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Thunder of Freedom
1976 31’ col English d/c S. Sukhdev pc Films Division, Film-20 Series made with Gopal Maharesh, Govind Maharesh, B.L. Maisuriya, M. Michael, Salim Sheikh
Sukhdev’s Emergency propaganda documentary is the best known of the Film-20 series illustrating the benefits of Indira Gandhi’s Twenty-point Economic Programme. Shot mainly in and around New Delhi, the film presents the pre-Emergency period as riddled with riots and disruptions, in which ‘almost anyone’ could bring all legal processes to a standstill. It interviews a factory owner who praises the absence of labour agitation and two noted journalists, Dileep Padgaonkar and Abu Abraham, both of whom express some doubt about the loss of fundamental human rights while agreeing that the breakdown of the State infrastructure prior to the Emergency was not a situation to which the country would wish to return.