Emergency: From censorship to arrests, when culture, artists came in crosshairs

Hindustan Times

23-06-2025

In January 1976, state-owned television broadcaster Doordarshan started airing a show called Geeton Bhari Shaam. A brainchild of Sanjay Gandhi, the son of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, it brought together some of the most popular singers and actors of the time to extol the 20-point programme, a set of socio-economic development initiatives initiated by the government. Actor Dilip Kumar delivered a four-minute speech on the importance of population control. Singer Asha Bhonsle and music composer RD Burman sang the popular number, Ek Main Aur Ek Tu, from the 1975 film, Khel Khel Mein, with a full-instrument orchestra that included Rishi Kapoor on the tambourine. Another popular singing duo, Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh, performed a song from the hit film, Kabhie Kabhie, as Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor and Rakhi (the cast of the film) stood beside them. But what Doordarshan didn't show was the sordid truth about why the most popular singer of the time was missing. PREMIUM Movies like Kissa Kursee Ka and Aandhi, which had characters that seemed to be based on then PM Indira Gandhi and peopleclose to her, were banned after Emergency was imposed. (IMDB)
On June 25, 1975, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the Emergency proclamation on account of 'internal disturbances' that 'threatened the security'. Indira Gandhi's government censored the press, jailed opposition leaders, and sterilised thousands of people. Cinema, the stage and the canvas bore the brunt, too. Outspoken playwrights and actors were vindictively crushed or harassed. Films like Kissa Kursi Ka and Aandhi were banned, and artistes were made examples of.
Kishore Kumar was one of them.
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In April 1976, then information and broadcasting minister Vidya Charan Shukla deputed CB Jain, joint secretary in the ministry, and PV Krishnamoorthy, the director-general of Doordarshan, to visit Bombay (as Mumbai was then called) and meet industry representatives. The meeting took place on April 29, and included producers and directors such as GP Sippy, BR Chopra, Subodh Mukherjee and Sriram Bohra, the head of the All India Producers Council. However, Kumar refused to show up. When Jain phoned Kumar asking to pay him a visit at home, Kumar replied that his doctor had advised against meeting people on account of heart trouble, and in any case, Kumar did not want to sing on stage or television. Incensed, Jain hung up.
A witch hunt ensued. On May 4, 1976, Kumar's songs were banned by the Air India Radio and Doordarshan. Overnight, his voice was written out of all broadcasts — authors Aniruddha Bhattacharjee and Parthiv Dhar wrote in the book Kishore Kumar: The Ultimate Biography (2022)that even duets were played with only the female singer's voice.
In 1977, the Janata Party-led government , formed after Indira Gandhi's defeat in the general elections, instituted a commission headed by former Chief Justice of India JC Shah to investigate the excesses committed during the 25-month-long Emergency. Shukla admitted to the commission that 'the team of I&B ministry officers [...] were unhappy over the attitude displayed by one of the leading artistes, Shri Kishore Kumar. Because of the feeling that Shri Kishore Kumar was not willing to cooperate with Akashvani and Doordarshan, some action was contemplated.'
'The harsh measures taken against Shri Kishore Kumar had a 'tangible effect' on film producers,' the commission's interim report read. 'Apart from the constitutional responsibility, [Shukla] is actually responsible for gross misuse of power,' it stated.
Kumar wasn't the only one caught in the crosshairs of the then government. The censor board rationed raw film negative, and imposed arbitrary rules on what could be depicted on screen — images of liquor bottles and blood were cut; action sequences were limited to only 90 seconds at a time, with a total of only six sequences permitted — and it routinely asked directors to re-edit their films.
In April 1975, Amrit Nahata, a film producer and Congress MP, submitted Kissa Kursi Ka, starring Shabana Azmi, Raj Babbar and Manohar Singh, to the censor board. The film was a parody on Indian politics and featured characters who seemed to be based on individuals close to Indira Gandhi. There was also a clear reference to Sanjay Gandhi's small-car project, and the alleged favouritism that helped set up his Maruti factory in Haryana. However, a review committee and the I&B ministry banned the film. All prints, including its masterproof, were burnt. Gulzar's Aandhi, starring Suchitra Sen and Sanjeev Kumar, was banned because the leads apparently bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Indira Gandhi and her husband, Feroze.
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Ideological differences were subjected to worse punishment. On June 25, 1975, Snehalata Reddy and her husband, Pattabhirama Reddy, had just finished filming the Kannada film, Chanda Marutha (Wild Wind), which was based on the play by P Lankesh, Kranti Bantu Kranti, and dealt with themes of people's protests and state dictatorship. The film was shot in the couple's home, which was a well-known Bangalore landmark, where all manners of writers, artists, and filmmakers were welcome. Snehalata was soon picked up under the Maintenance of Internal Securities Act (MISA) after the Central Bureau of Investigation argued that she was a close associate of George Fernandes, a fellow socialist and later member of the Janata Party. She was eventually released in January 1977 due to her deteriorating health and died within days.
The Emergency also saw artists create hard-hitting political critiques on stage and canvas, often at great risk. In the 1970s, Navjot Altaf, was a member of the Progressive Youth Movement (PROYOM), which was sympathetic to the Communist Party of India (Marxist - Leninist). The police used the Emergency to crack down on who it saw as sympathisers of the Naxalbari movement, an uprising of the rural and urban youth against the state. Navjot recalled hiding the cyclostyle machine on which they made PROYOM posters, and burning documents. In 1977, one of her drawings made in response to the Emergency showed a citizen wrestling with the monstrous tentacles of the state, Nancy Adajania said in the artist monograph, The Thirteenth Place.
On stage, too, actors and playwrights responded to the corrupting influence of unchecked power. Utpal Dutt produced Bengali plays such as Barricade, Duswapaner Nagari (City of Nightmares), and Ebaar Rajar Pala (Enter the King), which were banned by the government. Vijay Tendulkar's Dambadweepcha Mukabala used a folk tale to satirise the Emergency and Indira Gandhi.
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At the same time, the 1970s was a good decade for the business of films. In 1975, over 13,000 theatres dotted the country and box office collections of mainstream Hindi cinema crossed a billion dollars annually for the first time. Films such as Deewar and Sholay, depicting Bachchan as the Angry Young Man — devoid of political angst, but fuelled with the desire to do good — became blockbuster hits.
The government also course-corrected its own media strategy during the Emergency. In order to recover loans from defaulting filmmakers, a report on New Indian Cinema brought out by the government in 1976, proffered the Film Finance Corporation (later the National Film Development Corporation) new criteria, such as 'Indianness in theme and approach', 'human interest stories', 'approachable characters', among others, to grant loans.
According to film scholar Ashish Rajadhyaksha, this period complicated the state's influence on New Cinema, which emerged in the 1960s fuelled by FFC. The films, which already possessed an 'aesthetic of state control', were able to take on political issues and offer social and political critique, such as Satyajit Ray's Charulata (1964), Nayak (1966) and Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1968) as well as Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome, Mani Kaul's Uski Roti and Basu Chatterjee's Sara Akash, all produced in 1969.
During the Emergency, the Films Division, set up in 1948 to educate the public through short films and documentaries, was tasked with making 20 films to extol the virtues of the government's 20-point programme. The FD separately also made short films with titles such as Freedom from Fear, Kidhar Ja Rahe Ho [where are you going], Kaisa Andhera [what kind of darkness], and Our Indira that depicted young people who had lost their way through protests and violence.
'From colonial times, the state has been afraid of the cinema, because of its potential for disruption of law and order and thus, it has practised regulation in the name of public order. Indira Gandhi was an important figure in that she had made possible the New Cinema Movement of the late 60s-early 70s, with the formation of Film Finance Corporation that was not only aesthetic and well-made but also spoke for the state, as it were. So when the Emergency came along, the idea of cinema that was more supportive of the state was not a new one,' said Rajadhyaksha.