I attribute the inspiration for this post to Gaurav’s angry ruminations about Doordarshan. I’d like to recount my own experience of watching one of my all-time favourite films on Doordarshan: Sarfarosh.

Those who claim that India has managed to free itself from the shackles of socialism need only to watch Doordarshan’s–I’ll call it Durdarshan (evil sight)–programmes. Political correctness packaged and delivered right into your living rooms. The Left at the height of its Stalinist influence over the Congress government managed to dissect every single programme and certify whether it was “fit for viewing.” The forgotten episode of DD’s harassment of Dr.Chandraprakash Dwivedi over the Chanakya telecast is a prime illustration for this. Dwivedi had to drastically prune the serial and finish it off in a hurry. Or else!

Returning to my travails, I found that the Arbiters of our Collective Tastes and Morals had chopped the film’s dialogues by at least 25%. Apart from the terrific screenplay, Sarfarosh’s main strength lies in its dialogues. So there you have. Every time Mukesh Rishi, the Muslim cop in the film utters the word Musallmaan, it is muted. Then again, in a tense exchange of conversation between Aamir and Rishi, the latter says, “is this not my country?” This bit is cut in DD’s version. The climax, which is one of the best has extended conversations on the subject of Partition between Aamir and Naseeruddin Shah. More than 70% of this was cut.

In short order, here’s the list of guidelines formulated by Our Guardians of Morality, Refinement and Communal Harmony at Doordarshan:

• Censor the words Muslim and any derivations thereof, Islam, and/or Mohammad appearing in a negative light
• Always show extended depictions of Hindus and Muslims hugging each other and/or exchanging “bhai bhai” dialogues
• Delete all references and depictions of the Partition blunder when it inches close to reality
• Mute expletives such as Saala and harraam zaada
• Chop a 5-minute long scene of violence to make it under 30 seconds: In this movie, Aamir Khan chases a goon at some length before pushing him on the street. DD’s version of the chase: Aamir runs after the goon and in the next scene, the latter is herded into the police jeep. Towards the end, some thugs repeatedly rail blows on Aamir’s legs in the uncut version. In DD’s version, the scene begins with a thug lifting an iron rod–CUT–Mukesh Rishi runs after the said thugs who manage to escape.
• Censor all rain songs
• Censor an entire song or parts thereof in which the heroine wears transparent and/or revealing clothes

Is it any wonder that with the advent of Satellite TV DD has lost it totally?