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“My guess is that this is happening because there’s a diktat from above,” muses Bhatt.”Anurag, on the other hand, tweeted to other political parties to try and not to make this fight about political affiliations. All these factor in for the problem that the film faces right now. It’s like living with a large elephant in the room, chained and bruised, but the powers that be, want to shut out the windows and draw the curtain. “But the nexus doesn’t want you to know the magnanimity of it. Masaan filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan too took to Twitter to show his disappointment with the CBFC, amidst reports that the board is bowing to pressure by the Akali Dal, the ruling party of Punjab. “It’s not possible that there are so many jokes, tweets and media attention given to Udta Punjab and that the I&B ministry does not know about it.” Comparing the situation to the elephant in a room, Ghaywan continued, “The CBFC ensuring a thorough censorship on the film is extremely disappointing and reinforces the nexus.”Many are of the opinion that this time around, the move is politically motivated.”.”Ashoke Pandit, filmmaker and a board member with the CBFC reacted saying, “The decision of not allowing Punjab is condemnable and a mockery of expression of a filmmaker. The CBFC no longer stands for censorship but for certification, so I don’t know why so many censorship cuts are still being made. It’s my fight versus a dictatorial man sitting there operating like an oligarch in his constituency of censor board, that’s my North Korea. “I don’t want Nihalani to play God to my films. I speak only on my behalf. During the Vietnam War, America showed a lot of anti-war films, packed with violence, and this garnered a kind of sensitivity of Americans towards the issue. Here, just the opposite is happening. Don’t colour my fight with any political affiliations, because there is none,” he said.

Either way, they have to answer to the people.Anurag has much support among filmmakers and critics alike.”Critic and filmmaker Karan Anshuman said, “Instead of tackling the problem itself, the medium of cinema is being challenged and the actual issue, the situation in Punjab, is being swept under the carpet. What does the industry have to say about this The controversy surrounding Abhishek Chaubey’s upcoming film, Udta Punjab, refuses to die down. It’s my rights versus the censorship. I think that making the Censor Board a whipping horse is something that is working for the I&B dept.The Udta Punjab team has been ordered over 80 cuts by the censor board’s Revision Committee, which includes severing the word ‘Punjab’ from its title and the film altogether. I hope the government addresses our concerns,” he fumed. “There are elections slated for next year and this is a film on the drug problem in Punjab which has a very strong link to the political structure there. I’ve only started having this problem with the censor board in the last two years. “The censor board has been going overboard for the past two years,” said critic Mayank Shekhar, talking about Nihalani. Going by Nihalani’s logic, issue based classics like Salam Bombay, which dealt with prostitution, Bombay that dealt with riots and New Delhi Times that dealt with corruption would have never released. He also added that he wasn’t given an explanation for demanding the mentioned cuts. While the censor board reportedly demanded that the movie make about 40 cuts earlier, the revision committee has not only asked for more than double the number of cuts, but has also directed that the filmmaker to drop references to Punjab entirely — including in the film’s title. “I always wondered what it felt like to live in North Korea,” he said as part of another tweet. Imagine the impact of Gandhi, the film, if the Jallianwala Bagh massacre isn’t shown but only said in words by some characters.

He went on to say how the controversial CBFC chief is considering it payback time for when he was pulled up by the I&B ministry during Anurag’s other film Bombay Velvet. “Ab to plane pakadney ki bhi zarurat nahin.One of the movie’s producers, Anurag Kashyap, whose debut film Paanch is yet to see the light of day because of censor woes, took to Twitter to rant about his situation. “There is absolutely no denial that the drug problem in Punjab is huge,” he wrote. The movie, which is based on the drug problem in Punjab first got into trouble thanks to ‘excessive swearing,’ and now has seemed to have landed itself in a bigger soup for allegedly ‘showing Punjab in poor light’. This is a problem every filmmaker goes through when you are making a radical film. So, either they are textile manufacturers sitting back and letting this kind of heavy and dictatorial censorship take place, which is sad, or they are watching this and it is something of their doing, which is even sadder. All filmmakers are fed up of Nihalani.” The problem, says producer and director Vikram Bhatt, lies with the Information and Broadcast Ministry, and not the examining committee. The film, which was to be released on June 17, is set to be delayed by at least a month, while the producers Phantom Films and Balaji Motion Pictures battle it out with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), possibly even in court. Udta Punjab is attempting to start a public discourse at a large level about this issue.”Later the filmmaker was seen on multiple news channels, blaming censor board chief, Pahlaj Nihalani, for deliberately stalling Udta Punjab by withholding the official certificate of cuts. “It is not a coincidence that the Akalis rule Punjab and are in a coalition partnership with the BJP, the government in power at the centre,” says Mayank. “I request Congress, AAP and other political parties to stay out of my battle. In order for that to happen, the film has to show the menace. Does this mean if I have to make a film on my genocide and ethnic cleansing, I can’t use the word Kashmir This is a dangerous trend. “You have someone as the head whose own sensibilities are suspect and who is clearly a puppet of the government