How Indu Sarkar kicked up a storm

Madhur Bhandarkar urgently wants a cup of tea. He sounds rather absent, on the other end of the line, until his staff brings him some. Recent weeks have been unusually exhausting for the director, after his upcoming release, Indu Sarkar, became embattled. Given its political theme — the film is set in the Emergency period of 1975-77 in India — it has provoked the ire of the Congress party that was then in government. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), too, asked him to cut as many as 14 bits, following a censor screening. In all this, only the police were quick to jump to the filmmaker’s aid, providing two men for security as they regularly do for celebrities. 

While putting a spanner in the works of the project’s promotional activity, the objections have also boosted the film’s visibility. Bhandarkar knows this. “More people have been researching Emergency online.” Perhaps he looked up Google Trends, which shows interest in the term has jumped around 25 per cent since June 20 when the trailer was released, and has reached peak popularity now. It makes him happy. Films have been made on the British rule and Partition, he says, adding that post-Independence history has not been covered in cinema.

Kriti Kulhari as Indu Sarkar

Various groups under the Congress party umbrella raised concerns about the film’s depiction of Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and its senior leaders from that time. Earlier this month, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam wrote to the censor board asking for the film to be showed to them before the censorship process. When this was denied, workers began protesting. In Pune, they occupied the lobby of a hotel where Bhandarkar and team were staying during promotions, and in Nagpur, they gathered outside a press conference venue. Party leader Jagdish Tytler wrote to the filmmaker asking about a character in the film who resembles him.

It has been a while since Bhandarkar has had a big hit. In his own words, he is known for telling “hard-hitting stories that hold a mirror up to the society”. After an unremarkable debut Trishakti, he made Chandni Bar in 2001 starring Tabu, a drama about bar dancers that won acclaim. The series of films that followed — Page 3, Traffic Signal, Fashion — usually dealt with contemporary problems of show business and the big city. They won him National awards, too. But it has been a dry spell thereafter as Heroine, a heavy-handed film about A-list celebrities, and more recently, Calendar Girls failed to impress. Nonetheless, he was awarded a Padma Shriin 2016. 

This will be Bhandarkar’s first attempt at making a period movie, and he has chosen the 1970s “because I did not want it to be a costume drama”. He claims Indu Sarkar is more a human story than a political one — 30 per cent history and 70 per cent fiction. According to him, the title, which is the name of his made-up protagonist, is being mistaken to be a reference to the Indira Gandhi government. His lead character, Indu, a poet who stammers, was imagined by him and co-writer Anil Pandey after a few months of research. “India was also struggling to find its voice back then so this was a right match. A metaphor,” says Pandey.

Neil Nitin Mukesh as Sanjay Gandhi

The protagonist will strive against the state as well as her husband, a bureaucrat whose scruples are compromised by his ambitions. Pandey says the story developed after speaking to witnesses of the Emergency, one of whom mentioned that it “broke the moral fabric of the country”. Bhandarkar and Pandey say they spent four months frequenting the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library as well as interviewing writers, including Coomi Kapoor and Kuldeep Nayyar, whose books they consulted. It was reported Bhandarkar met veteran politician Lal Krishna Advani, too. They also used inputs from the Shah Commission report, documentaries, and a five-part series by Doordarshan, The Truth of Emergency.

Madhur Bhandarkar

Although publications were heavily censored from 1975 to 1977, the film’s co-writers used pictures from the time to help construct the look and feel of the movie. The search for props such as old typewriters, Murphy radios and LPs took them around Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Mumbai. A plan to shoot in Delhi was dropped because the city is too full of dish antennas, hoardings and cars. So Connaught Place, Chandni Chowk and Turkman Gate were recreated in production designer Nitin Desai’s studios in Kharjat on the outskirts of Mumbai, and the film was shot there in 42 days.

The fact of the censorship and the underground movement that emerged also form part of the story. “People would send messages in wedding invitations, tiffins and papers used for wrapping peanuts,” says Bhandarkar.

Anupam Kher will be seen as a leader of the movement in the film. Actor Kirti Kulhari, who was cast as Indu, had sessions with a speech therapist to grasp the nuances of stammering. “The protagonist has some powerful lines but also has to overcome a stammer while saying them. There was a chance this would come across as caricaturish so she really had to do her homework,” says Sanjay Chhel, who wrote dialogues for the film. Bengali star Tota Roy Chowdhury plays Indu’s husband.

Also hoping to succeed with this film is the out-of-action Neil Nitin Mukesh, who essays Sanjay Gandhi. Supriya Vinod takes on the role of Indira Gandhi, whom she has played in a Marathi drama and film before. She watched several videos and decided to incorporate the leader’s rapid blinking of eyes and occasional biting of lip while talking in her act. Stills from the film show them recreating actual photographs of the mother-son duo from 1975. Even while stressing the human aspect of his film, Bhandarkar seems to have some educative motivations too. “The youth should know about this chapter in our history.”

The CBFC demanded a number of deletions including of lines such as “Ab is desh me Gandhi ke maayne badal chuke hain” and “Bharat ki ek beti ne desh ko bandi banaya hua hai”, in addition to words like “RSS” and “Akali”. Dialogue writer Chhel is surprised by this. He says the team knew it was dealing with a delicate subject and had self-scrutiny. “We were clinical, and the script is logical and balanced.” The censor board, especially under Pahlaj Nihalani, has routinely ordered questionable changes or even refused certificates. 

Opposition from political and religious groups has previously led directors to apologise or alter their films. Sanjay Leela Bhansali who is making Padmavati had to assure the Rajput Karni Sena that there was no distortion of history related to queen Padmini. Last year, cuts were recommended for Udta Punjab that spoke about the state’s drug problems and was dubbed by some groups as a bid to swing the Punjab elections. Many in the film business had spoken in support of producer Anurag Kashyap then. Bhandarkar feels left out. “People in the industry have not come forward. They can put out 140 characters to show support. We should not have selective activism.”

Groups, including the Indian National Congress, National Student’s Union of India (NSUI) and Indian Youth Congress, plan to protest outside theatres. “We will do it peacefully in the tradition of Congress,” says Vipin Singh, Mumbai president of NSUI. His colleague, Karishma Thakur, says the filmmaker has not been willing to meet with them and wrongly accuses them of creating a ruckus. “It is a sensitive issue. They take permission when making biopics about (Mahendra Singh) Dhoni or Sanjay Dutt, so they should take permission from the Gandhi family.” 

Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress spokesperson, suggested at a press event that the film was “fully sponsored” by an “organisation and individual” with vested interests. The film is produced by Bharat Shah and Bhandarkar Entertainment. Bhandarkar argues that it would have higher production value if it were funded. According to the film’s publicists, it was made with a budget of Rs 8 crore. 

His next order of work is getting the changes reversed by approaching the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal in Delhi. “I am going to release the film.” Recovering the money does not give him sleepless nights. “Whether my film works or not, my budget always works. I am a producer’s director.”