Temporary Bans and Bad Laws: The Aarakshan Ban and the Logics of Censorship in Contemporary India

摘要

This article traces several sites of film regulation in contemporary India including the censor board, street protestors, television commentators, and state governments. Among these sites, the article focuses on the quasi-legal banning of the Hindi film Aarakshan (2011) by the Mayawati-led state government of Uttar Pradesh. Although the state government purported to be securing public order by banning the film, critics vociferously objected to the ban as overstepping the limits of state power and violating freedom of speech. I argue that while the mainstream debate was delimited by competing constitutional claims and the ban was motivated by a display of support for a local Dalit constituency, both operated within a censorial governmentality driven by an ideal of representative censorship.