After a clash with Central Board of Film Certification, the Argumentative Indian – a documentary on Amartya Sen by filmmaker and economist Suman Ghosh will not be released in Kolkata this week. The development took place as Ghosh has refused to follow the CBFC’s order to mute words like ‘Gujarat’, ‘cow’, ‘Hindutva view of India’ and ‘Hindu India’ spoken by the Nobel laureate, The Telegraph has reported.
Ghosh was told that the documentary could only be released with a UA certificate after he follows the order to beep out the said words.
“The attitude of the censor board just underlines the relevance of the documentary in which Sen highlights the growing intolerance in India. Such scrutiny of any criticism of the government in a democratic country is shocking. There is no way I would agree to beep or mute or change anything that one of the greatest minds of our times has said in the documentary,” Ghosh told The Telegraph.
Reportedly, the word “Gujarat” is being used during a lecture Sen delivered at Cornell University in The Argumentative Indian that was shot in two parts in 2002 and 2017.
“…Why democracy works so well is that the government is not free to have its own stupidities, and in case of Gujarat its own criminalities, without the Opposition being howled down and booted out …” Sen said.
