Sonia's
lawyer served a legal notice to prevent NRI Mundhra
from making the film on Sonia Gandhi
Sep. 24, 2006
NRI Jagmohan Mundhra, the film's Los Angeles-based
director was surprised by the legal notice from sonia's
lawyer from making the film.
The film supopose to complete in December and to
shot in the UK, Italy and India and is set to chronicle
40 years from the time Sonia met her husband Rajiv
at Cambridge where they both studied.
But the Congress party has served a legal notice
to prevent Mr Mundhra from making the film.
It says Mrs Gandhi has not given her permission and
the party fears the film might contain inaccuracies
It was the second time in less than a decade that
Gandhi and her political advisers had taken legal
action to prevent a film being made of her life. It
also highlighted the Gandhi family obsession with
privacy, the political sensitivity of her Italian
heritage and Gandhi's general desire to carefully
stage-manage the family's public persona
A political columnist writing for the opposition
Pioneer newspaper, was more forthcoming. "The
Gandhi family has constructed a fence between themselves
and the rest of the Indian people. There is no free
access to anyone in the family," she said. "Since
taking control of the party, she has only given two
or three interviews to the press. She doesn't even
like to give press conferences, but prefers to make
occasional sound bites for the television. She doesn't
like anything which is not in her control."
Once again, the blocking of this movie has sparked
debate in Delhi over the boundaries between the right
to privacy and freedom of expression.
In an angry editorial, The Times of India noted wryly
that this was an unprecedented "attempt to censor
a film even before it is made" and warned that
the government was favoring "censorship over
vital freedoms."
A Congress party lawyer, Abishek Singhvi, who dispatched
the legal notice to the producers, said the party
wanted to make it clear that the project had not been
authorized either by Gandhi or the party.
"Freedom of speech is subject to reasonable restrictions
in India, in relation to defamation, for example,"
he said. There is precedent for the Congress party's
behavior: A film thought to be based on Indira Gandhi's
life, "Aandhi," made in 1975, was banned
while she remained prime minister. But it is possible
that the party's anxieties this time are fueled primarily
by questions of tast
NRI filmmaker
Jagmohan Mundhra is making a movie on the life of
Sonia Gandhi
Abhishek may play Rajiv Gandhi
ApunKaChoice
Sep. 10, 2005
Post Yuva , Dhoom , Bunty Aur Babli, Dus and Sarkar
, Abhishek Bachchan finally seems to be climbing the
ladders of success in Bollywood.
