Haridwar: Joshimath's Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati on Saturday announced to set up of a 'Dharna Censor Board' to check “anti-religious activities shown in Bollywood films and serials”. Besides Shankaracharya himself, nine others have been included as members of the “Censor Board”.
The board will “review the controversial dialogues, characters and distorted facts about Hindu religion and culture in Hindi films and serials”, Shankaracharya said. Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati said that some producers are “conspiring to defame Hindu religion and culture in film serials and OTT to deliberately create disbelief in the minds of people”.
“This board has been formed only to monitor it. The Dharma Censor Board will be inaugurated in Delhi on January 15,” he said. As per Shankaracharya, the board will have two wings. One of them “will review the upcoming films and will work to remove all the anti-religion scenes in them, he said. On the other hand, the second wing, he said will “rectify all the anti-religion scenes in the movies and serials released earlier and will inform the people”.
Swami Avimukteshwaranand said that their protest is “not against the Censor Board, but against the anti-religious activities being shown in films”. “We will work only with the Censor Board. We will keep only people associated with religion on the Dharma Censor Board. A committee will be formed of those who have good knowledge of religion. They should understand that what and how much a character will affect our religion,” he said.
The “Dharma Censor Board” comes amid a row over Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone's upcoming film Pathaan for the costume in the 'Besharam Rang' song released recently. The colour of Shahrukh Khan's green shirt and Deepika Padukone's saffron bikini in the song was disputed by Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra. Later, demonstrations were held against the songs of the film in many cities of the country.
