[Commons-Law] Watch what you surf, Net police are here

[Badri Natarajan]

At 11:32 PM 8/1/2003 +0530, you wrote:
>On Friday, August 1, 2003, at 02:43  PM, Badri Natarajan wrote:
>
>>Here, when I say "censorship", I mean state approval of what you 
>>publish/screen, etc, before you actually do it. Contrast this with the 
>>American law, where, under the First Amendment, there is a very strong 
>>tradition of not allowing "prior restraint" of speech by the Government 
>>except in very, very limited circumstances, which are far narrower than 
>>the ones given in our A.19(2). The American view is that people can say 
>>or publish what they want, but they have to be prepared to face the 
>>consequences *afterwards*. (Such as criminal charges for obscenity, 
>>defamation,etc).
>
>So in effect, in India it is pre-censorship, while in the US it is 
>publish-then-sue? How do Indian movie theatres manage to screen porn 
>movies and even advertise the movie in newspapers (anyone remember ads for 
>movies at Sangam theatre in Bangalore?)

Well, even in India you can have publish-then-sue - we have laws for 
obscenity and defamation as well. But as a practical matter most of the 
censorship happens before the movie is released. Remember newspaper 
articles about censors demanding cuts and the filmmakers refusing to 
comply, and thus holding release of films? You see them pretty often. I'm 
not certain how Indian movie theaters manage to screen porn movies, but I 
think the movies are relatively tame porn movies, and besides, there is a 
fair amount of latitude given to movies with "A" certification.

What really disturbs me is the censorship of political statements, like the 
shot of a Bal Thackeray lookalike, inciting crowds, in the movie Bombay, 
which was cut.

As for newspapers - I should have mentioned earlier that (as Lawrence's 
extract of the KA Abbas case shows) the Supreme Court has upheld a higher 
standard of censorship for movies as constitutionally valid because it is 
such a "poweful" medium of expression. Print media has traditionally *not* 
been censored in India, and I believe that one of things that actually 
works in our system is freedom of the press. This is why it was such a huge 
shock when even the print media was censored during the Emergency.

And I might add that the statement in Lawrence's excerpted article that 
"censorship in the US and England is done by a private body while it is 
done by the Government in India" is rather misleading. Organizations like 
the MPAA in the US *rate* movies. They do not censor them. Sure, sometimes 
they can ask for cuts so that they can award a certain lower-age rating, 
instead of a higher-age one. But nobody is *compelling* the movie maker to 
comply. He can choose to make the cuts so that he gets a lower rating and 
more people will see the movie. Or he can refuse, and still release the 
movie and maintain its artistic purity or whatever. He can even refuse to 
submit the money for classification and release it as "unrated". This is 
very much unlike the Indian scene, where you either agree to what the 
Censor Board wants, or your movie is banned in India.

Besides, the right to freedom of speech is designed to ensure that the 
*Government* does not interfere with speech, not private bodies.

Badri