On Wednesday, the Narendra Modi-led government issued an order which brings streaming companies and digital news providers under the gambit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The order came weeks after the I&B Ministry refused to agree to the self-regulation code floated by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). While films in India are subject to clearance by the Central Board of Film Certification, content on OTT platforms were free of censorship concerns until now.
Speaking to HuffPost India, Saurabh Singh, deputy director of the Press Information Bureau, the media unit of the I&B Ministry, said that the order came from the Cabinet Secretary and not from I&B itself. “Every other form of media is regulated but the online content isn’t. This has been in the works for a long time,” he said, without revealing specifics.
A report in the Economic Times suggests that the I&B Ministry had written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) seeking transfer of power to regulate content online.
Fearing that the I&B Ministry would impose censorship over online content—a space that has remained largely free from control—several filmmakers expressed their anxieties over government overreach.
About concerns about censorship, Singh said that since the order has come only earlier in the day, it was "too early" to speculate what the future of OTT would look like. When probed if the government plans to install a CBFC-like model to certify online films and TV series, Singh said that they’ll have clarity only in the coming few months.
“All parties shall be consulted before the Ministry decides to arrive on a decision. Right now, I cannot comment on what the rules are going to be as they’re yet to be formulated.”
Singh refused to say why the I&B Ministry felt it necessary to regulate online content in India or what triggered the decision specifically. “Generally, speaking, there has been a demand to do this for a while,” he said. Asked whether the ministry is prepared to face resistance from the filmmaking community, Singh said he has no reason to think why there should be any, at this point.
The push to regulate content on OTT services has been long coming. According to this report in Medianama, several right-wing Hindutva groups have been amplifying the trend #CensorWebSeries since early May, when Amazon Prime Video’s Paatal Lok premiered. Several right-wing organisations have also called for the ban of shows such as Leila and Sacred Games, branding them “anti-Hindu.”
At a seminar on film certification and regulation of online content held in Mumbai last year, Hitesh Jain, a BJP spokesperson, said that when content in films, TV, and newspapers is regulated, an exception should not be made for content on OTT platforms. “There is no doubt about the fact that [over the top] OTT has to be regulated,” he said, even though I&B minister Prakash Javadekar had earlier said that streaming companies should work to form a model of ‘self-regulation.’