Southern superstar Kamal Haasan Tuesday strongly criticised the film censor board and called for an urgent change in "rusting censor board laws".

Said the actor-director, speaking at a seminar on "Media Law" organised by the British Deputy High Commission in Chennai: "The Censor Board should be rid of all the political elements, especially from opposition parties who are placed there to be placated."

Kamal Haasan, whose noteworthy film "Hey! Ram" and several others had been scissored by the Central Board of Film Certification, said the board needs complete "revamping".

Urging the government to "seriously sit down and change the laws" to suit the times, he said the "board must be cleared of all party members" and comprise more of the aesthetic.

"I cannot make a film on a dam site or on a riot," Kamal Hasaan said. "They (censor board) water it down and make me ineffectual. "What I say politically is also shut down in the pretext of protecting the viewer from sex.

"In the pretext of family entertainment we have a lot of the erotica creeping into films," he alleged.

"We have to say what we have to, even if it is a political statement, a viewpoint of a Muslim or a Hindu," he said. Compromises, he said, lead to "the impotency of an artiste".

Flooded with questions about his tussles with the board, he related stories about some of his films, especially "Hey! Ram".

Kamal Haasan revealed how a woman Congress leader had raised objections, even before the film was released, and got the censor board to scissor the film.

"I had to delete an entire scene, because cut up, the remaining portion of the scene made no sense.

"I had to get some political friends to see the film and clear it for release.

"In India, people cannot see the full version of 'Hey! Ram' they way I have made it, they see only the censored version. But all over the world, on DVD, everyone can see the full film."

Asked where he was placed vis-à-vis the censor board, he said: "I am in the middle of the boat and coloured red. I do not fight because I like to live another day (make another film)."

The board is "archaic", he said, "with laws that our forefathers formulated in the 1940s.

"In this age of rapidly changing technology, because it is named the 'film' censor board, it is refusing to view films made digitally, until they are converted to celluloid," Kamal Haasan pointed out.

Asked if members of a government-nominated body had the right to determine what the definition of an "informed audience" was, Kamal Haasan said "Not at all.

"I think the people are informed, the general viewer understands. Do not confuse information with literacy. There is smartness on the street at the village level."

People know how to distinguish between good cinema and bad, he argued.

"The will of the censor board and the will of the people are two very different things," Kamal Haasan stated.