Rushdie and India have some history
Date September 11, 2012
Jason Burke, Delhi
A new film doesn't pull any punches in depicting the country's politicians.
Wrong or rights: The film of Midnight's Children may not be seen in India. Photo: Supplied
IT IS an epic portrayal of the country's modern history and one of its best-known books of recent decades. But a new film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel about India after independence, Midnight's Children, has again plunged the author into controversy in his native land.
At the film's premiere in Toronto at the weekend, director Deepa Mehta revealed that no Indian film distributor has so far bought rights to the film. ''Salman has often said that the book was his love letter to India. I think the film reflects that love. What a pity if insecure politicians deprive the people of India to make up their own minds about what the film means, or does not mean, to them,'' she said in the Hindustan Times, a major Indian newspaper.
The film, for which Rushdie wrote the screenplay, closely follows the narrative of the book and includes unflattering portrayals of major Indian political figures.
Cinema experts in the subcontinent said the failure to find a distributor revealed a weakness in Indian democracy.
Shubhra Gupta, a respected local film writer, said: ''[In India] we are very wary of any film that even is political, let alone politically sensitive. Any resemblance to a politician . . . could be a problem. In a robust democracy, all of this should be possible.''
Rushdie's relationship with India has often been troubled. His controversial 1988 book The Satanic Verses, which provoked a religious ruling or fatwa from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for the author's killing for blasphemy, is still banned in India. In January, an appearance by Rushdie, 65, at the Jaipur literary festival was cancelled after protests from Muslim groups.
Midnight's Children was published to acclaim in 1981. It describes the life of a boy born with magical powers at the exact moment of India gaining its independence in 1947. A broad colourful allegorical sweep through 30 years of social change, it won the Booker Prize.
But its deeply negative portrayal of the late prime minister Indira Gandhi and her suspension of democracy in India in 1975-77 led to Mrs Gandhi suing him for defamation. One Indian reviewer described Mrs Gandhi's portrayal in the film as a ''Voldemort-like politician with dark grey clouds hanging over her head''.
