Africa-Press – Lesotho. Mont Ida Entertainment Ltd could not have asked for a better and more effective advertising prop for ‘The Kashmir Files’, which was scheduled for release in cinema halls as from last Tuesday, than the certificate of censorship handed down by a an obscure and to date unknown panel of the Film Classification Board (FCB) on the eve, that is on Monday afternoon.
That decision was revised following a Notice of Appeal submitted by Mont Ida Entertainment Ltd, and the film’s release green-lighted on Wednesday evening.
It is not known whether the issue was brought to the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office, and the decision to annul the FCB’s censorship was taken at that level, but there can be no doubt that public outrage on different social media platforms at the FCB’s ridiculous decision must have weighed heavily in the equation.
Even as the FCB’s decision has brought ‘The Kashmir Files’ greater attention and certainly much more than paid publicity for its importer, it should also prompt an important discussion and a reappraisal about censorship of films in the traditional circuit and increasingly online and of content on social media.
Although we recognise the necessity for governments and the concerned public regulatory bodies to step in where highly objectionable and offensive content in social media posts, what with fake news and hate speech (which is not free speech anyway), and in films are likely to disturb harmony and lead to social unrest, the hard truth however is that the circumstances in today’s digital age are totally different from what prevailed earlier –one that should be examined anew in the digital age with the rise of the internet and large-scale access to high-speed broadband.
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