The Central Board of Film Certification has suggested 14 cuts in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Emergency-era drama Indu Sarkar, according to tweets put out by the filmmaker. The movie, which is scheduled for a July 28 release, is about a woman named Indu Sarkar (played by Kirti Kulhari) who becomes an activist during the Emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi between 1975 and 1977. The movie is reportedly critical of Sanjay Gandhi, whose authoritarianism and corruption during the period has been widely documented by historians and journalists.

The examining committee, the first rung of certification, has suggested over a dozen cuts, which has outraged Bhandarkar. He has tweeted that he will appeal to the revising committee, which is the next level of certification.

According to sources, the CBFC wants the following words deleted: mentions of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Intelligence Bureau, Prime Minister, Akaali, Communist, Jayaprakash Narayan, Section officer, and Kishore Kumar. The examining committee also wants the visual of a newspaper cutting containing the names of leaders such as Atal Behari Vajpayee, Morarji Desai and LK Advani to be deleted. It has asked the following lines to be cut: “Ab is desh mein Gandhi ke maayne badal chuke hai”, “Bharat ki ek beti ne desh ko bandi banaya hua hai”, “Aur tum log zindagi bhar maa-bete ki ghulami karte rahoge” and “Main toh 70 saal ka buddha hoon, meri nasbandi kyun karwa rahe ho?” Some of these lines have already be featured in the trailer.

Indu Sarkar also stars Supriya Vinod as Indira Gandhi and Neil Nitin Mukesh as Sanjay. Congress leaders, including Sanjay Nirupam and Jagdish Tytler, have raised their voices against the movie and demanded that Bhandarker get the film cleared by the party – which he has refused.

Play
Indu Sarkar (2017).