Top religious scholars have called for the immediate restructuring of the country’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), claiming the movie watchdogs have “lost the sense of India’s cultural milieu”.
Rajan Zed, the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, is leading the charge.
He tells WENN, “We are fully supportive of the artistic freedom and expression in cinema, and we do not want any unnecessary censorship, but we are highly concerned about the increasing presence of the immodest and risque scenes in movies, which are there simply for mercantile greed.
“The CBFC chairperson Sharmila Tagore and her team need to be retrained in what India stands for and what our moral perimeters are.
“India wanted to raise the future generations as moral and successful citizens of tomorrow, and not as lost souls who know no moral boundaries.”
Zed, who hit the headlines in 2008 by protesting the use of sacred Hindu imagery in Mike Myers’ comedy The Love Guru, adds, “Indian film should be responsible and sensitive to the values and standards of society – it should be clean and healthy entertainment.”
Meanwhile, Bhavna Shinde of Forum for Hindu Awakening, insists, “morality is the strongest asset of a nation”.
He adds, “The CBFC really needs to wake up and at least make an honest attempt to stop the moral degradation being caused by the reckless display of sex and violence in many movies.”
