Who decides on animal scenes?

Aamir Khan?s heroics astride a horse in Rang De Basanti may not have been limited to posters alone but allowed to hit the silver screen had the Ministry of Environment and Forest realised sooner that the Animal Welfare Board of India is not authorised to certify the depiction of animals in movies. That authority is the prerogative of the ministry.

Published on: May 3, 2006, 02:35:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Aamir Khan’s heroics astride a horse in Rang De Basanti may not have been limited to posters alone but allowed to hit the silver screen had the Ministry of Environment and Forest realised sooner that the Animal Welfare Board of India is not authorised to certify the depiction of animals in movies. That authority is the prerogative of the ministry.

The board, a week before the film’s release, had withdrawn the certificate forcing producer Ronnie Screwvala to cut out the scenes of traditional Sikh Khalsa fights on horse back, an annual affair on Baisaki in Punjab.

The environment ministry realised that the power to certify the use of animal vests with them and not the board only recently while looking for answers in a court case in Mumbai High Court.

On a petition filed by PETA, the court, in August 2005, issued directions to ensure observance of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the Performing Animals (Registration) Rules, 2001 and the Cinematograph (Certification) Rules, 1983. It directed the Animal Welfare Board to process process all applications from filmakers within two weeks and certify that no cruelty was caused to animals during shooting.

While following up on the order, the ministry, sources say, found out that in 2002 former environment minister Maneka Gandhi had withdrawn the power from the board and vested with the ministry.

The reason attributed for the decision was that the board didn't have the wherewithal for physical inspections to enforce Performing Animals (Registration) Rules, 2001. However, in the absence of any formal communication to the board, the board copntinued to certify depiction of animals in hundreds of movies.

Officials now say that the decision is being communicated to the Animal Welfare Board.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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