Pahlaj Nihalani Dies at 76: He Was Told to Kill Udta Punjab. And He Revealed It Himself.
North Desk Bureau
Chandigarh, June 4
Pahlaj Nihalani: The man who became Bollywood’s most controversial censor chief died on Thursday. He left behind a confession that reframes everything.
Pahlaj Nihalani, the veteran film producer who served as chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) from 2015 to 2017 — and became the most talked-about, most criticised censor chief in recent Indian film history — died on Thursday morning at Mumbai’s Nanavati Hospital. He was 76. His family confirmed he had been battling liver-related complications for some time.
He leaves behind a Bollywood legacy that spans four decades. But the revelation that will outlast the obituaries came not today, but a few years ago— days after he was removed from office — when he sat down with senior journalist Bharati S. Pradhan for Lehren TV and said, on camera, what no one in government had ever admitted.
The Ministry had told him not to pass Udta Punjab.
The Punjab Film They Wanted Buried
In 2016, Udta Punjab — Anurag Kashyap’s unflinching film about the drug crisis ravaging the state — ran into a wall at the CBFC. Nihalani’s board demanded 89 cuts, including the removal of all references to Punjab in the title, dialogue and visuals. The film industry erupted. Kashyap went to court. The Bombay High Court overruled the CBFC, and the film released with just one cut — a landmark judgment hailed as a victory for artistic freedom.
At the time, Nihalani denied any government pressure. He deflected, attacked Kashyap, and insisted he was simply following certification guidelines.
But in the Lehren interview recorded shortly after his removal from office, he told a different story. He said the Ministry had explicitly told him not to pass the film. He described clearing it anyway — with cuts — as a decision he made on the basis of content guidelines. He framed it as an act of professional judgment against political instruction.
For Punjab, this matters beyond Bollywood. Udta Punjab was released months before the 2017 Punjab assembly elections. The Akali Dal-BJP government, already on the defensive over the state’s drug epidemic, had every political reason to want that film suppressed.
Pahlaj Nihalani’s admission, even if made nine years ago, is the closest thing to an official confirmation that the censorship of a film about Punjab’s drug crisis was politically motivated.
The Bajrangi Bhaijaan Pressure
Udta Punjab was not an isolated case. In the same interview, Nihalani revealed that the Home Ministry had written to him asking that Kabir Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan not be cleared for an Eid release. The concern, as he described it, was the film’s title and its timing — a Pakistan-themed film releasing on Eid was apparently considered a sensitive proposition.
Pahlaj Nihalani said he stood his ground on that one too. He had heard the narration, understood the story, and knew the fears were based on a misreading of the film’s content. He cleared it.
The irony that ran through both cases: the man routinely portrayed as a government instrument claiming, in his own words, that he pushed back against government orders on at least two significant occasions.
Pahlaj Nihalani: The Producer Who Made Govinda a Star
Before the censor board controversies, Nihalani was something else entirely — one of the most commercially successful producers of mainstream Hindi cinema through the 1980s and 90s.
He produced his first film, Hathkadi, in 1982. His third film, Ilzaam in 1986, gave Govinda his breakthrough as a lead actor. The following year, Aag Hi Aag introduced Chunky Pandey to Hindi cinema.
Over the next decade, Nihalani backed a string of crowd-pleasers like Paap Ki Duniya, Shola Aur Shabnam, and Aankhen that defined the masala entertainment era. Aankhen (1993), directed by David Dhawan and starring Govinda and Chunky Pandey, became one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of the decade.
He was not an auteur. He was a producer who understood what audiences wanted, backed the right directors and actors at the right time, and built careers in the process.
The Censor Chief Nobody Was Neutral About
When the Modi government appointed Nihalani as CBFC chief in January 2015, it was an appointment that drew immediate attention — he had produced a music video tribute to the Prime Minister months earlier. His tenure lasted two and a half years and generated controversy at almost every turn.
He shortened kissing scenes in the James Bond film Spectre. He refused certification to Lipstick Under My Burkha for being too “lady-oriented.” He objected to the word “intercourse” in a film trailer. He demanded cuts in films that dealt with same-sex relationships and religious sensitivities. Critics pointed out the irony that he had himself produced a 1994 film, Andaz, that contained songs with explicit double meanings.
He was called a government stooge by his critics. He called himself a guardian of Indian cultural values. Both descriptions followed him to the end.
Bollywood’s Comedy King, Govinda — whose career Nihalani launched four decades ago — was among those who attended his last rites in Mumbai on Thursday.
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