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Kangana Ranaut’s Indira Gandhi Film ‘Emergency’ Sets Release Date – Global Bulletin

By Naman Ramachandran

Naman Ramachandran

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“Emergency,” written, directed and produced by Bollywood star Kangana Ranaut , has set a release date. The film focuses on one of the most controversial periods of post-Independence Indian history from 1975 to 1977 when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a nationwide state of emergency. During that time civil liberties and press freedom were curtailed and elections were canceled.

The film is produced by by Zee Studios and Ranaut’s Manikarnika Films. Ranaut stars as Indira Gandhi and the cast also includes Anupam Kher , Mahima Chaudhary, Milind Soman, Shreyas Talpade, Vishak Nair and the late Satish Kaushik.

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Ranaut told Variety : “’Emergency’ is the most controversial, sensational, and scathing event in the history of Indian democracy. It is also a deeply engaging and dramatic story of the rise and fall of one of the most popular world leaders and India’s first woman Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi.”

“Emergency” will release theatrically worldwide on June 14.

Elsewhere, In.2 Films will release historical drama “Jeanne du Barry,” which opened the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, in U.K. and Ireland cinemas on April 19. The film, which has had a successful release across France and Italy, stars Johnny Depp , with Maïwenn , who also directs and co-writes. It follows Jeanne Vaubernier (Maïwenn), a woman born into poverty who uses her intellect and charms to climb the social ladder, rising to the opulent court of King Louis XV of France (Depp). 

India’s Baweja Studios , whose credits include “Dilwale,” “Diljale,” “Chaar Sahibzaade” 1 and 2, “Qayamat,” “Bhaukaal” 1 and 2 and “Super V,” is opening an Initial Public Offering of up to 54,00,000 equity shares on Jan. 29. The price band of the offer has been fixed from INR170 – 180 ($2-$2.15) per share. Revenues grew from $2.3 million in 2021 to $8.8 million in 2023, the company said.

Harman Baweja , MD of Baweja Studios Limited, said, “The IPO is a testament to our commitment to pushing creative boundaries and setting new production standards. The capital raised will empower us to explore new horizons, nurture talent, and continue delivering exceptional content to a global audience.”

SERIOUS MONEY

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts has named TV project “Seriously Funny” as the winner of its annual AACTA Reg Grundy Award , which comes with a A$50,000 ($36,000) prize.

Featuring stand-up comedy and TV veteran  Rachel Berger , “Seriously Funny” is a factual entertainment series following a diverse group of people, as they develop their unique personal stories into 5-minute stand-up comedy routines. The show, to be directed by  Josh Ben-Moshe , was recognized for using stand-up comedy as a lens through which to explore people from all walks of life, as they reveal their true selves through the hilarious and therapeutic interventions of Berger’s stand-up workshops.  

The prize was determined by a panel of established television production experts, including Debbie Cuell, Steve Oemcke, Sharon Wheeler, Marion Farrelly, and Ian Hogg.

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Emergency teaser: Kangana Ranaut transforms into Indira Gandhi, the former PM who was called sir

Emergency teaser: kangana ranaut plays former prime minister indira gandhi in the film. the first-look poster and a teaser for her upcoming directorial debuted on thursday..

Kangana Ranaut on Thursday shared the first teaser of her next directorial, Emergency, where she plays the role of the former prime minister Indira Gandhi. In the short promo video, we see Kangana donning the look of the late PM, complete with spectacles and her starched cotton saree.

As of now, it is too early to say if the actor will inhabit the skin of the politician and how she will present the era often called the darkest hour of Indian democracy. However, Kangana has been at pains to say that the film is not Gandhi’s biography. In the video, we see Kangana getting a call from the former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, asking if American President Richard Nixon can address her as ‘Ma’am’ instead of the usual sir. Kangana, as Indira, takes a beat and says yes, but then turns to her secretary and asks him to inform the US President that everyone in her office refers to her as ‘Sir.’

The actor had shared the first clip with a caption that read, “Presenting ‘Her’ who was called ‘Sir’ #Emergency shoot begins.”

Watch Emergency teaser

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Kangana Ranaut (@kanganaranaut)

Kangana’s transformation has been done by Oscar-winner David Malinowski who has worked on films such as Darkest Hour (2017), World War Z (2013) and The Batman (2022).

Speaking about the movie, Kangana Ranaut said in a statement, “Emergency reflects one of the most important periods in Indian political history which changed the way we view power and that’s why I decided to tell this story. Moreover, playing a public figure on screen is always a challenge because one has to get the look, the characteristics and the persona right. I spent a significant amount of time researching the subject and once I felt I had enough ammunition, I commenced the film’s shoot.”

Earlier, Kangana had shared a newspaper clipping from 1975, and wrote, “These were the most dramatic events in the recent history of the world. What lead to the Emergency which was declared today and what were its consequence. In the centre of it was the most powerful woman in the world.This deserves a grand-scale epic film of its own. So see you in the theatres next year with #Emergency”.

She described directing the film a ‘tremendous journey’. “Pleased to wear director’s hat again. After working on Emergency for more than a year, I finally figured no one can direct it better than me. Collaborating with fabulous writer Ritesh Shah. Even if it means sacrificing on various acting assignments, I am determined to do it. My excitement is high. This is going to be a tremendous journey,” Kangana had written on Instagram.

Click for more updates and latest Bollywood news along with Entertainment updates . Also get latest news and top headlines from India and around the world at The Indian Express .

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Congress names Vikramaditya Singh, son of former CM Virbhadra Singh, as candidate for Mandi LS seat. He will compete against BJP's Kangana Ranaut, with support from ex-CM Jai Ram Thak. Decision made in Delhi's Congress Central Election Committee. Vikramaditya, from a royal family, has emotional ties with Mandi's people.

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Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi was India's third prime minister, serving from 1966 until 1984, when her life ended in assassination. She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister.

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(1917-1984)

Quick Facts

Political rise, war and domestic successes, authoritarian leanings and imprisonment, assassination, who was indira gandhi.

The lone child of Jawaharlal Nehru , India’s first prime minister, Indira Gandhi ascended to the position after his death in the mid-1960s. Gandhi survived party in-fighting, emerging as a popular leader thanks in part to efforts to revitalize the farming industry. Ousted from power in 1977, Gandhi was reelected prime minister in 1980, and served in the role until her assassination in 1984.

FULL NAME: Indira Feroze Gandhi BORN: November 19, 1917 BIRTHPLACE: Prayagraj, India DEATH: October 31, 1984 ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio

The only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, Indira Gandhi was born on November 19, 1917. A stubborn and highly intelligent young woman, she attended schools in India, Switzerland and England, including Somerville College, Oxford.

With her father among the leaders of the Indian independence movement, Gandhi weathered his absences when he was imprisoned. Additionally, she endured the loss of her mother to tuberculosis in 1936. She found comfort with a family friend, Feroze Gandhi, but their relationship was a controversial one due to his Parsi heritage. Eventually the couple earned Nehru's approval, and they married in 1942.

After Nehru was named India's first prime minister in 1947, Gandhi became something of her father's hostess, learning to navigate complex relationships of diplomacy with some of the great leaders of the world.

Gandhi joined the Congress Party's working committee in 1955, and four years later she was elected the party's president. Following the death of her father in 1964, she was appointed to Rajya Sabha, the upper level of Indian parliament, and was named minister of information and broadcasting. When her father’s successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died abruptly in 1966, she ascended to the post of prime minister.

Seemingly on shaky ground following the Congress Party's narrow win in the 1967 election, Gandhi surprised her father’s old colleagues with her resilience. In 1969, after she acted unilaterally to nationalize the country's banks, Congress Party elders sought to oust her from her role. Instead, Gandhi rallied a new faction of the party with her populist stance, and cemented her hold on power with a decisive parliamentary victory in 1971.

That year, India was drawn into a bloody conflict between East and West Pakistan, with some 10 million Pakistanis seeking refuge in India. Following the surrender of Pakistani forces in December, Gandhi invited Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to the city of Simla for a summit. The two leaders signed the Simla Agreement, agreeing to resolve territorial disputes in a peaceful fashion and paving the way for recognition of the independent nation of Bangladesh.

During this time, India was achieving tangible success through advancements of the Green Revolution. Addressing the chronic food shortages had that mainly affected the poor Sikh farmers of the Punjab region, Gandhi spurred growth through the introduction of high-yield seeds and irrigation, eventually producing a surplus of grains. Additionally, the prime minister led her country into the nuclear age with the detonation of an underground device in 1974.

Despite these advancements, Gandhi was criticized for authoritarian tendencies and government corruption under her rule. In 1975, the Allahabad High Court found her guilty of dishonest election practices, excessive election expenditure and of using government resources for party purposes. Instead of resigning, Gandhi declared a state of emergency and imprisoned thousands of her opponents.

Unable to permanently stave off challenges to her power, Gandhi stepped down with her defeat in the 1977 election. She was briefly jailed in 1978 on charges of corruption, but the following year she won election to the Lok Sabha, the lower level of parliament. In 1980, she returned to power as prime minister.

That same year, Gandhi's son Sanjay (b. 1946), who had been serving as her chief political adviser, died in a plane crash in New Delhi. The prime minister then began preparing her other son, Rajiv (b. 1944), for leadership.

During the early 1980s, Gandhi faced increasing pressure from secessionist factions, particularly from Sikhs in Punjab. In 1984, she ordered the Indian army to confront Sikh separatists at their sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, resulting in several hundred reported casualties, with others estimating the human toll to be significantly higher.

On October 31, 1984, Gandhi was shot and killed by two of her bodyguards, both Sikhs, in retribution for the attack at the Golden Temple. She was immediately succeeded by son Rajiv, who was left to quell deadly anti-Sikh riots, and her body was cremated three days later in a Hindu ritual.

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Indira Gandhi

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 10, 2019 | Original: November 9, 2009

The only daughter of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi was destined for politics. First appointed prime minister in 1966, she garnered widespread public support for agricultural improvements that led to India’s self-sufficiency in food grain production as well as for her success in the Pakistan war, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. After serving three terms, Gandhi was voted out of office for her increasingly authoritarian policies, including a 21-month state of emergency in which Indians’ constitutional rights were restricted. In 1980, however, she was reelected to a fourth term. Following a deadly confrontation at the Sikh’s holiest temple in Punjab four years later, Gandhi was assassinated by two of her bodyguards on October 31, 1984, ushering her son Rajiv into power and igniting extensive anti-Sikh riots.

Indira Gandhi: Early Life and Family

Born on November 19, 1917, in Allahabad, India, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was the sole child of Kamala and Jawaharlal Nehru . As a member of the Indian National Congress, Nehru had been influenced by party leader Mahatma Gandhi, and dedicated himself to India’s fight for independence. The struggle resulted in years of imprisonment for Jawaharlal and a lonely childhood for Indira, who attended a Swiss boarding school for a few years, and later studied history at Somerville College, Oxford. Her mother passed away in 1936 of tuberculosis.

Did you know? One of Indira Gandhi’s most unpopular policies during her time in office was government-enforced sterilization as a form of population control.

In March 1942, despite the disapproval of her family, Indira married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi lawyer (unrelated to Mahatma Gandhi), and the couple soon had two sons: Rajiv and Sanjay.

Indira Gandhi: Political Career and Accomplishments

In 1947, Nehru became the newly independent nation’s first prime minister, and Gandhi agreed to go to New Delhi to serve as his hostess, welcoming diplomats and world leaders at home and traveling with her father throughout India and abroad. She was elected to the prominent 21-member working committee of the Congress Party in 1955 and, four years later, was named its president. Upon Nehru’s death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the new prime minister, and Indira took on the role of Minister of Information and Broadcasting. But Shastri’s leadership was short-lived; just two years later he abruptly died and Indira was appointed by Congress Party leaders to be prime minister.

Within a few years Gandhi gained enormous popularity for introducing successful programs that transformed India into a country self-sufficient in food grains—an achievement known as the Green Revolution.

In 1971, she threw her support behind the Bengali movement to separate East from West Pakistan, providing refuge for the ten million Pakistani civilians who fled to India in order to escape the marauding Pakistan army and eventually offering troops and arms. India’s decisive victory over Pakistan in December led to the creation of Bangladesh, for which Gandhi was posthumously awarded Bangladesh’s highest state honor 40 years later.

Indira Gandhi: Autocratic Leadership

Following the 1972 national elections, Gandhi was accused of misconduct by her political opponent and, in 1975, was convicted of electoral corruption by the High Court of Allahabad and prohibited from running in another election for six years. Instead of resigning as expected, she responded by declaring a state of emergency on June 25, whereby citizens’ civil liberties were suspended, the press was acutely censored and the majority of her opposition was detained without trial. Throughout what became referred to as the “Reign of Terror,” thousands of dissidents were imprisoned without due process.

Anticipating that her former popularity would assure her reelection, Gandhi finally eased the emergency restrictions and called for the next general election in March 1977. Riled by their limited liberties, however, the people overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Janata Party and Morarji Desai assumed the role of prime minister.

Within the next few years, democracy was restored, but the Janata Party had little success in resolving the nation’s severe poverty crisis. In 1980, Gandhi campaigned under a new party—Congress (I)—and was elected into her fourth term as prime minister.

Indira Gandhi: Assassination

In 1984, the holy Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, was taken over by Sikh extremists seeking an autonomous state. In response, Gandhi sent Indian troops to regain the temple by force. In the barrage of gunfire that ensued, hundreds of Sikhs were killed, igniting an uprising within the Sikh community.

On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated outside her home by two of her trusted bodyguards, seeking retribution for the events at the temple.

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In this Emergency film, Kangana Ranaut , played the primary leads.

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Five biographies through which to revisit the strange life and times of Indira Gandhi

November 19 marked her 99th birth anniversary..

Had she lived, Indira Gandhi would have turned 99 on November 19, 2016. That was the age to which her long-standing rival and former colleague, Morarji Desai, lived.

Indira was born in 1917, exactly a year after her father Jawahar Lal Nehru met Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for the very first time, and several months after the Russian Revolution swept aside the old Tsarist order and led to the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. Nehru makes the latter connection in a letter to Indira on her thirteenth birthday, holding it out to her as a happy portend throughout her childhood. It is perhaps only fitting that the Soviet Union was to be Indira Gandhi’s most loyal ally, despite her avowed non-alignment.

Everything about her gives rise to fierce passions. There are those who declare unequivocally that she was the finest Prime Minister of India – and that one needs only look at Bangladesh for proof. There are others who hotly dispute this, stating the exact opposite, holding her responsible for rupturing the fabric of Indian democracy in the Emergency years. There are those who laud her secular politics, and those who revile her mismanagement of the Punjab situation, especially her decision to send tanks into the Golden Temple.

Five minutes and a quick hashtag search on twitter today will reveal to you the persistence of this polarisation. This strobe-lit drama of extreme positions is apt for social media, perhaps. But for those who do not wish to measure life in Prufrockian coffee spoons, what is of interest is precisely that which is invariably elided over in bang-smash assessments: the minor details of the long years. The chiaroscuro of light and shadow that, twinned in biographical material and news stories, tell the story of India too. Perhaps this is the reason why so many and such various writers have chosen to write about her life – for it was a heady mix of enigma and drama.

Out of the many biographies of Indira Gandhi, we have picked out five that matter:

Indira Gandhi: A Biography , Pupul Jaykar, 1988

Cultural activist and life-long crusader for Indian handicrafts, Pupul Jaykar was a close friend of Indira Gandhi’s – they met in their teens – and her intimate biography is filled with wonderful anecdotes and moving accounts of Indira Gandhi’s encounters with common people in the course of her travels across the country. It draws from her many recorded interviews with people who’d lived through these interesting times: RN Kao, the grand old spymaster of India; LK Jha, Cabinet Secretary and Ambassador to the United States during the historic war of liberation in Bangladesh; Ganga Saran Sinha, close associate of Jayprakash Narayan; Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Chief Minister of West Bengal; and countless others. She also records rare stories of Indira’s interactions with Jiddu Krishnamurti during the Emergency years.

“I was to visit Varanasi in August [1976] and went to see Indira to ask if there was anything I could do. I found her agitated, reports had reached her of attempts to beautify Varanasi. ‘The city needs cleaning up,’ she said, ‘but to beautify Varanasi has ominous overtones.’ She asked me to speak to the Commissioner and attempt to discover what was happening to the city. ... As we walked along the lane, the Commissioner said casually that the Governor desired to drive by car to Vishwanathji. I expressed surprise. ‘You cannot take a car through this lane,’ I said. ‘We are broadening the lane,’ he said. ‘How?’ He said, ‘We will break down the walls of some of these houses and pave the road so that a car can go through.’ ‘How can you break down seventeenth-eighteen century buildings?’ I enquired in horror. ‘These stones are many centuries old.’ ~~~ We drove to Kamacha, the road which was being ‘beautified’. Kamacha looked as if a bomb had fallen on it. A bulldozer stood to one side, with two eyes painted on the front. It had finished its task of beautification. It had bulldozed, cut through the front of houses leaving sitting-rooms with half the floor space cut away; rooms were open to the road, verandas smashed. Any impediment that came in the way of broadening the road had been removed. The map used to determine what was an encroachment was dated 1920. In the eyes of the authorities, in a city of exploding population, no fresh housing was needed or had been authorised after 1920 and every house built after that was an encroachment.” ~~~ By now the furious owners of the buildings surrounded me and insisted on giving me photographs of the site, to show the Prime Minister. I was shaken and on my return to Delhi went immediately to see Indira Gandhi. I told her what I had seen, what the Commissioner had told me and handed over the photographs. She hit the ceiling. I had never seen her so angry; she picked up the telephone and asked her Special Assistant, RK Dhawan, to put her through Narayan Dutt Tiwari, then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. She exploded when she spoke to him. Did he know what was happening in Varanasi? She said she had seen the photographs and would he come immediately to Delhi to see her. She put down the phone, put her hands to her face and said, ‘What is happening in this country? No one seems to tell me.’ There was utter despair and sorrow in her voice. ‘Do you think they would have really broken down Vishwanath Gali? She was aware of the gravity and consequences of such an act.    — From Chapter Four, Part VI (1975 to 1977)

Indira Gandhi: Return of The Red Rose (1966); That Woman: Her Seven Years in Power (1973); Indira Gandhi: The Last Post (1985), Khwaja Ahmad Abbas

The immensely popular novelist, film-writer and columnist Khwaja Ahmad Abbas wrote the very first biography of Indira Gandhi, Return of the Red Rose , which was dashed off in three months after she became the Prime Minister of India in 1966. The title refers to the slogans that greeted Mrs Gandhi when she disembarked from her car in front of Gate No. 1 of Parliament House, on her way to the Central Hall where votes were being cast to pick her or Morarji Desai as the next Prime Minister of India, after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri. Indira Gandhi had pinned a Nehruvian red rose to her brown Kashmiri shawl, seeing which the crowds began to chorus loudly, ‘Lal Gulaab Zindabad!’

The second volume draws its name from Yahya Khan’s dismissal of Indira Gandhi (“That Woman!”) before her dismissal of him, as it were, while The Last Post begins with her assassination, records the spiralling riots against the Sikhs in Delhi, and then goes back in time to trace the last few years of her leadership, ending with an interview with Rajiv Gandhi, the young Prime Minister in the present.

Abbas’s narrative is jaunty and anecdotal, both rooted and lofty, in a uniquely Indian way, allowing our innate oral tradition to inform the telling of every story, whether serious, comic or heroic. It is very different from the other biographies; and therein lies its charm.

“It was spring-time in Kashmir, and the flowers were all out to greet the couple [Feroze and Indira] on their honeymoon. They were as happy as any newly-wedded couple has ever been, but even in that time of bliss they could not forget the lonely man in Anand Bhawan who was sweltering in the heat of the plains to prepare the country for the final struggle. From Gulmarg they sent a jointly signed telegram: WISH WE COULD SEND YOU SOME COOL BREEZE FROM HERE.          He must have been touched by their affectionate concern but Jawaharlal summoned his celebrated and subtle sense of humour to promptly send the telegraphic reply. THANKS. BUT YOU HAVE NO MANGOES.” — From "Honeymoon Behind Bars", "Return of The Red Rose"

Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi , Katherine Frank (2001)

A serious, rigorously researched book written by a professional biographer, Katherine Frank’s Indira is exquisitely detailed, and recreates Indira Gandhi’s life with a meticulous eye. While the other four biographers listed here had all known Mrs Gandhi, the person, with some degree of familiarity, Frank neither knew her nor lived in India when she was the prime minister.

Instead, liberated by this, perhaps, she recreates the life and times of Indira Gandhi through deep and sustained research – over six years, in India and England – and the degree of remove provides a certain freshness to her work. However, the Western slant also means that there are certain things that do not sit well with Frank’s own assessment of Indira Gandhi – her later religiosity, for instance, seems to contradict her secularism – and Frank seems a bit embarrassed by it. And yet, as Indians know, an embracing of Hindu rituals can co-exist with a secular practice in public life.

(Ideally, reading Jaykar and Frank together should take care of that problem completely!)

“Indira was actually in Calcutta, addressing a huge rally of half-a-million people at the Calcutta Brigade Grounds, when the Pakistani planes made their raid. Just as she was saying, ‘India stands for peace. But if a war is thrust on us we are prepared to fight, for the issues involved are our ideals as much as our security,’ an aide rushed to the podium and handed her a slip of paper on which was scrawled the news of the Pakistani attack. She made no announcement, but hurriedly wound up her talk. Privately, she said to those with her, ‘Thank god, they’ve attacked us.’ She had not wanted to be seen as the aggressor, but had approved General Manekshaw’s secret plan to strike the next day. Now Indira’s strategy of deferred action and her exquisite sense of timing had been vindicated. That evening Indira flew back to Delhi, encircled by an escort of Indian air force planes. When they approached Delhi, there was nothing but darkness below: the capital was shrouded in a blackout. Indira went directly to her office in Parliament’s South Block and called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet. Then she met leaders of the opposition…The next morning she told the Lok Sabha: For over nine months the military regime of West Pakistan has barbarously trampled upon freedom and basic human rights in Bangladesh. The army of occupation has committed heinous crimes unmatched for their vindictive ferocity. Many millions have been uprooted, ten millions have been pushed into our country. We repeatedly drew the attention of the world to this annihilation of a whole people, to this menace to our security…West Pakistan has escalated and enlarged the aggression against Bangladesh into full war against India.” — From “Seeing Red”

Indira Gandhi: Tryst With Power , Nayantara Sahgal (1982)

Perhaps the least sympathetic of all these biographies is the one by Indira Gandhi’s cousin, the award-winning writer Nayantara Sahgal.

Sahgal’s is an interesting perspective. As a writer, an outsider to the system, someone whose job is to critique the establishment anyway, she can retain the purity of the Nehruvian idealism, and use that filter to take a hard look at her cousin’s years in hard core politics. An admirer of Jayprakash Narayan, Nayantara Sahgal captures the revolutionary eddies surrounding Indira’s “centre”, the student movements, the trade union struggles – and her sympathy is clearly on the side of the “outsiders”.

The relationship between Sehgal’s mother Vijayalakshmi Pandit and Indira’s mother Kamala Nehru had always been strained, and in spite of the many hours Indira spent with her aunt and her family, she never really forgot the tensions of her childhood. She carried her mother’s wound deep inside her, and it invariably cast a long unfortunate shadow on her relationship with Pandit, especially after Nehru’s death. Sahgal’s prism is edged with this aspect too.

“India’s leader, from 1966 to 1977, had been a woman whose childhood, education and family tradition had provided her with unusual opportunities for training in democratic ideals, yet whose own temperament had apparently never felt entirely comfortable with this inheritance. The stages of her career as prime minister made it plain she was not a democrat in practice. She firmly believed in her own indispensability. Concessions, compromise and discussion signified weakness to her, and opposition jarred and angered her. She needed the constant assurance of acceptance and loyalty to feel secure...Democracy was not Mrs Gandhi’s style, but it remained an insistent craving.” — From “Why Mrs Gandhi Called an Election”

Mrs Gandhi , Dom Moraes (1980)

The poet Dom Moraes’s father, the journalist and newspaper editor Frank Moraes, had written a rather delightful biography of Jawaharlal Nehru. It was almost to keep up with the eccentricity of the idea that two generations would write biographies of two generations that Dom Moraes, brilliant writer and, sometimes, almost insufferable Anglophile, attempted to write Mrs Gandhi . It is an eminently readable book, enlivened by a poet’s whimsy. (Dom Moraes was married to Leela Naidu at the time, and often it was she who translated his “mumbled” questions to Mrs G.)

“I had an extraordinary lunch, in 1975, in the palace where Mountbatten had once presided over the partition of India. The hostess was Mrs Gandhi, and the occasion was in honour of Prince Charles. In the garden of the presidential palace, filled with roses and trees, the guests lined up before lunch while Mrs Gandhi introduced the royal party to them. That is, she introduced Charles, and the Duke and the Duchess of Gloucester, but for some reason she omitted to introduce Mountbatten. He wandered along, behind the rest, explaining to everyone, ‘My name is Mountbatten,’ and, ‘waving his hand around the lawns, ‘and I had those trees planted.’ ~~~ After lunch, the Gloucesters shot off. I needed to see Mrs Gandhi, so, as she was saying goodbye to Prince Charles, I hovered around. The Prince having departed, I asked her for an appointment. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow. Phone my secretary.’ Her normally impassive face displayed some irritation. ‘Where?’ she asked, ‘are the Gloucesters? Weren’t you sitting with them?’ I said yes, but I thought they had left. ...Mrs Gandhi turned back to me and she was obviously furious. ‘They didn’t even say goodbye,’ she told me. ‘Don’t they know I am the Prime Minister of India?’” — From "Prince Consort"

Devapriya Roy is the author of two novels, one long-dragged-out-and-nearly-abandoned PhD thesis on the Natyashastra , and most recently of The Heat and Dust Project: The Broke Couple’s Guide to Bharat , which she co-wrote with husband Saurav Jha.

• Indira Gandhi
• Autobiographies

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Indira Gandhi

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A biographical film on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. Relying on Nehru's writings and speeches, the film traces the evolution of Nehru and India from... Read all A biographical film on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. Relying on Nehru's writings and speeches, the film traces the evolution of Nehru and India from his birth through his life. A biographical film on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. Relying on Nehru's writings and speeches, the film traces the evolution of Nehru and India from his birth through his life.

• Yuri Aldokhin
• Shyam Benegal
• Subhas Chandra Bose
• Indira Gandhi
• Mohandas K. Gandhi

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