Such expressions as “beeped” and “reshaped” ought not to characterise the government’s stock of words. And yet from the documentary, The Argumentative Indian, embedded in Amartya Sen’s book of the same name, to Tripura’s CPI-M Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar’s Independence Day speech, there is an increasingly distressing trend on the part of the Centre’s functionaries to kowtow to the political philosophy of the Bharatiya Janata Party in matters that entail subjective reflection.

Whether it is a film or a speech, the name of the game is bowdlerisation, irrespective of whether the monitoring entity is the Central Board of Film Certification or Doordarshan Kendra, Agartala. It would be useful to recall that the CBFC had insisted that four expressions in the film’s script ~ cow, Gujarat, Hindu India, and Hindutva ~ be “beeped out”.

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Freedom of expression can be accorded to a film-maker or a Chief Minister only on the terms and conditions of the party in power at the Centre. Implicit is the mounting degree of intolerance of a different point of view, let alone dissent. It thus comes about that after Doordarshan and AIR had recorded Sarkar’s speech on 12 August, the Chief Minister’s office was informed through a letter that his speech would not be broadcast unless he “reshaped it” ~ a euphemism for editing according to the lights of Prasar Bharti.

Sarkar happens to be the most durable Marxist Chief Minister of recent times. Ergo, it is hard not to wonder whether the response is an infringement on the right of a CM to address the people of his state on Independence Day. The attitude of Doordarshan/AIR and Prasar Bharati is tantamount to censorship 42 years after the Emergency.

Doordarshan’s claim that it has given “wide coverage” to the Tripura government’s I-Day programmes is not the point at issue.

Prasar Bharati has been muted in its response to the Chief Minister’s complaint that his recorded speech was “blacked out by both Doordarshan and All India Radio”. Considering that the I & B ministry remains the overarching entity, Prasar Bharati is seemingly not in a position to clarify why it insisted on a “reshaped” address.

It would be pertinent to recall that a not dissimilar trampling upon autonomy had driven a former CEO, an IAS officer to boot, to seek premature retirement. Amartya Sen’s observation in the context of the controversy over the film is no less relevant in the case of Mr Sarkar’s I-Day address ~ “If the government has any reservations, there can be dialogue.”

The Centre’s imprimatur has effectively scuttled the film’s release, just as Tripura’s citizens have been kept guessing over what exactly was “objectionable” in the Chief Minister’s presentation. By Sarkar’s own admission, he had mentioned a statement of fact ~ the “security of minorities and Dalits has been shattered”.

It is an ominous trend that a head of government’s I-Day address was not aired.