The Indian censorship board’s final solution is, it seems, total censorship.

The national film board has banned screenings of Final Solution, a film that documents the riots that ensued in the western Indian state of Gujarat in 2002 when 59 Hindus died in an arson attack. Hindu mobs blamed Muslim mobs for the attack, the city was plagued by rioting, chaos, and vigilante justice, and over 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, were left dead.  

The arson attack polarized the community primarily because it occurred on a train carrying Hindu activists who were returning from the temple at Ayodhya, a highly contested religious site. In 1989, Hindus began a campaign to build a Hindu temple on the grounds of a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya. Three years later, Hindu extremists demolished the ancient Babri mosque. Gujarat was ripe for inter-religious violence, and the attack in 2002 set the powder keg aflame.  

Final Solution, then, should be welcomed as a documentary that both sheds light on the situation and calls critical attention to the strife and suffering that has been escalating in Gujarat. The Indian censorship board, citing the possibility that the film may incite yet more violence, has banned the film, which won both the Wolfgang Staudte award and the Special Jury Award at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, in addition to the Best Documentary and Critic’s Choice awards at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.  

Director  Rakesh Sharma appropriately stated that the “people who make hate speeches should be banned and not the film-maker who records it.

Mimi Hanaoka