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Will Indu Sarkar stick to facts in its attempt to retell the story of Emergency?

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Gautam Chintamani
Gautam ChintamaniJun 24, 2017 | 13:24

Will Indu Sarkar stick to facts in its attempt to retell the story of Emergency?

Going by the reactions from some quarters to the trailer of the upcoming film Indu Sarkar that explores the state of Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975 you could be mistaken to believe that the draconian act was in fact, not all that bad.

Vanity, believed Joseph Conrad, played lurid tricks with our memory and calling a film that simply endeavours to put on reel the real tragedy "opportunistic" amongst other things shows how the passage of time can trick the mind.

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Trailer

Directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, Indu Sarkar is believed to have been inspired by events that unfolded during the 21-month long period when basic rights of the citizens were curbed, almost all of the political opposition jailed and press heavily censored. Bhandarkar is said to have conducted interviews with many of the political heavyweights who faced the brunt of the Emergency such as LK Advani, besides interacting with political writers like Tavleen Singh, Kuldip Nayyar, and Coomi Kapoor.

Interestingly enough, most of what the film would depict is probably in the public domain, but the film is already being targeted for an attempt to rewrite history and this, intriguingly enough, is based on just the trailer. The question that one needs to ask is not if Indu Sarkar is, for the sake of argument, an effort to reinterpret a dark chapter in the history of our democracy but rather did the events that it claims to show happen or not.

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The irony of critics and commentators hailing the personal treatises such as Coomi Kapoor’s Emergency: A Personal History or Tavleen Singh’s Durbar that also discusses the events of the Emergency and its principal architects in lucid detail, as great literature, but at the same time brushing off a film that supposedly includes the same events as ‘propaganda’ even before its release is not hard to miss.

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Bhandarkar’s film is about the Emergency and while there have been films in the past on the event such as Amrit Nahata’s Kissa Kursi Ka (1977), a spoof on the Emergency whose prints as well as the negative was said to have been destroyed by Sanjay Gandhi or Satyajit Ray’s Hirak Rajar Deshe (1980), etc.

None have been as direct as Indu Sarkar. Even Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi(2003), one of the best onscreen interpretations of the Emergency, was primarily about three lives intertwined with the turbulent political scenario of the mid-1970s.

It is here that Indu Sarkar gains importance for it could usher in a new phase of the political cinema genre for not only Hindi films but also Indian cinema in general and a large part of this is solely because of the fact that it is being directed by a filmmaker such as Madhur Bhandarkar.

Generalisation

While for some, Bhandarkar might not be the greatest or even amongst the top five or ten Indian filmmakers, he is an astute storyteller and a great chronicler of the times.

He could be accused of not scratching deep beneath the surface or branded as someone who needs, just a newspaper headline to craft a story, but when it comes to a compelling narrative very few can tell a tale like Bhandarkar. But more than anything, his craft truly lies in breaking down complex sociopolitical issues in a way where the average Hindi film viewer would be able to connect with.

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When it comes to picking up issues Bhandarkar has rarely missed a beat – how many knew of Mumbai’s dance bars before Bhandarkar’s Chandni Bar or the Page 3 culture before his Page 3. Perhaps, some of the extreme reaction that the trailer of Indu Sarkar has generated is actually targeted towards Bhandarkar, the filmmaker.

There is a great sense of generalisation that pervades Bhandarkar’s narrative and at times it runs the risk of simplifying things to such an extent that everything becomes black or white.

Insightful

While such an overview might not be intellectual enough, especially when it comes to his films that depict a certain culture within the themes that they explore — media in Page 3, business and trade in Corporate (2006), certain industries like glamour in Fashion (2008) — as one could argue that there is always the "other" side but in the case of a film on the Emergency it can be difficult to provide a counter-argument to the notion that Gandhi’s action was unjust, unwarranted and even inhuman.

How can a 2017 film that is said to show a Sanjay Gandhi-like character talking about forced sterilisation be accused of rewriting history when in reality there are records from as way back as 1978 that say Sanjay Gandhi did initiate a widespread compulsory sterilisation programme?

One can question the intent of a filmmaker, say Bhandarkar, behind telling a story based or inspired by real events such as the Emergency and even the fortuitous timing of it all but at the same time one must also ponder over the abject lack of insightful films on the issue in the four-decades since it happened.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

 

Last updated: June 25, 2017 | 22:31
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