''21 Months of Hell'' is a 2017

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

about the torture methods performed by the police in India during The Emergency. The film is directed by

Yadu Vijayakrishnan This is a list of ancient Indo-Aryan peoples and tribes that are mentioned in the literature of Indic religions. From the second or first millennium BCE, ancient Indo-Aryan peoples and tribes turned into most of the population in the northern p ...

and produced by Arise Media Network. ''21 Months of Hell'' had its first private screening in New Delhi with the presence of Indian Union Minister of State Aswini Kumar Choubey who was also a victim of torture during Emergency. The film had overall positive response. Controversies sparked as the Central Board of Film Certification rejected the film citing that there was no proof of the torture methods used by police during the Emergency.

Controversy

The Kerala Regional Office of Central Board of Film Certification also known as Film Censor Board denied certificate for the film citing various reasons. Public exhibition in India requires certificate from the CBFC. Yadu Vijayakrishnan alleged that the Board didn't even give him a chance to edit the scenes it deemed problematic; instead, it refused to certify the film altogether. Although the film was applied for an 'A' certificate, the Censor Board refused the portrayal of violence in it. The officials of CBFC asked for proofs for the torture methods during Emergency and when Yadu told them that he had interviewed surviving victims, the CBFC replied demanding written government reports. Claiming that there aren't any solid evidence for torture and the film had too much violence, the CBFC rejected the film and forwarded the report to CBFC Mumbai Headquarters for revising committee. Large political uproar occurred from

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

activists as most of the senior leaders of RSS and BJP, the ruling party, are victims of the torture during Emergency. Yadu Vijayakrishnan alleged that the members of Central Board of Film Certification are leftists and pro-

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

and that they want to hide the efforts of RSS activists in restoring democracy during Emergency. He also added that the BJP is accused of interfering media industry and the film talks about RSS and Jansangh's work to restore democracy, following this logic he would've got a certificate.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, tt7527820 2017 films Indian documentary films Films shot in Thiruvananthapuram 2017 documentary films