photography and censorship

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3679583.ece  This article brought back memories from more than 20 yrs ago.  Memories of official censorship of memory making.Photographic memory making, to be exact . Memory that is not part of National myth making. Memory that challenges the creation of that Myth.


That censorship  had led to photography being officially recognized as  an ART . A Fine Art . Art spelled with a capital F . It was a trade off  that I  now regret  being a part of. One had, rather naively, thought that,  as an Art, photography  would not be censored - that its move from under the thumb of   the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting  to the Dept of Culture would give a freedom that comes from status  and the move to the much more restricted  space of the Gallery. From the larger , more influential and effecive Media spaces to the rarer, sanitised spaces and decontextualising walls of  the  Museum . 

Censoring photographs is an universal phenomenon.  Every country does it.  In one way or another. At on time or the other. Even the leaders of the "Free World". The ones who push civilisation, freedom and democracy in the world.  Just remember Mcarthyism, Abu Ghraib and the continuing attack on Wikileaks after they showed the 'Collateral Damage' video  of an American massacre in Iraq. 


http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/3417-photo-power.html.  this is a link to a short article i wrote for Himal . A more carefully thought out  and longer essay needs to be written. Desperately.

What is it about photography that draws in the big guns of the world's babus ?