After her film “Emergency” got postponed again amid controversy, actor Kangana Ranaut on Monday expressed her disappointment and said it was “hugely demotivating”.
On a podcast with Shubhankar Mishra, Ranaut said she was “disappointed with the country”. “Meri film pe hi Emergency lag gayi hai. Bahut hi nirashajanak ye sthiti hai. Main toh khair bahut hi zyada disappointed hu apne desh se, aur jo bhi haalaat hain, (An ’emergency’ has been imposed on my film itself. This is very disappointing. I am very disappointed in our country and the present situation …)” she told Mishra.
The film, which is based on former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s declaration of a state of Emergency in India in 1975, was expected to be released on September 6. However, as soon as the trailer was launched on August 14, it evoked angry reactions in Punjab and among Sikhs.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Delhi sent a legal notice to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). The film’s release got postponed after the CBFC withheld the certification. SAD had urged CBFC to postpone the film’s release, citing concerns over its portrayal of historical events and figures, particularly those related to the Sikh community. Multiple Sikh organisations across India, including those in Punjab, Telangana, New Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh, called for a ban.
The BJP MP from Mandi herself plays the role of the former PM in “Emergency”. Her company Manikarnika Films is one of the producers and Ranaut herself has directed the film.
Why are Sikhs unhappy with Kangana’s film?
In the trailer, slain Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale has been shown as seeking a separate homeland. The trailer includes a dialogue, “Your party wants votes, and we want Khalistan”. Also, the trailer indicted that Bhindranwale was in cohorts with Indira Gandhi and promised to bring in votes for Congress in lieu of a separate Sikh state.
The notice sent by the Delhi unit of SAD accused Ranaut of using the film not to make a genuine political or historical statement against the Congress but to target the Sikh community. “Kangana Ranaut is known for creating controversies… a notice has been sent to Kangana Ranaut and the people who released the film. The trailer that came, which was seen by the people, should be removed from all platforms and an apology should be sought for this,” Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) spokesperson Gurcharan Singh Grewal told ANI.
The Sikh bodies accused Ranaut of allegedly presenting only one side of the story by omitting key events in the movie.
Kangana Ranaut drawing parallel
After her film was stalled, Ranaut slammed Anubhav Sinha’s latest Netflix series, “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack”. Sinha’s film showcases the 1999 hijacking of an Indian aircraft by five terrorists on December 24, 1999, just 40 minutes after its departure from Kathmandu. The six-episode series began streaming on Netflix on August 29.
“The 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 revolve 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,” she said in a post on X .
According to her, she is being singled out as the events she has showcased in her movie have already been documented in movies such as Madhur Bhandarkar’s 2017 political thriller Indu Sarkar (imposition of 1975 Emergency) and Meghna Gulzar’s Sam Bahadur (1971 India-Pakistan War) last year.
