The Censor Board’s Hypocrisy: Silencing Caste Realities in Phule While Clearing Propaganda

India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) wears its inconsistency like a badge of honor. Films like The Kerala Story, The Kashmir Files, and Chaava—steeped in divisive narratives and widely criticized as propaganda—cleared its hurdles with remarkable ease. The Kerala Story spun a tale of radicalization that sparked outrage for its one-sided lens, yet it hit screens in 2023 unscathed. The Kashmir Files, a raw recounting of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, leaned into communal wounds and earned tax breaks alongside its 2022 release. Chaava, a historical drama on Chhatrapati Sambhaji, faced little pushback despite accusations of embellishing history for nationalist fervor. These films, whatever their merits, trade in provocation—but the CBFC found no “sensitivities” worth guarding there.

Enter Phule, a cinematic tribute to Savitribai and Jyotiba Phule, the 19th-century anti-caste revolutionaries who defied Brahmanical orthodoxy to educate women and the oppressed. This film, poised to unearth the brutal truths of caste oppression, suddenly triggers the CBFC’s alarm bells. “Sensitivities” are cited, delays pile up, and whispers of cuts loom. This isn’t censorship for harmony’s sake—it’s a cultural allergy to confronting caste, cloaked as caution. The hypocrisy is glaring: when divisive narratives align with dominant sentiments, they’re waved through; when they challenge the social bedrock, they’re stifled. It’s not just an assault on free speech—it’s a calculated bid to whitewash history.

The Phules: A Legacy Too Radical to Face

The Phules’ story isn’t a comfortable one. Jyotiba’s schools for girls and “untouchables,” Savitribai’s defiance of violence to teach, their founding of Satyashodhak Samaj to dismantle caste—these were acts of rebellion against a system that still echoes today. Caste isn’t a footnote in India’s past; it’s a living hierarchy shaping jobs, marriages, and politics. Phule promises to hold that mirror up, and that’s precisely why it’s a threat. Unlike The Kashmir Files, which revisits a communal scar, or The Kerala Story, which amplifies a specific fear, Phule digs at something foundational—something the powerful have long preferred to bury.

The CBFC’s double standard reeks of Brahmanvad, a systemic bias that guards the status quo. Films that stoke nationalist pride or communal fault lines get a pass, even tax exemptions, while those piercing the caste veil—like Phule—face scrutiny. It’s not about avoiding unrest; it’s about dodging discomfort. The Phules didn’t just fight illiteracy—they challenged a worldview that still holds sway, and that’s a nerve the CBFC seems loath to touch.

A Pattern of Selective Silence

This isn’t an isolated quirk. The CBFC’s history is littered with selective gag orders. Udta Punjab (2016) battled cuts for exposing Punjab’s drug crisis—too real, too raw. Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017) was nearly shelved for daring to show women’s sexual agency—too bold, too “lady-oriented,” per the Board’s own words. Water (2005), Deepa Mehta’s look at widowhood and caste, faced protests and delays before release. Yet Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018)—lavish historicals with their own controversies—navigated the CBFC with relative ease, despite fringe uproars. The pattern’s clear: narratives that flirt with majoritarian glory or sidestep social critique slide through; those that jab at caste, gender, or systemic rot get tangled.

Take Article 15 (2019), a rare mainstream stab at caste. Even there, the film tiptoed—fictionalizing its village, softening its edges—to dodge the CBFC’s scissors and public backlash. Compare that to The Tashkent Files (2019), a conspiracy-laden dive into Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death, which faced no such hurdles despite its own polarizing spin. The CBFC’s “sensitivities” seem less about peace and more about whose ox is gored.

A Cultural Allergy, Centuries Deep

Why the allergy to caste? It’s not just political—it’s cultural, entrenched like roots under concrete. India’s mastered the art of coexistence with caste—acknowledging it in quotas and vote banks, but recoiling when its raw mechanics are laid bare. The Phules didn’t just educate; they exposed caste as a machine of exclusion, and that truth still stings. Films can glorify warriors or mourn migrations, but peeling back the caste curtain risks upending a fragile myth of unity.

The CBFC reflects this. It’s not a monolith of malice—its members shift, its pressures vary—but it’s a gatekeeper shaped by a society that flinches at its own reflection. Clearing Phule means endorsing a narrative that doesn’t just critique history, but indicts the present. That’s a leap too far when the easier path is waving through tales of valor or victimhood that don’t rock the boat.

Breaking the Taboo: Revolution or Bust?

Shattering this silence in cinema feels Sisyphean. Brave filmmakers—like Phule’s team—aren’t enough. It’d take a public hungry for truth, creators who don’t self-censor, and a CBFC that doesn’t quake at shadows. Regional cinema offers glimmers: Tamil films like Pariyerum Perumal (2018) and Asuran (2019) have tackled caste head-on, often sidestepping CBFC chokeholds with local grit. But Bollywood, with its wider reach, stays cautious—Phule could’ve been a breakthrough, yet here we are.

Short of a revolution, the taboo holds. That could mean a wave of unfiltered art—think streaming platforms dodging the CBFC—or mass pushback, like the protests that saved Udta Punjab. It might even mean something messier: a cultural breaking point where caste can’t be ignored. Until then, the CBFC’s hypocrisy isn’t just a film issue—it’s a symptom of a nation allergic to its own fault lines, content to let some truths shine while burying others.