Rushdie’s comment on Indira Gandhi in Midnight’s Children ordered to be deleted

If reports are to be believed then filmmaker Deepa Mehta had to delete a comment on late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from her latest releaseMidnight's Childrenon Censor Board’s direction. While earlier it was reported that the censor board had been liberal in passing Mehta's film without too many alterations, now a reliable source has revealed that voiceover of author Salman Rushdie, on whose award-winning novel the film is based, about Mrs. Indira Gandhi had to be changed.

The source said, "Considering that the Congress government rules at the Centre, the Censor Board was lenient to the point of being lavishly generous. As in Salman Rushdie's novel there are scathing references to Mrs Gandhi's policies during the dreaded Emergency in the film. The Censor Board was divided over the content related to Mrs Gandhi. Finally, however, they left most of the references to the excesses during the Emergency intact as part of chronicled historical fact."

The source added that Rushdie's voice-over was directed to be deleted. "At one point in the 'Emergency' section of the film Salman Rushdie's voice over says, 'Indira Gandhi wanted to be treated as a goddess'. The line has been asked to be deleted by the Censor Board. The censors told Deepa that the line expresses just a random opinion and has no basis in historical fact."