From Sunny Leone to swear words, Pahlaj Nihalani censors it all

When Leela Samson was chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification between 2011 and 2015, she tried to downplay the organisation’s reputation for curbing free expression and emphasised the value of certification over censorship. The idea was to bury forever the idea of the “censor board”, as the CBFC is colloquially known. Instead, she aimed to introduce a morality-free system that rated movies according to the age groups for which they were relevant rather than their potential to corrupt innocent minds.

Under its current chairperson, Pahlaj Nihalani, the CBFC is working hard to live up to its unofficial title, functioning more like a "Censorious Board". Movies are not only being bowdlerised ‒ they are being delayed and, in rare cases, shelved.