Anurag Kashyap’s history with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is almost as old as his filmmaking journey. His debut feature Paanch (2003) was met with resistance from the board, which flagged issues with its violent content, portrayal of drug use, and coarse language. Though the film eventually cleared the censor hurdle, it never made it to theatres, reportedly due to financial troubles. Over the years, the filmmaker continued to clash with the CBFC — notable instances include Black Friday (2004) and Bombay Velvet (2015). In a recent interaction with The Juggernaut, Anurag subtly weighed in on the controversy surrounding Janaki v/s State of Kerala, where the board objected to the film’s title and the name of its lead character, claiming both referenced Goddess Sita. He questioned the increasing creative restrictions, saying, “If, in your writing, your characters can’t be named after any of the characters that have been part of mythology… It’s very strange. You have to look for it. They can’t be named after living characters, too. What is left there? You should call your characters XYZ? 1234? ABC? You can’t have surnames, nor characters with greyness or negative shades and blackness in them. They will have to be white. Lots of films are not coming out when they address these issues.” Kashyap expressed concern over how such constraints stunt intellectual growth. “This handholding does not let you grow. This handholding happens only when you don’t want your audience to grow. What is the definition of an adult? An adult is a person who can think for themselves. Yet, you don’t want people to think for themselves and make the choice of whether something’s good or bad for them. You are making the choice. The [OTT] platforms are making the choice. Everybody’s making the choice except the individual concerned,” he remarked, warning that this approach only pushes viewers toward piracy, not away from content. The filmmaker also criticized the notion that cinema must preach moral values to make an impact. He believes its true power lies elsewhere — in honest reflection. “So that they can look at their own horrific ugliness, prejudices, biases, narrow-mindedness, et al. But you can’t hold a mirror like that anymore because people don’t want to look at it. Cinema and culture have to purify all things. There are viral clips showing big politicians abusing. But they are in denial about these don’t exist anymore,” he said.He further alleged that people taking these decisions don’t known Hindi. He pointed out that ‘chu***a’ basically means a stupid person ad nothing more. Hence, he carried a dictionary with him when he wrote his first film ‘Satya’. He said, “The problem is that the censor board is in Maharashtra. People have made a meaning out of it. The meaning of chu***a is ‘murkh or stupid’. So, for my first film, I literally had to carry a Hindi shabdkosh (dictionary) with me. Now, they don’t even allow you to take your phone inside. They object to muhaavras and don’t understand any part of the language and they object to it. I’m a boy from benaras. We speak in Hindi, we write in Hindi.” he said.
