The continuing farce

THE NATIONAL FILM Awards became a farce several years ago. They continue to be so. If such vocal protests against the jury's decisions - as were seen the other day in New Delhi - were not made earlier, it was perhaps because nobody cared enough to stick his or her neck out for an annual exercise that had grown into a ``tamasha''. The entire process, right from constituting the jury and selecting the chairperson to the actual viewing of movies and deliberations, has for long smacked of nepotism and blatant partisan considerations. We have had politicians heading the jury, men or women whose only qualification to hold the chair was either their affinity to the Government of the day, or, plain and simple, the ``ism'' they believed in and advocated. Obviously, other members invariably toed the chairperson's line, and those who did not or were professional enough to look at cinema from a larger perspective were shouted down and out. The fact that four of the members appointed to select the 48th National Film Awards vehemently criticised the jury's choice (two of them even resigned) amply demonstrates how sordid the picture must have been this time.

If it is shameful to have on the jury a relative of the actress who bagged the top prize, it is equally disgraceful to find an MLA who was on it ``because she has seen movies''. This was not just it. A political campaign manager and the editor of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh journal were some of the other jurors accused of sullying the very image of a body formed to honour India's best in cinema. Often, bribery and other kinds of manipulations are reportedly resorted to, to push and promote sheer B grade stuff. Even more regrettable is the actively pursued tendency to pay greater attention to big budgeted movies. Those made with smaller amounts, and which are usually sensitive and aesthetic are ignored or sent away with minor pats. Artificial divides like these are given such exaggerated importance that good cinema begins to gasp for an oxygen of recognition, and this is but awfully sad for a country whose celluloid image is nothing short of being scandalous. The National Awards have added to this notoriety.

It is not going to be easy to change all this, but the Government must stop itself from having a finger in every cultural pie. Is it so difficult to create an organisation and give it full freedom? It can, at best, be asked to carry out a broad policy guideline formulated by the Government. The Directorate of Film Festivals - in charge of the National Awards - has, if allegations are true, seldom been allowed to function independent of the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry. It may be simple to suggest, as a committee did, that the Directorate be abolished and its work handed over to the film industry. This is highly impractical given the industry's diversity. What appears more feasible is a move towards making the Directorate autonomous in every sense of the term. But, what is an absolute must is that the jury's proceedings must be minuted and published; after all, the tax-paying public has the right to know why a piece of work deserved to be recognised or bypassed. This transparency will stop the jury - or some in it - from hijacking the prizes, and causing such a horrendous blot on a cinema which has seen the likes of Aravindan, Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy and Guru Dutt.

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