After smoking, films to have warnings on drinking too

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Industry up in arms against "absurd rule", calls for its withdrawal.

Even as a debate rages over the statutory warnings that pop-up whenever a character lights up during a movie, the Censor Board has now introduced anti-drinking warnings in scenes where actors are depicted consuming alcohol.

The first Hindi film to get such an insertion will be Happy New Year starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, which releases tomorrow.

Mirror has learned the decision was taken by Rahul Vaidya, the new Regional Officer who took over after former CEO Rakesh Kumar was jailed on corruption charges. Sources said all future releases will have to follow the guidelines.

While such warnings are already mandatory in some states, the Kerala government, which used to run such warnings in Malayalam movies till recently, did away with the practice in August after a committee headed by the legendary Adoor Gopalakrishnan recommended that the warnings be shown before the movie and during the interval.

The industry has been already at loggerheads with the Censor Board over the smoking warnings. Top Hollywood director Woody Allen refused to screen his Blue Jasmine when asked to insert the health warnings. Closer home, Anurag Kashyap recently petitioned the Bombay High Court protesting against the imposition of the warning. The court, however, refused to grant him any relief.

Madhu Mantena, co-producer of Ugly, for which Kashyap approached the high court, said the new guideline was ridiculous. "We couldn't do much about Ugly," said Mantena. "But are the censor officers competent authorities when it comes to curbing murder, rapes and lies? Then why only smoking and drinking? What's wrong with the Central Board of Film Certification?"

Tanuj Garg, the CEO of Balaji Motion Pictures, said while his production house has not received any intimation but warned that the move would be regressive. Dubbing the move as "moral policing", Garg said it was incorrect to assume that every vice stemmed from cinema.

Filmmaker and producer Mahesh Bhatt said it would be wrong to implement the anti-drinking warnings when it was not even known if the anti-smoking warnings have had any impact on the society.

"I recently met a top health ministry bureaucrat, who told me that one lakh people die every year in our country due to wrong medication," said Bhatt. "Are we now going to issue a warning in every scene a character pops a pill? There is a dire need for the CBFC to be mature enough to trust people and accept that they have the wisdom to understand what is right and wrong."

Senior filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi called the move disturbing, adding that no "sane filmmaker will endorse" such insertions. "While an audience is watching an artiste's expression and enjoying a certain ambience in the film, why should there be any intervention about a certain gyan which the CBFC believes is required?"

Writer Salim Khan said while it was understandable that artistes should not glorify heavy-duty smoking and drinking on screen, it was pertinent to understand if these warnings serve any purpose at all. "Moreover, imagine what would have happened to the four lovely Devdas movies had such a rule existed before?"

Reema Kagti who directed the Aamir Khan-Kareena Kapoor film Talaash, said, "It is easier for a filmmaker in India to show rape than consensual sex. I don't think our CBFC is an autonomous body."

Senior producer Boney Kapoor said while guidelines are meant to be respected, they should not be ad hoc. "Why should we have such a rule only for Bollywood? Why is TV allowed to get away with censorship when TV is actually the medium that is watched much more than cinema?"

A CBFC official close to Vaidya on request of anonymity, defended the move. "Vaidya and his team is simply following the guidelines. They are not doing anything arbitrarily. We warn people that smoking is injurious to health. Now we will do the same for drinking."