Sita is considered a symbol of purity and virtue. All that the Malayalam film’s makers did was to invoke a character from history and literature to package some social commentary.
Published Jul 14, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 14, 2025 | 9:41 AM
No one had complained about the movie title. The CBFC took it upon itself to suggest what it did just because the story concerns a sexual harassment victim named after the protagonist, Janaki.
Synopsis: The latter-day Janaki, deemed as an artistic icon for the archetypal woman, needs no “Lakshman Rekha,” – which is an evocative metaphor from the Ramayana in which Lord Rama’s younger brother draws a line of control on Sita before she is abducted. The line was meant for her protection, but is also viewed in contemporary discussions as an exercise of undue authority.
“We don’t need no education/We don’t need no thought control…’
The lyrics of British rock band Pink Floyd’s anthemic title song from the album titled “The Wall” rang in my ears last week as seemingly unconnected events collectively assaulted my senses. I had to pinch myself to say that I was still in the democratic republic of India, which seems to have regressed to a point where the obviously easy needs to be upheld by courts of law, and the absurd seems to have been made normal.
We had the overreach of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) that poked its nose into the title of a Malayalam movie, which has been forced to modify its title from “Janaki vs the State of Kerala” to “V Janaki vs the State of Kerala” because the censors (what else would you call them?) deemed it fit – despite the Kerala High Court frowning on the unprovoked action by the CBFC which did not like the title because Janaki, another name for Sita, the Queen Consort of Lord Rama, happened to be the name of a goddess and ergo, liable to hurt religious Hindu sentiments.
That is quite a stretch. No one had complained about the movie title. The CBFC took it upon itself to suggest what it did just because the story concerns a sexual harassment victim named after the protagonist, Janaki. While hearing the matter, Justice N. Nagaresh said, “Naming an artistic piece is the prerogative and right of the artist.”
The CBFC’s position is full of delicious ironies, given that the country is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose government constitutes the CBFC in the first place. The BJP has been at the forefront of the movement to build Lord Rama’s temple at Ayodhya, which helped it storm to power. A key point the BJP has been making is that Rama is a historical figure and not a mythological one. The party stand should be that Sita was an ancient princess/queen who was worshipped as a goddess.
Ironically, the Janaki movie stars BJP’s Suresh Gopi, who happens to be a minister in Modi’s Union government.
Notably, the Ramayana is also considered an epic originally written by Sage Valmiki. It is part of India’s literary tradition. Literary characters are routinely analysed in the public discourse anywhere on the planet, and more so in a country like India, in which epic figures, including Shakuni and Dhritarashtra from the Mahabharata and Lakshman and Kaikeyi from the Ramayana, are often cited in everyday conversations on morality and character flaws.
Sita is considered a symbol of purity and virtue. All that the Malayalam film’s makers did was to invoke a character from history and literature to package some social commentary.
Valmiki is himself widely believed to have written the Uttara Kanda as a sequel to the main Ramayana, and its climax includes an ordeal by fire (Agni Pariksha) of Sita after Lord Rama banishes her to a forest with her twin sons to uphold his public accountability after gossipers question her chastity following her abduction by Ravana. Rama’s controversial act is a matter of historical debate in India, and such chatter only grew louder after the arrival of feminism.
What Rama did matches Julius Caesar in the Western tradition. The quote “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion” is credited to Caesar himself. The Roman emperor is said to have done this to uphold his integrity after his wife Pompeia was implicated in a scandal, leading to his divorce from her.
Censorious activity is not new to modern India, though I would not say that about ancient India, which happens to be the land of the classic treatise on sex, the Kamasutra.
In 1987, the censors under the then Congress government forced the makers of a Manoj Kumar-starrer, which offered a contemporary interpretation of Sita, to change the title from “Kalyug Ki Ramayan” to “Kalyug Aur Ramayan” after protests from Hindu groups.
The latter-day Janaki, deemed as an artistic icon for the archetypal woman, needs no “Lakshman Rekha,” – which is an evocative metaphor from the Ramayana in which Lord Rama’s younger brother draws a line of control on Sita before she is abducted. The line was meant for her protection, but is also viewed in contemporary discussions as an exercise of undue authority. Literary or historical characters are often used to question or explain shifts in social values.
Literature and history often intermingle in the public discourse, and cinema is part of the vehicles of expression. The Right to Expression under the Constitution of India includes artistic and intellectual freedom to discuss characters, ideas, and principles. After all, what use is democracy if citizens cannot discuss what is wrong and right? Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution, while protecting the Right to Expression, has an exceptional provision for “reasonable restrictions.” The provision of late is getting overused or abused in the lower reaches of administration, including the CBFC.
It is even more ironic that the Janaki movie is mired in controversy even as the BJP is busy commemorating the 50th anniversary of the imposition of the draconian Emergency rule by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. The CBFC’s behaviour only echoes the words of former BJP president Lal Krishna Advani on the media during the Emergency: “You were asked only to bend, but you crawled.”
That brings us to Maharashtra, where a new ghost called “passive militancy” has been invoked by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in a bill that has the potential to muzzle the Right to Expression.
The Maharashtra legislative assembly has passed a bill aimed at curbing what BJP leaders call “Urban Naxalism” in the state. The proposal seeks to prevent unlawful activities of left-wing extremists, but the reference by officials to an aim to check “passive militancy” through the law rings an alarm bell for civil rights activists. Is that a curb on the Right to Expression? While the BJP now stands accused by the opposition of running an “Undeclared Emergency,” vague phrases like ‘passive militancy’ justify such suspicions.
Freedom of thought is central to the Right to Expression. Both the Maharashtra Bill and the CBFC diktat smell of thought control. It must be clarified that Fadnavis only talks of checking anti-constitutional propaganda. But what happens if provisions of the Constitution or bad
The implementation of constitutional rights are questioned by artists or writers, and that is used to crack down on their freedom?
Elsewhere, the controversial vice-chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, said at an annual conference on “Indian Knowledge Systems” that academia plays an important role in the national discourse.
“Political power requires narrative power. So, intellectuals are very important,” Ms. Pandit said in her welcome address.
Now, how can that exist without the requisite academic freedom to discuss the rights and the wrongs or the facts and values that the country needs? Artistic, media, and academic freedoms are the instruments through which a nation or a civilisation talks to itself to decide its course of action.
That in turn involves asking questions, invoking analogies and unearthing literary parallels to aid progress. One-sided ideological views hiding behind the word “national” are not sufficient without discussing all sides of the ideological or constitutional spectrum. Without all this, “discourse” is only propaganda.
The CBFC and authorities in Maharashtra and JNU alike need to keep in mind that the Constitution is supreme, and fundamental rights cannot be suspended in everyday life.
(Views are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
