Smoking is injurious to health. The statutory warning makes sense when it is embossed on a cigarette pack. But when the central government puts the onus of all the ailments associated with smoking on the Film Industry by stating that 'Glorifying smoking in films leads to youth considering it a happening thing to do' is a biased viewpoint. A Committee is being set up that will examine every movie and TV programme and 'filter' out smoking scenes.
The committee will be made up of 'aesthetes' who may determine that a particular smoking scene in a particular movie is essential from the 'artistic' point of view. But in that situation, the particular actor will have to say before, in between and after the film that 'smoking is harmful'. Tobacco farmers will continue to receive subsidies as they bring in a mouth-watering revenue of Rs 8000 crore but the film fraternity shall go on to receive step-brotherly treatment in spite of the fact that Indian Films are adored all over the world. India in many parts of the world is known because of its films.
Here it is important to note that film makers like Sanjay Gupta and Ram Gopal Verma ought to go slow in the blatant smoking scenes that they plug into their films. Many of them are in bad taste and the film critics have uniformly condemned the grotesque smoking scenes in Kaante and Company. But the moral policing plans unleashed, by the government agencies is a direct attack at the freedom of expression. It is time for the Film Industry to join ranks and stand up against the repeated censures imposed on it. Till the time an organized attempt on the part of Film Industry happens, people will continue taking it as a frivolous entity.
