New Delhi: At the height of Emergency she imposed in 1975 that curbed civil liberties and censored the press, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi personally intervened to rescue the right to free expression of filmmaker Shyam Benegal.
Benegal makes this revelation in a new centennial commemorative coffee table book on the departed leader, where he speaks of how Indira Gandhi literally saved his film career from “ending abruptly”.
Contributing a chapter to this book, Benegal remembers how Indira Gandhi asked him in 1975 why his film ‘Nishant’ (End of the night) depicting the Telengana movement had been denied a censor certificate after watching a special screening he had arranged for her after the censor board banned the film citing Emergency. “After the screening, the only comment the Prime Minister made was to ask why the film had been denied a censor certificate. She felt that denying a censor certificate for the film would make the government seem insensitive and petty. The Censor Board was left with no choice but to grant the film a censor certificate,” writes Benegal of the times soon after Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency in 1975. The film, he recalls, was promptly banned despite being India’s official entry to the Cannes Film Festival. It dealt with a village uprising during the Telangana Movement of 1946/1951. It was a rebellion by peasants against feudal lords. “My producer had everything to lose. So did I as it was only the second fiction film I had made and it appeared altogether likely that my career as a filmmaker would come to an abrupt end,” says the acclaimed director. In the chapter titled ‘Homage to a Great Leader’, Benegal recalls how he explored all avenues to get the Censor Board review its decision and how all attempts failed until Gandhi intervened. “All of this proved futile.
At the end of it all the decision remained unchanged …. Several helpful friends made out of box suggestions. One suggestion was to arrange a show of the film for the prime minister,” Benegal writes, reminiscing the details of how the screening was held and how his film was released.
“It was generally known that Mrs Indira Gandhi had a keen aesthetic sense and as minister for information and broadcasting, had encouraged filmmakers who were original, creative and unconventional. The best way to do this, I was told, was to contact Usha Bhagat, social secretary to the prime minister and herself a cineaste,” says Benegal in the book. (PTI)
