CBFC Watch Exposes One Lakh Cuts Scandal

Watching a film with missing scenes feels like reading a novel with torn-out pages. That frustration has now been given numbers. A massive data leak shows the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has cut more than one lakh scenes from movies since 2017, sparking outrage among film lovers and industry voices.

The records were uncovered by CBFC Watch, a project led by Bengaluru-based developer Aman Bhargava and his team of volunteers. Since December 2024, they have been digging through archives and building an open-source website that lays bare the scale of India’s censorship. The platform now documents over 101,000 cuts made to nearly 20,000 films across eight years.

The numbers point to an uneven hand. Scenes tied to religion, politics, or drugs were trimmed most often, while swearing, sex, and violence slipped through with lighter cuts. Geography mattered too. Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram emerged as the toughest checkpoints, carving up films more than others. For directors, it raises a sharper question—if the rules change with the city, what exactly is being protected?

At present, CBFC Watch tracks 17,300 films and continues to update its database. It shows not only the number of edits but also how much screen time vanished from each project. For the first time, the public can see the scissors at work. Beyond numbers, the leak forces a larger question — if art is shaped to fit official comfort zones, how much of society’s voice is being cut away along with it?