When Indira Gandhi governed India between the 1960s and the 1980s, she was rarely depicted directly in films. If the prime minster was seen, it was mostly as a photograph or portrait in a government office. Now, Indira Gandhi is everywhere.
A revival of interest in period dramas has led to an Indira revival of sorts too. She is in films about military victories over Pakistan, biopics of regional leaders – even movies about cricket and an income tax raid. And of course, she is present in films about her father Jawaharlal Nehru’s reign as prime minister.
More recently, her lowest point as elected head of state – her suspension of the Constitution and civil liberties between 1975 and 1977 – has been committed to film. That is the focus of the January 17 release Emergency.
Kangana Ranaut directs the biopic and plays India’s first woman prime minister as a bundle of nerves who displays borderline psychosis during the Emergency period. Ranaut is helped along by Oscar winner David Malinowski’s prosthetics and makeup.
But even before Ranaut, Indira Gandhi has been portrayed in her Emergency phase by Supriya Vinod, Navni Parihar and Sarita Choudhury. At other stages of her life, she has been played by Avantika Akerkar and Charu Shankar.
Supriya Vinod stars as Gandhi in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Indu Sarkar (the title is a play on Gandhi’s pet name). The 2017 film explores a conscientious poet’s rebellion against the Emergency. Neil Nitin Mukesh has a prominent role as Gandhi’s crooked son Sanjay Gandhi.
Vinod appears in a few dialogue-free scenes. Gandhi nods when assured that her Congress party will win the Lok Sabha election after the Emergency has been lifted and then drives off, ominously replacing her spectacles with sunglasses.
Vinod had previously played Gandhi in Yashwantrao Chavan (2014), Jabbar Patel’s biopic about the Congress politician from Maharashtra. Vinod also starred in Ratnakar Matkari’s Indira – The Play (2015), a psychological portrait of Gandhi between the Emergency and her assassination in 1984. Four years later, she was Indira Gandhi in the NT Rama Rao biopic NTR: Kathanayakudu.
In a 2017 interview with Scroll, Vinod spoke about the challenges of playing Gandhi. “You have to make people remember her,” Vinod said. “The likeness has to be there.”
Vinod added: “She had a very famous walk, she used to walk very rapidly.”
Most actors who have played Gandhi barely look like her. Acting skills, makeup, prosthetics, wigs and costumes combine to resurrect the leader.
Becoming Indira Gandhi involves much more than wearing an impeccably draped sari or donning a close-cropped wig with its trademark white streaks, Avantika Akerkar told Scroll. Akerkar is arguably cinema’s favourite Indira Gandhi due to the actor’s talent for channelising her subject’s mannerisms and overall mien. She has played the leader in six productions till date.
Akerkar first played Gandhi in the Bal Thackeray biopic Thackeray (2019), following it up with 83 (2021), Head Bush (2022), Mission Majnu (2023) and Padatik (2024). Akerkar also played Gandhi in the web series Mukhbir (2022).
Akerkar was approached to act in Thackeray by the Shiv Sena (UBT) politician Sanjay Raut in 2018. “I could not mess up playing someone so iconic,” Akerkar said. “I couldn’t caricaturise her, nor could I pretend to be her. I had to get some of her mannerisms without copycatting her.”
Akerkar’s research included Katherine Frank’s biography Indira and videos of Gandhi’s speeches. “I kind of got the cadence of her voice – she talked in a very high-pitched kind of voice,” Akerkar said. “I don’t do any makeup, so whatever you see in my roles as Mrs Gandhi is my natural face except for the slight eyebrows and the wig. There’s no prosthetic nose. That minute the wig goes on my head, something happens.”
In Abhijit Panse’s Thackeray, Akerkar’s Gandhi is so impressed by Thackeray (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) that she drops his Shiv Sena party from the list of proscribed political organisations during the Emergency.
In Kabir Khan’s 83, Gandhi cannily tries to quell communal riots at home by telecasting the Cricket World Cup that is underway in England – and in which India is performing brilliantly against expectations.
“I find her fascinating and a bit of a tragic figure,” Akerkar said. “She was a very complex woman. She was also very smart and politically astute.”
If Mahesh Mathai’s biopic of the astronaut Rakesh Sharma had been made, Akerkar might have played Gandhi even earlier. Sharma began work on the film in 2015, but it has not been completed yet.
Mathai was keen on casting Akerkar for the scene in which Sharma tells Gandhi that from outer space, India looks “saare jahaan se accha” (the best place in the world). “Something about Avantika’s look, demeanor and bone structure reminded me of Mrs Gandhi,” Mathai told Scroll. “If I ever complete the project, I will still cast Avantika.”
Indira Gandhi’s personal tryst with destiny began in her childhood. Born on November 19, 1917, Gandhi closely witnessed her father Jawaharlal Nehru’s participation in the freedom movement, his appointment as prime minister, and his leadership of the newly independent country. Films or shows about the early post-Independent years that have Nehru sometimes include Gandhi too.
In 1962: The War in the Hills, about the war between India and China, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan plays Gandhi. The role is played by Charu Shankar in Rocket Boys (2022-2023), about the involvement of Homi J Bhaba and Vikram Sarabhai in the development of India’s space and nuclear programmes.
In both shows, Gandhi is a leader in the making, picking up political strategy from the sidelines. The dominant image of Indira Gandhi in popular culture – the only woman in a room full of men, taking far-reaching decisions with firmness and precision – is from the 1970s.
Hindi cinema’s preoccupation with Pakistan, particularly the 1971 War, has led to a rash of productions based on actual or imagined missions. Films such as Bell Bottom (2021) and Bhuj: The Pride of India (2021) include a scene or two of Indira Gandhi consulting with the military top brass or putting her Pakistani equivalent in his place. The prime minister’s presence creates an image of muscular leadership, while also giving legitimacy to risky operations.
But the Gandhi in the Sam Manekshaw biopic Sam Bahadur (2023) is a different woman. Meghna Gulzar’s film imagines a flirty relationship between the dashing Chief of Army Chief Staff (Vicky Kaushal) and the Madam Prime Minister (Fatima Sana Shaikh).
The pucca Mankeshaw prevents Gandhi from attending a strategy meeting for which she does not have clearance. Later, after Gandhi has become prime minister, Mankeshaw becomes an unlikely confidante.
I have problems, she sighs. Whenever you want, you have my shoulder to cry on, Manekshaw says. What if you are the problem, Gandhi retorts.
In movies set in other time periods, Gandhi has a talismanic presence.
In Raj Kumar Gupta’s Raid (2018), Gandhi, played by Flora Jacob, comes to the rescue of an honest Indian Revenue Service officer who is conducting a tax evasion operation against a corrupt politician in Uttar Pradesh.
In AL Vijay’s J Jayalalithaa biopic Thalaivii (2021), starring Kangana Ranaut, Flora Jacob’s Gandhi openly admires the Tamil Nadu politician’s assertiveness in Parliament.
“Indira ji was articulate, intelligent, polite, soft and yet very strong,” said Navni Parihar, who played Gandhi with quiet authority in Bhuj as well as the television shows Pradhanmantri (2013) and 7RCR (2014).
For Parihar, one of the biggest challenges was to sound like Gandhi.
“It’s easier to do mythological characters since we don’t know what they look like, but Indira ji was prominent – her face, body language and voice are all seared in memory,” Parihar said. “The most difficult thing was to sound like her. She had a soft but firm voice, while my own voice is nasal and slightly husky.”
Parihar also focused on other aspects of Gandhi’s body language, such as her straight-backed walk, her style of sitting, the way she draped her sari border over her head. Parihar was praised for her accurate performance in Pradhanmantri by a friend of Sanjay Gandhi, she said.
While there have been biopics about the freedom movement’s luminaries, the chronicling of milestones in post-Independent history is a little over two decades old. Filmmakers trying to make sense of momentous events in the recent past that resonate in the present find themselves running into the woman who was one of the most powerful prime ministers before Narendra Modi.
Popular interest in fictionalised drama, whatever its veracity or merit, has been bolstered by advancements in makeup and prosthetics – even when the actors look nothing like their subjects.
Makeup designer Prashant Doiphode, who transformed Lara Dutta into Indira Gandhi for Ranjit M Tewari’s Bell Bottom, observed, “If an actor doesn’t resemble the person, the make-up focuses on elements of the face, such as the skin tone, eyes, nose, eyebrows and jawline.”
Lara Dutta’s skin was aged to look like Gandhi, and she wore a prosthetic nose too, Daiphode said.
Contemporary films that revisit the 1970s are in stark contrast to productions made in that period. At the peak of her powers, Gandhi was either heavily fictionalised or an allegorical figure. Even a fleeting reference to her could be controversial or invite censorship.
In the biography SD Burman: The Prince Musician, Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vital write about how a dancer reportedly called Indira in the Dev Anand starrer Gambler (1971) was renamed Julie after the film ran into trouble with the censor board.
Manoj Kumar got away with making a smuggler as an Indira Gandhi fan in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan in 1974. The film about rampant unemployment includes a commodities hoarder who never misses a speech by the prime minister.
Gulzar did not have it so easy. Similarities between Gandhi and the heroine of his Aandhi (1975) resulted in the film being pulled out of cinemas for a short period. Aandhi stars Suchitra Sen as Aarti Devi who, on her father’s insistence, walks out on her hotelier husband (Sanjeev Kumar) in order to pursue her political career.
Aandhi had already been in cinemas for nearly five months when the Emergency was announced. The film was re-released after a few cuts before the Emergency ended, Saba Mahmood Bashir writes in Gulzar’s Aandhi.
Gulzar told Bashir that he based Aarti Devi, especially her appearance, on Gandhi because she was the most prominent leader of her time: “… even today, there is nobody like her, so she was the best persona to keep in mind”.
Critiques of the Emergency appeared in the 1970s itself. In Marathi filmmaker Dada Kondke’s Ram Ram Gangaram (1977) and IS Johar’s Nasbandi (1978), one of the Emergency’s most horrific legacies – the forced sterilisation of men as population control measure – is mined for comedy.
These films do not feature Indira Gandhi anywhere but lampoon her sycophants, especially local leaders and medical professional who are racing to meet daily sterilisation targets.
In Ram Ram Gangaram, a rural busybody trying to forcibly sterilise the hero played by Kondke is tricked into getting operated himself. In Nasbandi, a wheeler-dealer who is running a sterilisation campaign greets his guests not with a “Namaste” but “Jai Maruti” – a reference to the notorious Maruti Udyog car manufacturing company set up by Sanjay Gandhi.
Similarly, in the anti-Congress satire Kissa Kursi Ka. Indira Gandhi is nowhere and everywhere. Amrit Nahta’s film targets the dictatorial ways of Sanjay Gandhi and his posse. Nahta paid a heavy price for making Kissa Kursi Ka.
The film was completed in April 1975 – before the Emergency – but was never released. All the prints were destroyed on the orders of Vidya Charan Shukla, a Sanjay Gandhi crony and the Information and Broadcasting Minister at the time.
In 1978, after the Emergency had been lifted and the Janata Party came to power, Nahta remade the movie, retaining the title, script and most of the cast.
The film begins with a prayer to the “kursi god” (the god of power). Kissa Kursi Ka has barely disguised references to the Maruti Udyog project, Sanjay Gandhi’s good friend Rukhsana Sultan, Indira Gandhi’s all-powerful secretary RK Dhawan and the godman Dhirendra Brahmachari.
Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2003) is a more thoughtful exploration of the political upheaval in the 1970s. Filmmaker Aditya Bhattacharya plays a politician closely modelled on Sanjay Gandhi, who rues that “rats are deserting the sinking ship” while standing before a photograph of Indira Gandhi.
Deepa Mehta’s 2012 adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s post-modern classic Midnight’s Children stars British actor Sarita Choudhury as Gandhi. In his book, Rushdie refers to Gandhi only as “The Widow”, and says about her distinctive coiffure that “the white side of her hair was the visible documented part; the black the stuff about violence and torture”.
While the book’s hero Saleem Sinai is born on August 15, 1947, his son Aadam comes into the world on June 25, 1975, the day the Emergency is announced.
The film’s Gandhi presides over the torture and sterilisation of prisoners. “The Emergency, everyone called it, but it was really a betrayal, her betrayal of her father’s dreams,” Rushdie says in a voiceover over close-ups of Gandhi chewing hard on her food.
Strong leader or failed autocrat – screen depictions of Indira Gandhi have largely fallen into these two camps. But there have been bizarre indirect portrayals too, such as in Jumbish (1986).
Made two years after Gandhi’s assassination, Salahuddin Parvez’s film stars Akbar Khan as Manas, a scientist who strives to create an ideal world by building two supercomputers that will mate and create a baby computer, thereby negating the need for human relationships.
Daya Dongre plays Manas’s mother, who is the only thing standing between Manas and the Devil (Shafi Inamdar). Although known only as “Madam”, any resemblance between her and Gandhi is surely intentional.
Actors who played Gandhi in a positive light acknowledge her faults, especially her decision to impose the Emergency and her mishandling of the Khalistan separatist movement in Punjab in the 1980s.
“The Emergency phase was definitely wrong,” actor Navni Parihar said. “But Mrs Gandhi was no shallow personality. She was an iron lady.”
Gandhi’s decision to allow the storming of the Golden Temple – the sacred Sikh shrine in Amritsar – to flush out her opponent Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale led to her assassination by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. This final phase of Gandhi’s life, and portrayals of the Khalistan movement, remain contentious topics.
In 2014, Kaum De Heere, which valourises Gandhi’s assassins, was banned by the Union government despite being cleared by the censor board. The Punjabi movie was released only in 2019 after the Delhi High Court’s intervention.
In the film, Gandhi is played by an unidentified actor whose face is hidden by an umbrella. When confronted by her gun-toting bodyguard, only her voice can be heard asking, “Yeh kya kar rahe ho?” (What are you doing?)
The bodyguard and his accomplice pump bullets into Gandhi, causing her to moan and whirl around like a blood-stained marionette. The bodyguards smirk as Gandhi hits the ground.
“Sometimes, people who start off with the right ideals get enmeshed in the machinery,” the actor Avantika Akerkar observed. “Mrs Gandhi became paranoid and sort of insular towards the end and made stupid mistakes. It’s a bit like Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir – these strong women left their mark but what is remembered isn’t what they should be remembered for. I would like to hold on to the good things that Mrs Gandhi did and acknowledge that there were many bad things too.”
Also read:
