja Thakur offers a counter-opinion on this. While she admits that “in a mature democracy, a film certification body should concern itself solely with rating films into age-appropriate categories and refrain from cutting adult-rated films,” but also believes that, “We must remember that the CBFC certifies a film for the audience, on behalf of the audience. And the uncomfortable reality is that a large section of the Indian public clearly wants the board to act as a censor body, not just a classification one.
She feels that the CBFC will only ever be as liberal or as sanskari (conservative) as its members. “Because these members are drawn from a cross-section of our society, the perceived conservative shift in the board is not happening in a vacuum, it is merely a mirror reflecting the socio-cultural shifts we have gone through as a society,” Thakur notes.
Course correction
Amit Rai believes that “there needs to be a dialogue between the makers and the Board. It's shocking that we're going to a doctor who doesn't even ask what our problem is. The producers' body and the Censor Board should sit together and discuss. That's the only way forward.”
Pankaja Thakur, too, feels that “the only way forward to combat this regional randomness is to mandate regular interactions. The Board and trade bodies must meet at fixed intervals to iron out differences and heal the persistent trust deficit. There must be continuous internal communication between Regional Officers and panel members across different states.
The change is already underway, observes Mukesh Bhatt, “My experience with the CBFC in the recent past has been very good. They have definitely come a long way from what they were. It has become more liberal and open in terms of its approach. There's more maturity and sanity now.”
Shares Ramesh Bala, “There are guidelines, but it may be necessary to ensure that all members follow the same approach. The studios — Hollywood, Bollywood, and other regional movies — should meet the Ministry and the Board and initiate a discussion. But that kind of meeting has not happened yet.”
What next?
Constant interactions are the need of the hour, says Thakur, adding, “While it is humanly impossible to achieve absolute objectivity when judging an art form like cinema, regular internal calibration would take care of instances of inexplicable randomness in certification. By bringing the stakeholders together we can drastically bring down the avoidable biases that often plague the certification process.”
That’s not all!
All’s not well at the CBFC. The full Board, it is learnt, has not held an official Board meeting in six years. Member IDs expired in 2018, yet they’re still flown in for revising committees: a de facto, not a de jure, setup. The present Board finished its tenure in 2018 itself. No Board has been announced post that. As and when the chairperson wants, Board members have flown in from other cities to Mumbai and certify films, which is also against the Act (The Cinematograph Act, 1952) and the Rules.
A guarded Thakur does admit, “The internal mechanics of the board are currently facing a systemic strain. To function properly, the board needs a regular Chairperson and dedicated Board members appointed on a strict, timely schedule. When positions are left vacant the entire structure fractures.”
Parting shots
Shares Rai, “I made a film [‘OMG2’] about a child because I saw their problems. The Board saw it as something dirty. When the film was released, the audience picked it up wholeheartedly. I still meet people who tell me that they showed the film to their children. The Board was not ready to acknowledge the drastic and alarming changes that mobile and the internet have brought to children's lives. You can't hide anything anymore. We must acknowledge that.”
Thakur concludes, “It makes very little sense to force theatrical films through the microscopic lens of the CBFC while far more intense, explicit, or presumably ‘damaging’ content is readily available on alternative digital channels at the click of a button. Added to that is the fading relevance of CBFC as a regulatory body. It has virtually no role to play in deciding what India actually watches today. The vast majority of content is now consumed on digital formats and streaming platforms that bypass the CBFC entirely.”
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