The film followed four women across generations, each trapped in her own gilded cage.
What happened next became a landmark battle for Indian cinema. Shrivastava appealed to the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT). Women’s rights groups, filmmakers, and critics erupted. The hashtag #LipstickUnderMyBurkha trended globally. The central question was no longer about a single film: Who gets to decide what a "proper" woman desires?
The title itself was a provocation. For some, the burkha was a symbol of piety or oppression. For Shrivastava, it was a metaphor—the heavy cloak of expectation, tradition, and silence that women are asked to wear. And the lipstick ? That was the secret, glittering rebellion of desire. movie lipstick under burkha
Lipstick Under My Burkha is more than a film. It is a time capsule of the war over a woman's inner life. It asks us to look under the burkha—not of religion alone, but of politeness, marriage, age, and shame. And what it finds there is not a monster, not a sinner. Just a woman, reaching for a tube of red lipstick in the dark, about to paint a smile that is entirely her own.
The board refused to certify it. Their reason? The film was "lady-oriented," with "sexual fantasies" and "audio pornography." They called it "dark," "vulgar," and "uncomfortable for women." They demanded 123 cuts—nearly half the film. One of the board members famously said, "The story is about their desire… which is not good for society." The film followed four women across generations, each
The irony was electric. A film about women's hidden lives had been censored because it revealed them. The board hadn't rejected bad filmmaking; they had rejected the very idea that women could own their erotic selves. The burkha of Indian censorship had been thrown over the film.
But the story didn't end in theaters. When the film was submitted to the Oscars in 2018, it was disqualified for having "too much English dialogue" (a rule later changed). And the censor board’s original language—"lady-oriented"—entered the lexicon as a slur, a badge of honor. It revealed what the board truly feared: not sex, but female agency. Women’s rights groups, filmmakers, and critics erupted
But when Shrivastava submitted Lipstick Under My Burkha to India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in 2016, the response was a thunderclap.
