Unshrouding the shrouded.
Activism, demonstrations, denouncements, and rhetoric, have all gained momentum and aided in providing the voiceless, a voice. They make authorities kneel down and even uproot them altogether. While their historical prominence cannot be shelved, it won’t be inapt to say, not all fragments of literature, satire, and commentary that was destined to reach an audience have made it to the forefront. While some were withdrawn due to negligent practices, there were others that had befallen in the hands of the upholders of law. The augmentations of a vast number of objections around censorship seem like novel phenomena. However, the act of sanctioning questionable content has been making rounds since way back in time.
Malpractices like child pornography, graphic beheadings, substance abuse, and rapes are too frail to be handled visually. Undeniably, these deserve every ounce of our glare and the spotlight. Nevertheless, even a tad bit of impetuous coverage can arouse objectionable intentions and murder the entire motive altogether. Themes like these, have appeared in the list of censored contents ever since this was an alternative, and almost no one has given a reason plausible enough to counter this. Two loosely related examples would former President Obama’s refusal to label the ISIS as IS and the rationale behind public executions taking place in midnights. The more elaborately these behaviors are acknowledged, the more counter-productive and legitimised they tend to become.
Parting ways with these widely accepted notions of unacceptable matter, we have to ourselves, debatable literature. There is an interminable number of episodes where religiously dubious documents have led to barbaric disasters. The likes of Charlie Hebdo, the inhumane killing of a professor in France, multiple riots in India are all a testimony to our silent whims about censorship. They demarcate factions across lines that tend to create divides till posterity. Censoring such content appears to be the most viable and expidient option. However, seldom does a society evolve out of a governance of convenience. Apparently harsh decisions on freedoms with passable restrictions, are the only way we can permit this environment to breathe. Regardless, across all spectrums, we have reached the nadir of civilised behaviour and discourse. Comedy, academic tutorials, and every other spoken word have to be weighed inch-perfectly to ensure they aren’t appeasing someone too much or too little.
Some regimes, have gone to the extent of banning the word “censorship”.Our very own Indian film industry has taken the reigns of exemplary upbringing in its own hands. Sex-education has been very exquisitely wrapped in velvet and left under the Sun to dry out. We tend to tone down these conversations and amusingly wonder about the psyche of a rapist. If society is not ready for a certain subject, what exactly have we halted for, so that it is? More importantly, who decides what a society of 1.35 billion is prepared for? Can we even recommend a conclusive decision-making power that can justly simplify this representation? Perhaps not.
In outline, licensing motifs cannot always be a resolution. It requires a massive amount of dialogue to come to an acceptable conclusion. Heretical doctrines, advocates of usury, and intimacy, amongst others, have always been fore-bearers of constitutional atrocities. Their existence is marred by closed door conversations and exploitation. An authority is expected to intricately handle the dispute between the debatable and unacceptable. Succumbing to cliffhangers in execution validates certain coverage which encourages more descendants of which history might not be gleamy about. In an establishment that regards all societal brackets as one, apprehension cannot drive the motives behind settlements.
