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A film on the spirit
of new India made by Jack Anderson, known as the father of
investigative journalism, ironically has never been publicly shown in
India. For all intents and purposes, the government of Rajiv Gandhi
had banned the film, writes Niranjan
Desai
THE legendary American journalist Jack Anderson who died a couple of months ago still continues to make headlines. Many informed Indians admire and have affection for Jack because of his famous exposure of the infamous Nixon-Kissinger ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan during the war for the liberation of Bangladesh. However, many in this country are not aware about Jack’s other act of love for India. His company produced a wonderful documentary about India entitled Rajiv’s India during the Festival of India in the United States, 1985-86, which I had the privilege of coordinating. The most ironic aspect of this film is that it has never been publicly shown in India. The story behind the story is that, for all intents and purposes, the government of Rajiv Gandhi had banned the film. The film for the first time tried to project in an honest way to American audiences a new India where, it seemed then, that the torch had passed on to a new generation of leaders, very different from the tired and visionless old guard who surrounded the late Indira Gandhi. It remarkably captured, nearly 20 years ago, the spirit of the birth of a new India, portraying a confident India and its young leaders who articulated a new vision of India on the move. Two decades ago there was electricity in the air generated by young Rajiv’s call to end of politics of power brokers and political fixers. That this proved to be a false dawn and nothing seems to have changed in the country is another sad matter for all of us to ponder. The film was almost prescient: It was, in many ways, a fore-runner of the controversial "India Shining" campaign of the NDA government. Like the Festival of India, it aimed at changing the prevailing perceptions of India and showed India in a new light. No wonder that PBS (Public Broadcasting System) chose the film as its centerpiece for a weeklong telecast of features on India at prime time in January 1986. The film was nominated for the prestigious Emmy Award and won an award in the Netherlands. The idea of the film arose during one of my frequent interactions in Washington with Inderjit Badhwar, who was then associated with Jack. Inderjit, who was then also on ABC-TV, quickly came up with a proposal for a major documentary on India under the banner of Jack Anderson Productions. I told him that I would help in getting necessary permissions from the Government of India for filming, etc. and even assist in locating potential sources for funding of the film. I also warned him that he would have to use his connections to get the necessary permissions, since the government suffered from ‘Louis Malle’ syndrome. In the 60’s, the well-known French film-maker Louis Malle had made a series of documentaries on India for the BBC which created a stir among NRIs in Britain, leading the government to ban the series and put in place very stringent regulations for filming documentaries in India by foreign film-makers. Later Inderjit told me that he had run into several roadblocks from different sectors but ultimately with the intervention of the then powerful Minister of State Arun Singh, he had managed to film the documentary with a team of very talented cinematographers. However, that was not the end of all the problems. Initial reaction to the film was enthusiastic and Doordarshan decided to telecast the film with great publicity. Before the telecast on Doordarshan, the then Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Vithal Gadgil, even hosted a preview of this one-hour film on large screen at Hyderabad House for every Indian VIP imaginable—ministers, all top government bureaucrats, Congress bigwigs and industrialists. Inderjit was specially invited as one of the guests of honour at this preview at 6 pm. Gadgil also announced there and then that the film would be broadcast on DD nationwide the same evening at 9 pm. At 9 pm, the scheduled time for broadcast of the film, Doordarshan blandly informed its viewers that "due to certain technical problems" the film Rajiv’s India would not be shown. And it was never ever shown. It is difficult to know what precisely transpired during those two hours after the preview at Hyderabad House and the scheduled time of the broadcast of the film that led the government to ban, for all intents and purposes, a film which tended to project a ‘positive’ image of the country. Later Inderjit told me that the old guard in the Congress—the so-called ‘Indira loyalists’—were very upset at the way younger leaders in the party and the government were projected while they were ignored. A somewhat negative reference to Mrs Gandhi’s emergency by the legendary Ram Nath Goenka towards the end of the film had also ruffled many a Congress feathers. The old guard, already smarting after Rajiv’s attack on the traditional party functionaries at the famous Mumbai Congress session, saw the film as an inspired attack on them and consequently brought considerable pressure on Rajiv to stop the telecast of the film in India. Of course, this is a small episode but quite intriguing. There has never been any official explanation as to why a film, which was so upbeat on Rajiv and India, as its title suggested, was never shown in India. The question is what were the compulsions on Rajiv then for him to acquiesce in stopping the telecast of the film? Did this flip-flop foretell a more far-reaching flip-flop, the Shah Bano case, which altered the political landscape in India? Perhaps many of the old guard who are still around and who swear by Rajiv could shed some light on this. A copy of the film is available and it would be interesting if one of the private channels were to air it. For the film has immense historical value for today’s India with very rare footage. It has a long exclusive interview with Rajiv with Sonia Gandhi sitting by his side as well as the photos Rajiv took himself of his family and children. Besides, it has wonderfully candid interviews with dozens of India’s then movers and shakers including the late Madhav Rao Scindia, Nusli Wadia, Khushwant Singh, late K.R. Narayanan, Dr Yashpal, and ISRO scientists and their vision for the empowerment of India. It is perhaps as relevant today as it was nearly 20 years ago and is a terrific down-memory-lane event that predicts the emergence of terrorism in India as the country’s most troublesome 21st century phenomenon. Niranjan Desai is a former Indian Foreign Service officer. As Minister (Culture) in the Embassy of India, Washington, he coordinated the Festival of India in the United States, 1985-86. |
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