Actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut has claimed that “censorship is only for some of us, who don’t want tukde of this nation”, after her film “Emergency”, initially slated for release on September 6, faced another delay.
The film, based on the life of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, is awaiting approval from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which has asked for more cuts amid growing calls to halt the film’s release alleging it shows the Sikh community in a bad light.
According to reports, the CBFC stated that it would consider the sentiments of all communities. The Centre has also told the Punjab and Haryana High Court that before certifying Kangana Ranaut’s film, the CBFC “shall take care, that contents of the said movie do not hurt the sentiments of any community, including Sikh community”, per Bar and Bench. A plea was filed the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking to ban “Emergency”.
She contrasted this development amid demands on social media for the boycott of the latest Netflix series “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident.
“Law of the land is that one can show unimaginable amount of violence and nudity on OTT platforms without any consequence or censorship, one can even distort real life events to suit their politically motivated sinister motives, there is all the freedom for communists or leftists across the world for such anti national expressions but as a nationalist no OTT platform allows us to make films that revolves around the integrity and unity of Bharat, it seems censorship is only for some of us who don’t want tukde of this nation and make films on historic facts. It’s hugely demotivating and unjust,” she wrote in a post on X on Monday.
The Mandi MP shared a post by BJP leader and IT cell chief Amit Malviya, which claimed that the series changed the Muslim names of the hijackers into non-Muslim names and added that the series “whitewashed” the harrowing incident.
“The hijackers of IC-814 were dreaded terrorists, who acquired aliases to hide their Muslim identities. Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, legitimised their criminal intent, by furthering their non-Muslim names. Result? Decades later, people will think Hindus hijacked IC-814. Left’s agenda to whitewash the crimes of Pakistani terrorists, all Muslims, served. This is the power of cinema, which the Communists have been using aggressively, since the 70s. Perhaps even earlier,” Malviya had said.
The series recounts the 1999 hijacking of an Indian aircraft that occurred on December 24, 1999, after the plane left Kathmandu, Nepal. The standoff ended with the release of three terrorists — Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar — in exchange for around 150 hostages. The series premiered on Netflix on August 29.
Ranaut has alleged that the film’s clearance was “stopped” because members of the CBFC received “threats”. She shared a video on X in which she claimed, “There are rumours doing the rounds that our film, Emergency, has been granted the Censor certificate. This is not true. Our film had been cleared but certification has been stopped because many threats were coming in. The Censor Board members are getting death threats. We are under pressure not to show the assassination of Indira Gandhi, not to show Bhindranwale, not to show the Punjab riots.”
“I don’t know what will be left to show then… This is unbelievable for me and I am very sorry for the state of things in this country,” she added in the video.
The controversy began with the film’s trailer release on August 14, which depicted Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a separatist leader, making promises to Gandhi’s party in exchange for a separate Sikh state.
The Delhi unit of the Shiromani Akali Dal sent a legal notice to the board, claiming the film could incite communal tensions and spread misinformation.
“Such depictions are not only misleading but also deeply offensive and damaging to the social fabric of Punjab and the entire nation. It is apparent that Ranaut has chosen the subject of the Emergency not to make a genuine political or historical statement against Congress, but rather to target the Sikh community,” read the notice.
The film, also directed by Ranaut, features Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Mahima Chaudhry, Milind Soman, and the late Satish Kaushik. It was originally scheduled to release in November 2023, but has since been postponed to June 2024 and then to September 6, 2024.
