The lesson for the government is that a contrary point of view can be valid. Moreover, the government may have realized that its choice of Pahlaj Nihalani as the censor broad chief was a mistake.

In fact, the government must also be wondering whether all the other appointments of the saffron apparatchiki to the various institutions were mistakes as well for they can bring these bodies into disrepute and harm the government’s reputation.

In selecting these camp-followers of the Hindutva brotherhood, the government was apparently following the unfortunate convention that the new rulers would replace the existing occupants of the various institutional posts with their own nominees, irrespective of whether they were worthy of the honour or not.

That Nihalani is unworthy has been made abundantly clear by none other than himself when he described himself – without a trace of shame – as Narendra Modi’s “chamcha”.

The government found the demeaning sycophancy embarrassing enough for the communications minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, to say that excessive devotion was uncalled for.

Nihalani may or may not have got the message that obsequiousness does not pay even if it got him the job in the first place. It is his belief that his duty in the censor board is not to judge a film on its artistic merit – “Udta Punjab” is a well-made film, according to the noted film maker, Shyam Benegal – but to ensure that it serves the government’s political purpose which has landed him in trouble.

It is this mentality which made him accuse the Aam Admi Party – without a shred of evidence - of financing the protests against the film. To him, political considerations are all and defamation is of no consequence.

No wonder, therefore, that he apparently thinks that if he allows the screening of a film which effectively depicts the drug menace in Punjab, he will be doing a disservice to the Akali Dal-BJP government by suggesting that it has failed to deal with the problem. As a self-proclaimed saffron “chamcha”, he cannot do that.

Unfortunately, however, films – like paintings and works of fiction – are in a different category from, say, the saffronization of textbooks which has been the BJP’s objective ever since the days when Murli Manohar Joshi was the human resource development minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s cabinet.

The reason is that while the saffron distortions of history take time to come to light, attempts to ban books or mutilate films have an immediately impact.

So it has been with “Udta Punjab” with virtually the entire film fraternity, including self-proclaimed saffron “chamcha”, Anupam Kher, coming down like a ton of bricks on Nihalani.

Yet, even as the government faces criticism, it is hesitant about sacking the censor board chief because that it will be an admission that the much admired Modi-Amit Shah dispensation is capable of making mistakes.

Besides, if Nihalani can be shown the door, why should the other embarrassing appointees like Gajendra Chauhan in the Film and Television Institute be allowed to stay on although he faced weeks of protests from the students?

Preoccupied as the BJP is with its sectarian fetishes – the consumption of beef, promoting Israeli-style settlements of Hindus in Kashmir and evicting a cosmopolitan Reserve Bank governor, not to mention long-time objectives like favouring Sanskrit and Hindi, opposing conversions, etc – the party has been unable to focus on the artistic/intellectual issues.

In any case, there are not too many people in its ranks who are conversant with these matters of the mind. Having sent into exile and death a painter like M.F. Husain and targeted rationalists like Narendra Dabholkar, the saffron camp may have believed that it is successfully advancing its extremist agenda.

But films are a sensitive subject, especially when Bollywood has come of age by producing any number of excellent movies which are a far cry from the song-and-dance routines of the earlier productions.

Like the well-made “Udta Punjab”, recent days have seen excellent national award winners like “The Dirty Picture”, “Haider” and “Tanu weds Manu returns”, which has given Bollywood a new image. Nihalani, unfortunately, belongs to the melodramatic days of the 1960s and ’70s when he produced his own B-grade shows.

Just as the BJP failed to realize that the natural rebelliousness of students did not always point to a seditious mindset, it appears to have no idea of how the world of cinema is evolving to portray life as it is with its kinks like homosexuality whose depiction in “Aligarh” aroused Nihalani’s displeasure.

The “Udta Punjab” controversy is making the BJP come to term with the real world where it cannot use its muscle power, as against suspected beef eaters, or pseudo-nationalist postures like asking the people to chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai” to browbeat its opponents. (IPA Service)