Much before it could hit the silver screen Madhur Bhandarkar’s Indu Sarkar has hogged the limelight already. The Emergency, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi are back in conversation. Though Madhur Bhandarkar denies that his film is about all this, but the fact is that he has rekindled the past memories of the turbulent era of the Emergency.Days before the film rocks the cinema halls on July 28 three-time National award winner Padma Shri Madhur Bhandarkar unwinds himself in an exclusive interview to Organiser Associate editor Ajay Bhardwaj
Excerpts:
What inspired you to do this film ?
I have done more than a dozen films on different themes, but this time I wanted to make a sort of period film. Something from the recent contemporary history, perhaps. Turning the leaves of recent past, I got quite fascinated by this period between 1975 and 1977. Practically, I got my first education in the Emegency when I hit upon a documentary, Truth of Emergency, on Youtube and I was surprised that nobody had made a film on that particular period at all. What happened in those times, how was there a feeling of the emergency all about. So I decided to chronicle it all for the present generation.
Why did you name it Indu Sarkar ? Were you
trying to allude to a particular political family ?
See, the film is 70 per cent fiction and 30 per cent reality, and is set in a political background. But it is a story of human relationships. It is not a political commentary. Nor is it about any political family. I just fail to understand why so much ruckus is being created on this.
Senior Congress leaders are up in arms against me. There is so much of hulla-gulla going around over the contents of the film which, in fact, nobody has yet seen at all.
But when you get Indu in the title, the obvious inference one draws is that may be it touches on Indira Gandhi ?
Not at all. I am re-asserting that this film is not a biopic of any particular political leader. Nor is it a documentary, so to say. The film basically talks about husband-wife conflict. In the film wife, being played by Kriti Kulhari is a poet whereas her husband, played by Neil Nitin Mukesh, is a bureaucrat. Now what has that to do with Indira Gandhi. Unnecessary controversy is being created on it.
Release of the film in July has anything to do with the date of the declaration of Emergency in June ?
Simply because the storyline has a backdrop of that particular period. To an extent ,yes, I have tried to bring the Emergency times live on the screen.
The effort has been to tell the present generation about the horrendous times that people suffered from 1975 to 1977.
There was MISA, there were reckless sterlisations, there was terror all around. People were running for hideouts. So in the narration of the story all these aspects have been brought out. Irrespective of NDA or UPA Government, I would have gone ahead with this film.
It was a dream for me to make a film set in the 70s. I got some rickshaws from Chandigarh and made them look old. The experience of restructuring Chandni Chowk, Turkman area and Connaught Place was a challenge. We shot the entire film in 42 days.
It also gave an opportunity to meet people who had suffered sterlisations as also those who made headlines in that period. I had long sessions with journalists like Kuldip Nayar, Ram Bahadur Rai and Coomi Kapoor, and also politicians like Subramaniam Swamy, LK Advani and Arun Jaitley.
How do you look at the voices of protest against your film ? That too much before it’s release ?
Oh, these protests are all politically-motivated. I have been telling people around “Please see the film first, and then do whatever you want to do.”
It is so surprising that people are making such an issue out of it. We have movies on Hitler, we have movies on all kinds of past events, then why this uproar on a film which touches on the Emergency times?
And moreover, you see it happens only in the case of a film. Do you ever ask an author to show his book publicly before it is released ? There are so many many books written about this period. Perhaps more than two dozen prominent writers of the period have recorded events that took place during the Emergency. Nobody has ever protested against them. Why this uproar now over a film ?
I fail to understand.
How do you look at the Emergency ? Like what are your impressions about the times ?
Well, it was perhaps the most gloomy period of Independent India. A dark chapter for sure in which people suffered silently. The entire nation was paralysed. I feel surprised sometimes why in the film industry nobody tried to chronicle this period.
Was not Gulzar”s Andhi an attempt at that ?
A wonderful film, no doubt. But it was entirely a fiction, though a parallel was drawn in it. But I have tried to reflect the pain of the times through my characters to make the present generation realise the pain of the past times.
Some Congress leaders have tried to call you a BJP sympathiser. Is it so ? Do you have definite ideological political leanings in favour of any party ?
I am a creative person and my film, Indu Sarkar, is a piece of art. I have dealt with a theme set in a particular time frame creatively. I just do not understand what is politics in it. My political views are personal, but I am not working for any particular political party.
If I am trying to talk about a gloomy period in our history, does it mean I have become a BJP worker ? How funny. Do you see any political statement in any of my earlier films ? This is the problem. When an artist talks about something there is lot of creativity in it, though it has basis in reality no less.
Jyotiraditya Scindia of the Congress called my film a BJP-sponsored project. Then another Congress leader demanded that the film should be shown to them before it is released. Is it not ridiculous ?
