Amartya Sen, an Indian economist and Nobel laureate, will soon have a documentary based on his life. The Suman Ghosh directorial documentary is slated to release here on 9 March after the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) suggested to beep out the word ‘Gujarat’ from it.
Earlier, the CBFC, Kolkata sparked a controversy in the documentary, ‘The Argumentative Indian’. They asked the makers to mute nine words/phrases in the film but the CBFC, Mumbai announced only one word to be beeped and that is ‘Gujarat’.
The director said, “I started to shoot in 2002-2003 with a group of enthusiastic friends and we shot across three countries – in India, the UK, and the USA. Finally, in 2017, 15 years since I started the journey I completed the film.”
Referring to the initial Censor hurdle in mid-July last year when the CBFC, Kolkata had asked Ghosh to cut or mute six words/phrases – ‘Gujarat’, ‘In India’, ‘Hindu’, ‘Cow’, ‘These days’ and ‘Hindutva’ — from the documentary for a ‘U’ certification. “At one point last year I thought that it was a losing battle,” he said.
“But thanks to the media support all over the country and abroad, it gave me the strength to fight it out. Finally, the film is finding the light of day. A special thanks to (CBFC chief) Prasoon Joshi for this,” Ghosh said.
Asking the people to watch the film, the director said, “Let’s do this to honour one of the greatest living intellectuals of the world and a proud son of India, Amartya Sen, who received Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India, in 1999. I sincerely believe that such a “voice” is so needed in the current world scenario.”
On January 12, Ghosh had told PTI, “I recognise that the decision (on removing the word ‘Gujarat’) is not the best but I strongly believe that the film should be shown to the public without further delay since beyond the controversies, which were unfortunate, I have a larger point in the film which needs to be communicated.”