FilmIndia (Feb-Dec 1949)

|r, 1949 FILMINDI A H he Lord Chamberlain. Only the Lord Chamberlain fi self can cut a single line. Producers submit the scripts for censorship a week bore the rehearsals start and after the script has been ntd and passed finally, not a single word can be il red. Who are these professional readers? Their chief islenry Game M.V.O.. O.B.E., a brother of Sir Philip Z le. Henry has been the "Examiner of plays" since l<5, having been an Assistant-Examiner for six years M'iously. Next comes Geoffrey Dearmer of the B.B.C., i riter himself, who has been in his present job for [rears. Then comes Charles Heriot. a newspaper man (iiewspaper man, if you please!) who censors plays in J<nan. Rev. A. E. Jones censors plays written in fsh. Yiddish plays are vetted by Miss Rollin while lj lie plays go to Miss M. Macdonald. Each play is jailed by only one reader and the fee is one guinea per icof the play This fee goes to the reader and not to h Lord Chamberlain. ; In addition to his professional readers, the Lord ^nberlain has an advisory council of distinguished Bors and clergymen. He also rings up the Home ieetary or the Archbishop of Canterbury sometimes to ;e high-level reaction to something in doubtful taste. Lin 1948, 1151 plays were vetted. Of these only ||;re rejected, four because they dealt with perversion ji one on grounds of "personal intrusion" — in other kils it dealt with the life of a notorious criminal whose T'fier-in-law objected to publicity. Plays are banned for five main reasons: (1) gross uarity (2) blasphemy (3) . insults to foreign countries n their leading representatives (4) pain to relatives n descendants of well-known people (5) perversion n other unsavoury subjects. However, censorship in England is not hidebound. iv:y year it becomes increasingly broadminded. Cen3i lip is keeping pace with the changes in public taste, ejs ago when Bernard Shaw first wrote "Mrs. Warren's Wession" it was banned. Now that prostitution is isissed openly, the ban has been removed. Subjects ki artificial insemination, which are freely discussed i ;\vspapers these days, are nowadays permitted to be isired on the stage. Authors are told why their plays are banned and W are given the opportunity to see Lord Clarendon equally and discuss the matter with him. The theatre managements themselves hold very Ilig views on the subject of censorship of plays. They a official censorship from Lord Chamberlain's office 'l.oid various provincial and local censorships with :lnade morality codes and the resultant chaos in the tqre trade. That is how plays are censored in England today i let us hope our own censors learn something about , f>rship from what is being done in England. One point which our censors must remember is that " the changes in public taste, censorship must become casingly broadminded. Our present Board of Film Censors, we are afraid, capable of realizing the wisdom of this principle. At Pandit Nehru's party given to the members of the Constituent Assembly on the 3rd June, Dr. P. D. Tandon, Speaker of the U.P. Assembly is seen with Mrs. Indira Gandhi (Pandit Nehru's daughter). PARROT TALK AND PROMISES! During October last year — 9 months ago — Mr. Morarji Desai, Bombay's Home Minister, told us that the Government of India had finally decided to appoint an inquiry committee to go into all the present grievances of the Indian film industry with a view to centralize censorship and coordinate its social, technical and commercial factors to make our films a live factor in building up our future nation. It was a glorious promise and we believed it coming as it did from the Home Minister who is known for his utter honesty and sincerity of purpose. Of course, he never mentioned the date by which this promise would be fulfilled. Politicians never commit themselves to dates. They always give undated promises so that they can renew them with convenience and comfortable conscience from day to day. That is precisely what our Information Minister, Mr. R. H. Diwakar is doing these days. From every town, between Kashmir and Kanya Kumari, wherever he meets a film man. Minister Diwakar repeats Minister Morarji's promise and gives us the usual parrot-talk about the inquiry committee to be appointed by the Government of India to solve all the problems of the Indian film industry in a day. In New Delhi, the dirty capital of a free nation, no one seems to know anything about this proposed inquiry committee which has been in the newspapers for 9 months now — enough time for a human being to be born.