FilmIndia (Feb-Dec 1949)

SUBSCRIPTION RATES The annual subscription, for 12 issues of "filmlndia", from any month Is : INLAND FOREIGN: Rs. 24 Shillings 507 Subscrlptlon Is accepted only for a collective period of 12 months and not for a smaller period. Subscription money should be remitted only by Money Order or by Postal Order but not by cheques. V. P. P.s will not be sent. filmindia PROPRIETORS FILMINDIA PUBLICATIONS LTD. SS. SIR PHIROZESHAH MEHTA ROAD, FORT, BOMBAY. Telephone : 26752 Editor: BABURAO PATEL Vol. XV. APRIL 1949 No. 4. ADVERTISEMENT RATES i The idvertlsement rates art as follows : Per Insertion Fuil Page Inside Rs. Half Page Inside Rs. t Page Inside Rs. \ Page Inside Rs. 2nd & 3rd Cover Rs. 4th Cover Rs. 400 210 120 150 500 600 1st Cover Rs. 1,000 The cost of the advertisement should be submitted In advance with the order. The advertisement will be sublect to the terms and conditions of our usual contract. Consistency is not a virtue of Indians and the film isors who are all good, patriotic Indians cannot b" cused of being guilty of this virtue. One should not therefore be surprised that what the nsors consider objectionable in one picture is tolerat in another and what is liked in a third picture is cut f from the fourth one. Yes, Home Minister Morarji Desai, with his characristic enthusiasm and sincerity, has set up a produc>n code to provide guidance both to the producers and censors. Rut the censors seem to know the least about e code which the Home Minister has given them. With the Production Code kept on the shelf out o( dit, the present censorship of films has become an amu,ig sport for the censors under the bald blessings of Mr. A. Aiyar, their hard-worked chairman. But what is sport to the censors is death to the probers. Censorship in Bombay has become another Aep's fable in which throwing stones into a pond was fun r the boys but death to the frogs. Filmindia did agitate for censorship but for intelli;nt censorship and not for this frog-and-stone game that going on at present. Our wise and intelligent Home llinister has set the ball rolling by setting up a code oi roduction but surely, we cannot expect a busy man like im to interpret the code from day to day and censor ictures himself. This work has to be done by the memers of the Censor Board but the way they are doing it t present brings credit neither to their own intelligence nd imagination nor to the sincerity and enthusiasm o! ur Home Minister. Let us take the recent case of " Sanwariya " a picire produced bv Filmistan Ltd. The Bombay Censors Diind two songs objectionable in this picture and orderd them to be removed. But when the producers wanted ) know whv. so as to avoid similar mistakes in future, ie censors could not put any reasons on paper. The producers, of course, were told in whispers that he songs were considered hybrid because they contained ome colloquial though harmless words of the English anguage. This new objection, which is entirely outside the cope of the present Production Code, completely stag gered the producers and after a fruitless appeal to the Home Minister, they got two new songs composed and shot. But once again when the Censors examined the new songs, one of them was cut out. And once again without any reasons on paper. This frog-and-stone game of whispering censors is not a fair and democratic way of censoring pictures, and we expect it least from people working under a fair and sincere man like our Home Minister. W e are not pleading for any mercy to be shown to our producers as none of them deserve any mercy seeing the quality and contents of their pictures. But it is the fundamental right of every citizen in a free state to know the charges against him before he is condemned. The Censors can't cut off scenes and songs from a picture without giving their reasons for doing so. Censorship cannot be blind and arbitrary but must be wise and instructive. There is no sense in the producers making the same mistakes again and again and that is what is going to happen if we have silent censors who do not tell us why they find certain things objectionable. Our pictures cannot improve in quality and contents if the Censor Board does not become an institution of guidance and instruction in the discharge of its functions. The present frog-and-stone game will merely prove a vindictive waste of time if we do not progress and our pictures become better. Pictures can only improve if the producers are told from day to day what is wromj with them and why. And it must not be said in whispers. Printed directives must be issued from time to time if new interpretations are sought in the terms of the present Production Code. That is the only way censorship can be enforced in a democratic country. There is no other alternative. And unless a democratic and intelligent method of censorship is adopted, the present amusing spectacle of censorship shuttling between two extremes is likely to prove a death dealing game to the "frogs" of the industry. There is nothing in the present code which stops producers from using English words in Hindustani songs but if the Censors do not like this hybrid combination they should frankly say so and not whisper about it into the ears of the victims. 3