Janaki vs censorship: Are all names synonymous to Sita too holy for hardship?

India Today

5 days ago

Daughter of Janak, Janaki, aka Sita – the wife of Lord Ram – who thus must remain untainted, even from that of any fictional assault. At least by the reasoning of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in Mumbai, which reportedly said that a 'God's name should not be given to a woman who was assaulted.'This is about the release of the Malayalam movie 'Janaki Vs State of Kerala' starring Union Minister of State Suresh Gopi. The release has been paused following the censor board's demand that the name Janaki be changed, because it refers to the goddess Sita.advertisementNow, it seems as if the CBFC has decided that no woman bearing any name synonymous with Sita can be portrayed as an assault survivor on screen.
Because clearly, the best way to honour our goddesses is to pretend that mortal women who share their names exist in some sanitised bubble where nothing unpleasant ever happens to them.Alright. But let's follow this logic to a natural conclusion.Sita has 108 different names. Goddess Lalitha – a supreme manifestation of Shakti within the broader Hindu pantheon – has over 1,000 names. Does that make at least 1,108 names out of bounds for any sort of fictional hardship?But what if you walk through a typical Indian Hindu-majority neighbourhood? Would you not come across anyone who has at least one of these 1,108 names? Do we even know how many women are named Lalitha, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati, Durga, Kaveri, Ganga, Radha, Rukmini, or any of the countless variations?advertisementBy the CBFC's brilliant logic, we've probably eliminated roughly half the Hindu female population of India from being portrayed in any film that deals with real-world problems.Want to make a film about domestic violence? Better hope your protagonist isn't named Shanti (another name for Lakshmi and also means peace in English). But wait, wasn't there a teleserial long ago on Doordarshan, which – no prize for guessing – was named Shanti, after the protagonist?Planning a story about workplace harassment? Cross your fingers she's not called Kamala or Nandita (another name for Lakshmi). Educational film about legal rights? Well, forget about naming her Janaki or Vaidehi or Maithili – because apparently goddesses and the women named after them must only exist in a realm of perpetual victimhood-free bliss.But here's the irony the CBFC seems to have missed: goddess Sita was an assault survivor herself. Ravana abducted her, held her captive, and when she returned, she had to literally walk through fire to prove her 'purity' in an agni pariksha.If we're going to be purists about this, shouldn't the CBFC be demanding that Ramayana, or at least films based on this epic, also be banned for depicting a goddess in distress?advertisementAre we now living in a world where 'Janaki' is some sort of trigger that will somehow diminish our devotion to goddess Sita?Then there is also the question: Where does this end? Will we need a database of every divine name before writing any female character? Should filmmakers start carrying a comprehensive list of the 33 crore Hindu deities and their various names just to avoid accidentally naming a character after one of them?And what about artistic freedom? Artists have always drawn from mythology, religion, and real life to tell stories that matter. When we start cordoning off entire categories of names because they're 'too sacred' for reality – are we protecting our culture or suffocating it?The most absurd part? The Thiruvananthapuram CBFC office cleared the film with a U/A certificate. It was only when it reached Mumbai that suddenly someone discovered their religious sensitivity and decided that 'Janaki' was too holy for a courtroom drama.Director MB Padmakumar also allegedly went through something similar; a character originally named Janaki Abraham in his film 'Token Number' had to be renamed to Jayanti Abraham to get a feature film certification. These demands were communicated through 'unofficial' WhatsApp calls. Did at least someone in the CBFC recognise the ridiculousness of it all if put in writing?advertisementSo if not Janaki, then who? Perhaps Pooja, or Neha, or Aishwarya or Rekha would do for the name of a survivor of a violent crime. But then, is there a guarantee that someone else would not rise up to protest using some other facetious reason?Or, perhaps, it's time that the censor board realises that the best way to honour our goddesses isn't to pretend that the women named after them live in some fantasy world where bad things never happen.It's to tell their real stories – including the difficult ones – with dignity and respect. After all, if Sita could survive Ravana and still be revered as a goddess, surely a character named Janaki can survive an assault, a courtroom drama and still keep our faith intact.- EndMust Watch