The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has verbally told filmmaker Suman Ghosh that it would like him to mute four words/phrases in his documentary on Amartya Sen.
The four words/phrases are: ‘Gujarat’, ‘cow’, ‘Hindutva view of India’ and ‘Hindu India’.
The documentary is called The Argumentative Indian. It’s awaiting certification.
Here’s what the Nobel-winning economist says Amartya are the
'Gujarat'
The mention of Gujarat comes up in the documentary in relation to a lecture Amartya Sen gave at Cornell University: “…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.”
'Cow'
Amartya Sen uses the word "cow" once in the documentary while explaining the need for debate and argument: "There was a kind of grandness of vision there, and an integrated picture which hangs together in trying to embrace each other, not through chastising people for having mistreated a cow or some other thing, but dealing with people in terms of argument."
'Hindu India'
This phrase comes up when the documentary shows economist Kaushik Basu interviewing Sen and asks about the Nobel winner’s book The Argumentative Indian. Sen says the book is “really based on my understanding of the country (and) the country was now being interpreted sometimes as Hindu India and sometimes as other restricted visions of the country.”
'Hindutva view of India'
Sen brings up ‘Hindutva view of India’ in reference to the backlash he faces for his views: “Now a lot of people would disagree with my view of India. Whenever I try to take this rather grand view of India, which is not the banal Hindutva view of India, whenever I make a statement, I know the next morning I will get 800 attacks on social media of four different kinds…. I can see there is an organised attack (by a particular political group)…. Now the main thing is not to be deterred by it.”
The documentary Argumentative Indian is to be released this weekend, but it is yet to receive CBFC certification.