Madhur Bhandarkar’s upcoming film Indu Sarkar, which portrays the Emergency period that was imposed in 1975-1977 by Indira Gandhi government, has ruffled a few feathers. The members of the Congress party have come out in open opposition of the film, which they claim shows their leaders like Indira and Sanjay Gandhi in ‘bad light’.

The Congress workers have even started to threaten and hound Madhur Bhandakar by barging into his hotel, which ensured the cancellation of Bhandarkar’s press conference in Nagpur. This had resulted in Bhandarkar having to be extended police protection. Earlier a Congress worker had declared award of 1 lakh rupees for anyone who blackens Bhandarkar’s face.

If these troubles from Congress goons were not enough, the CBFC, better known as the Censor Board, suggested 14 cuts to the film, which left Bhandarkar shocked. Latest reports suggest that CBFC has asked Bhandarkar to approach Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) in wake of protests by the Congress party.

In order to discuss this whole issue, TV channel India Today had organised a panel discussion featuring Madhur Bhandarkar and controversial journalist Sagarika Ghose, who has recently written a book on Indira Gandhi. Interestingly, Congress has not protested against her book, possibly because the party workers are confident that she is pro-Congress or the party believes that nobody reads books written by Sagarika Ghose.

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Coming back to the India Today debate, one would expect that being a journalist and self-declared proponent of free speech, Sagarika Ghose would have supported Bhandarkar and exposed the Congress hooligans responsible for all the ruckus. But Sagarika Ghose thought it was better idea to ‘expose’ Madhur Bhandarkar.

In an attempt to ‘expose’ Madhur Bhandarkar as a hypocrite, Sagarika Ghose asked where he was during the whole Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (ADHM) controversy, when Karan Johar was facing difficulties in release of his movie. She made it quite apparent that she was all set to expose the hypocrisy of Bhandarkar by stating, “when your film is attacked you are upset, but where was Mr Bhandarkar when that happened”.

This attempt to expose Bhandarkar completely backfired. Bhandarkar immediately reminded Sagarika that he had condemned such incidents and had supported movies like Udta Punjab and ADHM and their producers. This fact is backed by old news reports of that time, such as this (support to Udta Punjab) and this (support to ADHM).

See for yourself how a sheepish Sagarika comes up with inane “that’s my point” when her lies were exposed:

As an aside, thanks to the ‘whataboutery’ by Sagarika, we are reminded that while Madhur Bhandarkar had supported Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap when their films were in trouble, neither of them have issued any statements or even tweeted in support of Bhandarkar.

That’s the point, Sagarika. Thanks for exposing yourself as well as the Bollywood brigade that calls India a ‘North Korea‘ when their own movies face trouble, but keeps quiet on other issues as it suits them politically and ideologically.