In February this yr, Indian filmmaker Ananth Mahadevan walked into the movie censor board’s workplace confidently, hoping for a swift certification course of. In spite of everything, he believed his movie was “protected” sufficient to move the censorship take a look at — no intercourse, no gore, no profanity, and no Bollywood innuendo. “Phule” is a reverential story of anti-caste reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, two figures so celebrated that they routinely seem at school textbooks and on posters adorning the partitions of the very authorities workplace tasked with certifying them. He even deliberate a launch on Jyotirao Phule’s start anniversary (April 11).
And but, the Central Board of Movie Certification (CBFC) panicked.
The CBFC’s inspecting committee urged “routine edits” — delete some dialogue right here, change the visuals there. Then silence. A second screening by the revising committee — bureaucratic scrutiny masked as due diligence — adopted to make sure that the unique committee “had not missed out on something.”
It then dawned on Mahadevan that the film was not as “protected” in any case. “Phule’s” uncompromising critique of the caste system, he figured, was too provocative for India’s present political local weather.
A member of the Brahmin neighborhood (perceived as probably the most elite of all social lessons) watched the trailer — not the movie — and complained to the CBFC’s CEO, who then redirected his grievance to Mahadevan, as an alternative of defending the filmmaker. “I used to be negotiating the destiny of my movie with a stranger offended by a two-minute promo,” Mahadevan informed IndieWire.
The CBFC later handed over its most weird request: change each use of the phrase “caste” within the English subtitles with its Sanskrit equal time period “varna.”
“I couldn’t assist however giggle,” he stated. “What would ‘varna’ imply to an English-speaking viewers? If a personality says ‘decrease caste’ in a scene, CBFC insisted on inserting ‘decrease varna’ within the subtitle — that is not sensible,” the director stated.
After incorporating a laundry record of modifications, when he was requested to submit historic documentation to “validate” the movie’s occasions, it virtually felt too futile to withstand. “For a PHD thesis, why not?” Mahadevan smirks. “However for a characteristic movie?”
By the point the certificates arrived, he had missed his symbolic launch date.
For these unfamiliar, CBFC is India’s statutory government-held film-certifying physique, which, not like the MPA within the U.S. (which classifies movies based mostly on age suitability), has the authority to demand cuts, mute dialogues, blur photographs, and even delay a launch.
One would presume that CBFC wouldn’t spend a yr scrutinizing a regional indie film by a first-time filmmaker. “Unsuitable,” stated Harshad Nalawade, who submitted his political drama “Follower” in early 2024 for certification; the film was licensed solely in March 2025. “Follower” is ready in a linguistically divisive border city of Belgaum, which has been a reason behind battle between the 2 Indian states of Karnataka and Maharashtra. The filmmaker’s personal hometown provided the right lens to focus on political volatility.
After the primary screening, he was informed that the movie would want clearance from “higher-ups.” Sadly, the timing coincided with the April 2024 basic elections, subjecting the movie to additional scrutiny. Probably the most outrageous request was the board’s insistence on eradicating references to phrases “Marathi” and “Kannada” — two languages, native to Maharashtra and Karnataka, respectively — driving the very battle within the movie.
“If I take away the linguistic identifiers, what stays of the scene?” stated an exasperated Nalawade.
The requests ultimately saved spiralling: mute the title of the historic king, modify the picture of the political flag, and submit the script for evaluation. After months of inventive compromise, the certificates arrived. After which the ultimate twist: the movie was not screened in Belgaum (the film’s very setting) owing to unrest, with theaters reportedly being vandalized.
“My battle with the board shouldn’t be about muted phrases,” Nalawade stated. “It’s a couple of system that silences narratives that don’t complement the ruling get together’s,” he stated. Films framing the enemy as an outsider from overseas nations are extensively celebrated, he stated. “Nevertheless, when political movies flip the lens inward, inside India itself, an alarm goes off.”
And that is evident throughout India’s film ecosystem.
“The Kerala Story,” which exaggerated knowledge on non secular conversions, not solely obtained state backing regardless of fact-checkers debunking its authenticity, but in addition received Finest Director from a jury appointed by a authorities physique on the 2025 Nationwide Movie Awards. “The Kashmir Recordsdata,” universally panned for stoking anti-Muslim sentiment, was additionally endorsed by authorities officers, with its director even serving as a CBFC board member.
In the meantime, regardless of making the shortlist because the UK’s official entry for the Finest Worldwide Characteristic movie on the 2025 Oscars, the caste-based police procedural drama “Santosh” was ordered cuts so excessive that director Sandhya Suri referred to as it “unimaginable.” Consequently, a movie about India, starring an Indian solid, won’t be seen by the Indian public. Its OTT (over-the-top streaming) debut on Lionsgate Play in October 2025 was additionally withheld — a sign that censorship might simply be spilling over to platforms.
The Indian censorship regime doesn’t all the time want to dam movies solely — when it could possibly bleed them as an alternative — a rewritten subtitle right here, a deleted scene there, a muted reference, a delayed certificates, a second screening. Any filmmaker who has been part of the censorship ceasefire will inform you that the C in CBFC not stands for certification, however one thing extra sinister.
And even probably the most celebrated filmmaker isn’t spared. Government-produced by Martin Scorsese, Neeraj Ghaywan’s “Homebound” — the Indian entry for the Finest Worldwide Characteristic Movie for the 98th Academy Awards — was cleared for launch after a protracted record of “deletions,” a phrase that seems incessantly on its CBFC certificates. Based mostly on a New York Occasions article by journalist Basharat Peer, it follows two associates, one Dalit, one Muslim, navigating every day oppression and making an attempt to flee town, solely to be pressured to make a gruelling return residence throughout the Covid-19 lockdown.
In response to the board’s documentation, the committee insisted on 11 key modifications, together with a cricket match sequence trimmed by 32 seconds — a second that is likely to be entertaining in any other case in Bollywood films, however seems tense right here, given the central character’s faith. One other change concerned modifying the “visible of the passing automobile” throughout a scene during which the 2 lead characters are strolling on a abandoned highway, asking for assist. Within the worldwide reduce, the car, which didn’t cease, has a pink beacon mild on prime — a element that conveys the apathy of state authorities throughout the migrant exodus. A supply near the manufacturing stated that such modifications rewrote the essence of pivotal scenes depicting social realities. If a movie chosen to characterize India on the worldwide stage will be rescripted to swimsuit the board’s sentiments earlier than its launch, what does the long run maintain for daring storytelling?
And this yr, the CBFC did one thing stealthier. It shut down public entry to certificates, taking away eight years of reduce lists in a single software program replace.
Till Might of this yr, Indian filmgoers might publicly entry the path of cuts their favourite films had endured. Since 2017, CBFC certificates, flashed earlier than the start of any movie and displayed on theater premises, have carried a QR code. Scan one, and you might be directed to e-CinePramaan — the board’s digital certification portal created for logistical functions — the place the movie’s reduce record is seen.
The location was by no means designed to be a public archive — regardless that the Cinematograph Act mandates that these certificates be printed within the Gazette — nevertheless it had a novel flaw: the URLs for every certificates have been sequential.
Change the numbers on the finish, and a person might browse India’s censorship historical past — not by a browsable interface, however trial and error. Then, the portal went “beneath upkeep,” solely to reappear a month later with the sequential numbers now changed by random strings of letters and digits, which couldn’t be decoded. The unintentional loophole was now shut, and the one window into knowledge, which ought to have been legally public within the first place, was closed.
However two 20-something Bengaluru-based builders could have pre-empted this attainable closure. In December 2024, Aman Bhargava and Vivek Matthew started writing scripts to crawl by the e-CinePramaan’s sequential URLs. The concept was easy: create CBFC Watch, the primary public, searchable database of each modification demanded by the board from 2017 to 2025. Thus far, the duo has already stacked up 100,000 modifications from almost 18,000 movies.
“Perhaps it’s a coincidence the replace occurred after we began collating this knowledge; maybe it isn’t,” stated Bhargava. “However that is taking place throughout most ranges of transparency, particularly with issues to do with the state.”
Matthew, who archived complete webpages earlier than the location went down, added, “The federal government takes knowledge from its residents with out informing them on a regular basis. So, when a chance to obtain and retailer that info got here up, why not use it?”
“The larger downside isn’t solely the cuts,” Matthew added, “It’s the arbitrary nature of those cuts. Arbitrary censorship turns into the second layer of censorship.”
And so they have knowledge to show that the sample of cuts is extra alarming than the amount.
One CBFC Watch chart breaks down 100,000-plus modifications by class — profanity sits on the prime with 21,789 modifications alongside violence at 21,142 cuts. On the backside, political and spiritual edits at 2,621 and a pair of,589 modifications, respectively, which they imagine are extra regarding.
“Muting politician names or removing of caste-related phrases rewrites that means. Compared, probably the most frequent interventions are additionally probably the most superficial,” stated Bhargava.
One other graph monitoring modifications with a three-month shifting common from 2017 to 2025 reveals sharp spikes in non secular and political modifications, generally doubling relative to baseline, adopted by sudden dips.
“Does the downward development in political censorship point out a extra lenient Board, or that much less filmmakers are taking the non-mainstream route?” Bhargava requested. It’s this silence that no graph can depict — the movies that by no means acquired made as a result of filmmakers knew it will offend the board.
CBFC Watch shouldn’t be an anti-censorship manifesto. It simply lets knowledge do all of the speaking. As Bhargava places it, “A public report is critical to confirm if related content material is being handled constantly. If one movie is allowed to point out a selected political actuality, one other movie ought to be capable to do the identical. Eradicating public information makes that dialog unimaginable.”
Filmmaker Rahul Dholakia takes us again almost 20 years to disclose the CBFC’s build-up to the fear-mongering surroundings that we see in the present day. His 2007 English-language movie “Parzania,” based mostly on a real story from the 2002 communal riots of Gujarat, was by no means launched within the very state it was set in, now dominated by the identical get together that governs India in the present day.
Dholakia, whose scars are nonetheless recent, stated, “It’s troublesome to launch a movie that’s not in settlement with the bulk’s narrative.” He was made to chop a couple of essential scenes perceived as “too gory” or “too brutal.” By the point CBFC cleared the movie, exhibitors and distributors from the state backed out, fearing political backlash.
20 years later, “L2: Empuraan” (2025) not solely confronted the wrath of censorship but in addition right-wing backlash, and it voluntarily made 24 cuts, trimming footage that appeared eerily just like the 2002 Gujarat riots. 20 years later, Dholakia feels the state of affairs has turned insidious. “The crippling nervousness of offending sentiments compels filmmakers to pre-emptively self-censor on the scripting stage itself, lengthy earlier than the CBFC wields its scissors,” added Dholakia.
Dholakia, who’s presently engaged on a Netflix movie based mostly on India’s first elections, explains that he’s being “very, very cautious. As a result of anybody, anytime, can take offense.”
Whereas Mahadevan, Nalawade, and Dholakia battled state censorship, filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee skilled a distinct censor: OTT. However the final result was simply as chilling.
Banerjee’s “Tees” — a portrait of three generations of Kashmiri Muslims — has been indefinitely shelved by Netflix since 2022, the very platform that funded it. “Now shouldn’t be the proper time,” Netflix executives informed him. The set off, he believes, was the controversy surrounding Amazon Prime Video’s political internet sequence “Tandav,” which was rife with legal complaints over scenes with non secular undertones. Platforms have been spooked.
“The doorways that have been open to you earlier at the moment are closed on account of nothing however what you might be writing or making,” Banerjee stated. “When a present is slapped with lawsuits, immediately all filmmakers really feel the ‘pointy finish of the legislation.’ You begin navigating worry, and self-censorship looks as if the simple manner out.”
Banerjee sees a systemic alignment when algorithm-chasing company honchos quietly adjust to governments taking again narrative management. “The company forces that fund filmmaking are actually doing it for revenue and monopolizing the eye economic system. While you collude with a authorities, your powers improve massively. The federal government then says, ‘We’ll enable you this so long as you suppress that’. And plenty of comply.”
Banerjee continues to be hopeful that the general public will get to look at “Tees” sometime. Till then, its erasure is proof that decision-makers in a swanky boardroom will be as nervous as these in a authorities workplace.
“Let’s make a ‘protected’ movie” — a household leisure, romcom, or just a comedy of errors that includes three males in a midlife disaster looking for love outdoors of marriage — is the frequent sentiment amongst filmmakers who really feel the struggle with the censor board shouldn’t be well worth the effort or time. However not everyone seems to be cracking beneath strain. Their artwork reveals precisely what the state fears most: politically charged storytelling that may shift public discourse. However these filmmakers know that when these in energy worry a narrative, that story have to be informed.
