A searing conversation between filmmaker Vinta Nanda and journalist Anna MM Vetticad on censorship, complicity, and conscience—exploring the urgent need to resist hate, uphold integrity, and reclaim India’s pluralism.

Photography: Vinta Nanda

In this powerful conversation, acclaimed filmmaker Vinta Nanda talks to award-winning journalist Anna MM Vetticad who dissects the growing censorship in Indian cinema, media complicity, and the erosion of free speech under rising authoritarianism. Drawing from personal experiences and investigative journalism, the two explore themes of moral courage, hate politics, artistic resistance, and the silencing of dissent in contemporary India. Stressing the role of cinema in all and socially conscious creators, this dialogue is a vital reckoning with India’s democratic values, cultural identity, and the cost of staying silent in the face of injustice.

In an age defined by conformity and silence, Anna MM Vetticad stands out as one of the most fearless and incisive voices in Indian journalism. An award-winning writer, film critic, and cultural commentator, Anna’s work is marked by a relentless commitment to truth, equity, and representation. Since beginning her career in 1994, she has challenged not just the content of Indian cinema, but the systems of power that shape it.  

Her political critiques of film are inseparable from her advocacy for marginalized communities—Dalits, Muslims, women, and queer voices—who are routinely sidelined or misrepresented in both media and popular entertainment.

Born to Malayali parents in Delhi and educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School, she went on to work with some of India’s most reputed media institutions, including India Today, The Indian Express, and Headlines Today. She was also a visiting faculty member at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi, for several years. Her landmark book, The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, published in 2012, is more than just a cinematic chronicle—it is a mirror held up to Indian society. In it, Anna documents her journey of reviewing every Hindi film released in the National Capital Region over a single year, interrogating not only filmmaking and film marketing but also minority representation, gender, and politics in cinema. With a foreword by Ranbir Kapoor, the book has become essential reading for those who care about Indian culture and its contradictions.  

In 2016, Anna was awarded the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in the Commentary and Interpretative Writing category for her acclaimed column Film Fatale in The Hindu Businessline. Her writing continues to unsettle the status quo, challenge hypocrisy, and inspire a new generation of journalists and creators.

It was in this spirit of inquiry, dissent, and conscience that I sat down with Anna one Sunday afternoon, at the lazy Silver Beach Café in Juhu Mumbai, for a conversation—one that explored the cultural, political, and ethical dilemmas facing Indian society today. What follows is a testament to that dialogue, rooted in truth and driven by a shared yearning for integrity.

The Assault on Creative Expression

In a time when the soul of India’s creative and journalistic spaces is under siege, together, we traversed the landscape of today’s India—a landscape scarred by censorship, fuelled by hate, and animated by acts of moral resistance. Our discussion reflected on the ways conscience and courage continue to survive, even as the state of free expression, the media, and our collective cultural identity face unrelenting assault.  

I began by sharing a personal wound—the journey of my documentary Shout, a film that confronts patriarchy and chronicles the history of feminism in India. Though initially cleared by the censor board, it was later met with an onslaught of demands for cuts. This reversal, without transparency or logic, was emblematic of the arbitrary and opaque censorship regime artists now endure. Anna was quick to affirm that this was not an isolated incident. The practice of gutting films for challenging the status quo is now normalized—an organized campaign to stifle dissent and control narratives.

Anna’s journalistic instinct had already taken her deep into the heart of this crisis. She spoke of her year-long investigative project for Article 14, which examined censorship across Indian film industries—not just Bollywood, as many reports tend to. This broader focus was deliberate. “There’s a myth,” she explained, “that only Hindi filmmakers are under fire. But the reality is far graver and more widespread—cinemas of all Indian languages are under pressure.” Her investigation unearthed how censorship, once random and sporadic, is now systemic and ideological.

Anna pointed out how certain industries, particularly Kerala’s fiercely independent Malayalam cinema and the cinema from neighbouring Tamil Nadu, face organized retaliation “because they’re fighting hammer and tongs against the right-wing”. The propaganda film The Kerala Story, she argued, was not just a cinematic product—it was a targeted attack on a state that refused to conform. Tamil cinema, too, now finds itself increasingly policed. The implication is chilling: creative autonomy is being eroded as part of a larger political project that seeks to centralize control and flatten India’s cultural diversity into a singular, homogenized identity.

  

Journalism as Historical Witness

Our conversation naturally drifted into the parallel crisis in journalism. Anna described the painstaking process of her investigation—11 months of interviews with over 50 sources, some of whom later withdrew their consent to  be quoted by name, out of fear. She stressed on the ethical dilemma: how to protect individuals while ensuring truth is still told. “I wanted to be sure that I don’t do an article in which I convince only one or two persons to speak on the record. I didn’t want any one person to become a sacrificial lamb,” she said, explaining why it was a challenging, time-consuming exercise. “The idea was not to grab eyeballs by saying that X or Y famous director has spoken out, but to give the people I covered strength in numbers. In fact, most of them agreed to be identified in the article precisely because they realised that I was not merely trying to get a sensational headline out of one person’s name, and that my priority was the issue at hand.”

Journalism, for Anna, isn’t about page views or breaking news; it’s about recording history. She invoked Ravish Kumar’s assertion that some battles are fought, not for victory, “but to tell the world that someone was there on the battlefield.” This ethos—of bearing witness, even when surrounded by propaganda and fear—resonates deeply with most. It reminds us of journalism’s true calling.

“As journalists who refuse to toe the government line, we are chronicling the truth of what is happening in this moment in time,” Anna explained. “This is a crucial task that will allow future students of history to know the reality of this period. If we don’t do this job, then the only reportage from this era available to them will be the reportage generated by today’s propaganda channels and publications. By studying our work, future students of history will be able to arrive at the truth. And they will know that we at least didn't suck up to the government.”

The emotional core of our dialogue surfaced when we discussed the vilification of actor Rhea Chakraborty after Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. I confessed the pain and helplessness I felt as the media hounded her—not just attacking an individual but demolishing a community's sense of safety. Anna called the media campaign “criminal,” condemning those who chose complicity over integrity. Some of them, she noted, are acquaintances who now avoid eye contact when they meet, their guilt visible but not enough to stop them. “Because it pays to sit in the lap of those in power,” she said bluntly.

At this juncture, I raised a complex moral dilemma—how do we judge those from marginalized or economically fragile backgrounds who stay silent out of necessity? Is it cowardice or survival? Anna responded with piercing clarity: the actual silence, she argued, comes from the powerful—the celebrities and media moguls who have socio-economic privilege yet choose to stay tight -lipped or align with oppressive narratives. She pointed to figures like Swara Bhasker and Umar Khalid, who’ve risked their careers and freedom, as examples of true courage. Meanwhile, some of the richest, most secure stars remain mute or complicit. The right-wing, she said, strategically equates “liberal” with “elite” to undermine dissent, even though the most fearless voices often come from the margins, like the women of Shaheen Bagh.

The Manufactured Politics of Hate

Anna then discussed the psychology of hate that now defines our public life. She spoke about how political regimes manufacture enemies to distract from their failures. “Muslims, dissenters, and Dalits are scapegoated, giving the disillusioned masses someone to blame for their suffering or their own inadequacies,” she said to me. Anna’s insight was stark: “It’s easier to give people someone to hate than to give them employment and infrastructure.”

This pattern, she explained, mirrors fascist structures across history. In India today, Muslims and Dalits are often the primary scapegoats. Feminists and other minorities are also targeted. The myth that the three Khans—Shah Rukh, Salman, and Aamir—unfairly monopolized Bollywood is one such scapegoating narrative. The Khans’ immense popularity, Anna argued, became a source of resentment for those lacking their talent or charisma, who therefore needed a convenient excuse for their inability to achieve the same success.

We discussed the global echoes of this blame culture—how insecure, underachieving men worldwide align with misogyny and incel culture to explain their stagnation, while the rich find in such ideologies a way to protect their status. “There is a tendency to blame the poor when despots are voted to power,” said Anna, “but in reality, it’s the middle class and rich who are the biggest supporters of supremacist movements.”   

Choosing Simplicity, Choosing Freedom

Our conversation turned inward again as I reflected on choosing simplicity over luxury. Despite opportunities to conform, I have chosen a modest life—to retain the freedom of thought and artistic integrity. Anna emphasized that this wasn’t about martyrdom—it was a philosophy of enoughness. “I can do without designer gowns. I can ride an auto-rickshaw,” she said, a powerful message to young creators: that ethics and creativity can coexist, even at personal cost.

Anna then spoke movingly about her upbringing. Her privilege , she said, was not wealth, but the values instilled by her parents who encouraged critical thinking, treating her as an intellectual equal. By age 8, she was reading Wuthering Heights and interrogating Gone with the Wind and the romanticisation of slavery in its text, seeking answers from her mother who responded in words a child would understand. These early lessons in inquiry and empathy shaped the fearless journalist she is today.

Tracing her career, Anna described her trajectory—from Delhi University’s Jesus and Mary College to IIMC, then to India Today, Indian Express, and Headlines Today. Her turn to freelancing in 2011 was driven not by burnout but necessity—caring for her ailing mother, and later, moral clarity. After 2014, she realized that full-time media jobs would mean self-censorship. Choosing the freelance path, even with financial instability, allowed her to write with integrity. Her book, The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, explores cinema not as entertainment alone, but as a mirror to society—highlighting gender, sectarianism, and the commodification of art.

Independent Media: A Beacon of Truth

Returning to the media’s complicity, I voiced my anguish over how many wealthy, powerful journalists actively contribute to vilification of those who speak for the marginalised. In contrast, Anna held up independent platforms—such as Article 14, The News Minute, NewsLaundry—as medias of integrity. These are outlets led by people who could have sold out but didn’t, she said. Supporting them is essential, not just with money, but by amplifying their work.

Comparing the present moment to Nazi-era Europe, she warned that history would not be kind to those who looked away. “Everyone in India right now knows what’s going on,” Anna declared. “The persecution of Muslims, the erosion of free speech, the rewriting of history—it’s all in plain sight. I am aware that my minority religious identity makes me vulnerable to attack for my journalism far more than those from the majority community, but I won’t make that an excuse to fall silent. How can I do that when so many of my Muslim colleagues are being so courageous? I don’t want to be one of those people who looks back at this era and pretends that I didn’t know what was happening, in the way many Europeans did after World War II. Silence, now, is complicity.”

And yet, she ended on a note of hope. There are resisters. Each voice of dissent, no matter how quiet, strengthens others. Whether it’s challenging prejudice in a WhatsApp group, posting an article on social media, or simply refusing to laugh at a bigoted joke—these small acts matter.

Truth, Resistance, and the Road Ahead

Our conversation wasn’t just an exchange of ideas—it was a shared reckoning. It exposed the rot in India’s creative and journalistic institutions, but also lit a path forward. In a time of fear, truth is revolutionary. In a world of propaganda, integrity is rebellion. And in a culture of silence, the simple act of speaking up becomes our loudest weapon.