Music video featuring gay love story given green light to air on Indian television

A music video featuring a gay love story between two men has been given the green light to air on television.

Friends of Linger made a music video for their song ‘Miss You’ which features a relationship between two gay men.

According to Gay Star News, the Indian Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) wanted to cut 10 seconds of the video which featured the men lying in bed wearing only shorts.

Sharif Ranganekar, a band member from the group and one of the stars in the video, said: “Mind you, we were neither making love or even hugging each other. It was a scene of separation and hardly ‘intimate.'”

Ranganekar, annoyed by CBFC’s ruling, appealed the decision to cut 10 seconds from the video at the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) where he urged them to rise above stereotypes and phobias.

“I felt by then a sense of discrimination as there was more than enough material on the idiot box that abused the better sense of humanity and society,” he adds.

“Women were commoditised. Gay men were mocked at. And shows such as the Kapil SHarma Show encapsulated how insensitivity could turn into hits.”

Four months later, FCAT dismissed CBFC’s ruling and ‘Miss You’ is now free to air on Indian television.

In FCAT’s ruling, they said the video was sensitive, relevant and the “ten seconds that the CBFC had wanted cut was intrinsic to the narrative.”

Speaking to Gay Star News, Ranganekar describes the decision as a landmark moment for LGBT issues and has said it could be the start of a new acceptance for LGBT people in India.

“If we place this against a backdrop of hostility, hate, right-wing politics and the patiently awaited Supreme Court verdict, the FCAT’s conclusion to overturn a CBFC order is not very small.”

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