'How many beeps in a film?': Prakash Jha reacts to censor issues with Jai Gangaajal

The Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has been in loggerheads with filmmakers for creative freedom and the demands of censorship. It’s not been long enough since Angry Indian Goddess and Spectre saw severe censorship by the board. On the other hand, we saw Mastizaade getting a mere ‘A’ rating despite being full of profanity without a single scene deletion from the upcoming sex comedy. Rajkumar Hirani was allowed to retain the word ‘saala’ in the title of his next, ‘Saala Khadoos’ starring R Madhavan and presented by director Rajkumar Hirani is all set to clear the censor board regulations. Meanwhile, Prakash Jha’s forthcoming film ‘ Jai Gangaajal ’ has now gotten stuck with CBFC for the usage of the same words. [caption id=“attachment_2555854” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Jai GangaJal Official poster[/caption] In a Times of India report, Prakash Jha said, “They wanted me to reduce an action scene by 50 per cent; I’m okay with that, but not okay with the language being diluted. I’m going to the Tribunal hoping they will see things in the right context. Else, I’ll move court. One mindset has created all this absurdity.” Jai Gangaajal director Prakash Jha tweeted on Saturday.

‘How many beeps can you have in a film?’ - #JaiGangaajai https://t.co/qj1ku8f2l8

— PrakashJhaFilms (@prakashjha27) January 4, 2016

Jai Gangaajal will hit the screens on 4 March, and Prakash Jha plays a role of a police officer. The irony of the situation is that Gangajal has equivalent cuss words like ‘saala’ and ‘ghanta’ but has nonetheless been running over the years with a ‘U/A’ certificate, without any objection from the censor board. The inconsistencies and arbitrariness of the censor board has disturbed many in the past, it has been fraught with controversies throughout the year. Some take a deep breath to the fact that Shyam Benegal is now in charge to oversee the functioning of the CBFC, including Prakash Jha.