Ram Gopal Varma slams CBFC after Madras HC stay on Vijay’s Jana Nayagan; Mari Selvaraj calls censor delay ‘injustice’
H Vinoth’s Vijay-starrer Jana Nayagan is indefinitely postponed from its Pongal release as the film awaits certification from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). After the Madras High Court granted an interim stay against the previous verdict asking the CBFC to hand over certification, filmmakers Ram Gopal Varma and Mari Selvaraj took to social media to share their thoughts. (Also Read: Jana Nayagan producer says Vijay ‘deserves farewell he earned’ amid ‘extremely difficult’ legal tussle with CBFC)
Ram Gopal Varma calls CBFC ‘irrelevant’
RGV took to his X (formerly Twitter) account to pen a long note on the CBFC. “Not in the context of just @Actor_Vijay ‘s #JanaNayagan ‘s censor issues but in an overall manner, it is truly foolish to think that the censor board is still relevant today,” he wrote, adding, “It has long outlived it’s purpose, but it’s being kept alive out of laziness to debate it’s relevance now, and it is the film industry as a whole which is mainly responsible for this.”
The filmmaker also pointed out that with the advent of internet a ‘12-year-old can watch a terrorist execution’ and a ‘9-year-old can stumble upon hardcore porn’. “All of it is available instantly, anonymously, and without a gatekeeper,” he pointed out. The filmmaker also mentioned how YouTube channels are filled with videos of people using abusive language. “And in this reality, for the honourable censor board to believe that cutting a word in a film, trimming a shot, or blurring a cigarette will “protect society” is a joke,” he wrote.
RGV also explained why he believes the CBFC is irrelevant today, writing, “What the censor board actually does now is not protection, but only theatrics. It’s a ritual of authority in Oscar worthy performances where scissors replace thinking, and moral pretence moves around in a disguise called responsibility. The same society that freely scrolls through graphic violence on social media suddenly becomes “concerned” when a filmmaker shows something in a theatre. This hypocrisy is dangerous.”
Later in the note, the filmmaker also wrote, “Continuing to defend the relevance of the censor board today is like insisting on a watchman for a building whose walls have already been broken and everyone can see what’s inside.” He ended the note with, “So instead of raising this topic once in a while over a particular film, the fight should be with that particular system of thinking which created the censor board.”
Mari Selvaraj calls out CBFC’s ‘injustice’
Mari also penned a note in Tamil on X, calling out the perceived injustice by the CBFC towards Jana Nayagan. “The censor board’s action against the film Janyayan is a blatant injustice. As a creator, let us raise our voices to eradicate the rapidly spreading fear of our democracy and our creative freedom by opposing this injustice. #JanaNayagan #CBFC,” wrote the Bison director.
After court hearings on January 6 and 7 in the Madras HC, Justice PT Asha directed the CBFC to grant clearance to Jana Nayagan on January 9. After the certification board challenged it, within hours, a division bench comprising Chief Justice MM Shrivastava and G Arul Murugan granted an interim stay against the single judge’s verdict. The matter was posted to January 21.
Amid the setback, numerous film personalities, including Sibi Sathyaraj, Ravi Mohan, Karthik Subbaraj, Shivathmika Rajashekar, Silambarasan TR, and several others, have extended their support to Vijay.
