Emergency trailer: Kangana Ranaut film claims Indira Gandhi ‘usurped’ Nehru’s chair, how she went from ‘gungi gudiya’ to ‘Indira is India’. Watch

Emergency trailer: Kangana Ranaut film presents the life of former PM Indira Gandhi as a Shakespearean tragedy as it showcases the darkest chapter of Indian history and its aftermath. Kangana Ranaut-starrer Emergency dropped its trailer on Wednesday and offered a look at Indira Gandhi’s rise to power after the death of her father and India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Emergency trailer shows her rise amid claims that she usurped power from her father. From the trailer, it seems like the story of this film is limited to Indira’s years as the Prime Minister. It goes through the time when she first took office in 1966, her decision making during the 1971 war with Pakistan and the Emergency years, often called the darkest chapter in Indian history when fundamental rights were curtailed and the government ruled through decree. It appears as though the film will also cover her assassination.

Here, Kangana plays Indira like an autocrat and keeps reinforcing how under Indira’s leadership, the sanctity of democracy was not respected. She declares “India is Indira and Indira is India” and “Main hi cabinet hun.” Indira’s in the film pointedly declare that she is in politics for her own benefit and not for the welfare of the nation. But she also says with tears in her eyes, “Nafrat, aur mila kya hai mujhe iss desh se (What have I got from this country besides hate)?” The film also declares son Sanjay Gandhi as one of the biggest villains in Indira’s life.

In India, biopics are often treated as pieces of hero worship but in Emergency, it is obvious that Kangana has made this film to paint Indira as an autocratic leader who did not have the nation’s best interest at heart. It is to be seen how a film that does not have a so-called ‘heroic’ figure will be received by the audience. It does include the character of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Shreyas Talpade) who is earlier shows to be impressed by Indira but later changes his opinion and and Jaiprakash Narayan (Anupam Kher) who is her trenchant critic.