Author and journalist Coomi Kapoor has sent a legal notice to Netflix and Kangana Ranaut's production firm, Manikarnika Films, regarding alleged historical mistakes in the recently released movie Emergency. Additionally, by asserting that the movie is based on her book The Emergency: A Personal History, Kapoor accused them of breaking a contract and harming her reputation. According to the film's disclaimer, the events are based on two books: Jaiyanth Vasanth Sinha's Priyadarshini and Coomi Kapoor's The Emergency.
Kapoor asserted that the Emergency has numerous "historical inaccuracies" and that her book is being unfairly held responsible. She served legal notices to the film's producer, Aksht Ranaut, and Kangana Ranaut. In order to obtain permission to utilise one chapter from her book about former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Kapoor claims that Aksht met with her in Mumbai in 2021. Two important provisions in the tripartite agreement she signed with Penguin (the publisher of her book) and Manikarnika Films, she said, were that her name and book could not be used for publicity or promotion without her written authorisation.
She was never shown the script for the movie, Kapoor added. "I had specifically told them not to use the term â**based on,' but they still did," she said. Although he acknowledged that filmmakers frequently make artistic choices, Kapoor made it clear that "no details should be altered if they don't align with well-documented historical facts available in the public domain.”
Additionally, Kapoor noted that the phrase "based on" was only used after the movie's Netflix debut. "I read media reports when the movie came out, and they all used the word 'inspired,' so I was okay with it. However, in the conclusion, it stated "based on" when I watched it on Netflix recently. They utilised my name to provide legitimacy to their work," she stated. The Emergency by Coomi Kapoor, which was released by Penguin in 2015, provides a thorough description of the Indian Emergency era of 1975–77.
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One of the mistakes, according to Kapoor, is that the movie portrays Akbar Ahmed as the one who outlawed Kishore Kumar's music. She credited V.C. Shukla, the Information & Broadcasting Minister at the time, with making this choice in her book. According to Kapoor, she had to explain that her book never made such allegations after Ahmed challenged her over the portrayal. "He wasn't the only one - many people have called me saying, â**What have you written in the book?'" she said.
The portrayal of journalist Nikhil Chakravartty's incarceration and the false chronology of the Emergency are among the other purported mistakes.