Mumbai: Scores of Banjaras on Wednesday staged a noisy protest at the office of the Central Board Of Film Certification(CBFC) on Walkeshwar Road here, demanding that several scenes offending to their community be removed from the Marathi film Ajintha, made by art director-turned-producer Nitin Desai.
The Banjara community is demanding revocation of the CBFC certificate given to the film.
Pankaja Thakur, CEO of CBFC agreed to meet some of the Banjara representatives in her office in the presence of police.
Apparently when Nitin Desai had shown the film to the Banjara community, the film's female protagonist was named as member of the Banjara community.
But when the film was submitted to the censor board the term 'Banjara' was knocked off from the soundtrack and the female protagonist was referred to as a tribal.
The Banjaras saw this omission as an insult to their community and demanded that the term 'Banjara' be restored in the movie with immediate effect.
When Ms Pankaja Thakur said it wasn't in her hands to restore what was clearly a creative decision of omission by the filmmaker the women got aggressive and raised their voices saying as a woman Ms Thakur should empathize with their plot. There was a heated argument between Ms Thakur and the Banjaras.
"Ms Thakur sternly requested the Banjaras to not bring her gender into the discussion, as she represented the censor board in a gender-free capacity. She asked the Banjaras to submit a letter and leave. When they refused to do so , the cops who were in the room had to intervene", said an eye-witness.
It is still not clear how the CBFC intends to deal with this peculiar problem of a community's objection to an omission that does not violate any guideline of censorship.
Sanjiv Kumar Rathod, a member of the advisory panel of the Censor Board, has pointed out five objectionable scenes in the film and has asked the CBFC and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to bring a Banjara expert into the panel before clearing the certification.
Rathod has also pointed out that Paro (the character played by Sonali Kulkarni), the girl who helped in the discovery of the Ajanta Caves, was exploited, abused and killed in real life, which has not been shown in Desai's film.
"They have not shown the real culture of the Banjara community. Besides, the Banjara youth are shown naked in the movie," he said.
The film is based on the true story of Major Robert Gill and a Banjara woman named Paro and is set against the backdrop of the historic Ajanta Caves.
The Banjara protestors have also objected to Paro's semi-nude dress saying Banjara women normally do not move around semi-naked as is shown in the film. They have also objected to a kissing scene just in front of a statue of Lord Buddha that they say "doesn't go well".
In short, the nomads say that the film depicts their community in 'poor light'."The film does not show the real culture of banjaras," said Sanjiv Kumar Rathod who led the demonstration.
