Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma is once again making headlines for speaking his mind, this time going straight after the Censor Board itself. Known for never holding back his opinions, Varma shared a lengthy note on social media stating in no uncertain terms that he is firmly against the Censor Board trimming and cutting films, and that the board itself deserves to be banned altogether.
If You Can Vote, Why Can't You Choose What To Watch
In his post, Ram Gopal Varma raised a pointed question, asking why young adults who are trusted with the right to elect their own government are not trusted to decide what they can or cannot watch on screen. The post comes just days after Varma had publicly backed Ranveer Singh in the row surrounding Farhan Akhtar's film Don 3, and this time he has turned his frustration directly toward the censorship system.
'Censorship Is An Insult To The Audience'
Writing on X, Ram Gopal Varma said that imposing censorship on films is essentially an insult to the audience's intelligence. He wrote that in an age of smartphones and global streaming, believing that viewers can still be stopped from accessing the truth is outdated and foolish thinking. According to him, the real hypocrisy lies in the fact that adults are considered mature enough to elect the country's leaders, run businesses and support their families, yet not mature enough to decide what they want to watch. He pointed out that on one hand the government hands adults a major responsibility like voting, while on the other hand it assumes that the same adult could be corrupted by a film. In his words, this is not protecting society, it is treating it like a child.
'An 18 Year Old Doesn't Need A Committee To Decide For Him'
Ram Gopal Varma further wrote that if an 18 year old is old enough to choose the country's leader, he doesn't need some unknown committee to tell him whether hearing a curse word or watching a particular scene will corrupt him. He explained that a film is simply a dramatic story told through a filmmaker's point of view, and whether to agree with that story or not is entirely up to the audience. He called the practice of cutting scenes for a theatrical release absurd, pointing out that the uncut version reaches Torrent, Telegram and international platforms within just a few hours anyway.
The Obsession Head Banging Scene As Proof
To back up his argument, Ram Gopal Varma cited the example of the head banging scene from the film Obsession. He said that even though the Censor Board cut this scene, it has already been watched roughly 10 times more on Instagram Reels than the number of people who actually saw the film in theatres. His point was that censorship doesn't hide anything, it only makes people more curious about it. He added that in an era of AI tools and a completely open internet, trying to restrict content has become nothing more than a joke. Cutting films for language, sensuality, violence and ideology, he said, only makes cinema dishonest and hypocritical. He questioned why films should face such strict restrictions on certain scenes when children can easily access content on the internet that crosses every possible boundary.
'Industry Must Stop Bowing To Gatekeepers'
In the final part of his post, Ram Gopal Varma said there is no need for cutting films at all, and that what is actually needed is transparency about what a film contains, along with respecting audiences enough to let them decide for themselves what they want to watch. He said all filmmakers should stop bowing down to a thoughtless bureaucratic system that understands neither art nor the audience. According to him, every time the industry accepts a cut or makes a compromise, it only emboldens the so called gatekeepers who weaken the entire ecosystem by treating the whole industry as an easy target. He ended his post by saying the time has come for the industry to unite and challenge the current form of the Censor Board, both in courts and in public discourse, closing with a direct call to action, Ban The Censor.
