Why Indian Political Propaganda Films Fail: Analysis of Emergency and The Accidental Prime Minister

Published : Feb 06, 2025 16:23 IST - 5 MINS READ To launch this column, I went and watched Emergency and was reminded of my own participation in a propaganda film, my only work in Bollywood: The Accidental Prime Minister. But the whole tone, starting with Singh’s caricature by a mediocre performer, was nasty, with the malicious intent of making the Prime Minister look wussy and Sonia Gandhi like Nosferatu. Even President Donald Trump announced he was appointing three envoys to Hollywood, all more brawn than brain: Mel Gibson, who says Ivermectin cures cancer; Jon Voight, who called Trump the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln ; and Sylvester Stallone, who went one-up and said Trump was a second George Washington, America’s first president. Again Anupam Kher, the “Lord Haw Haw” of our time, shows up, this time to sully the memory of Jaiprakash Narayan and to comically contend—with no historical basis—that Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, in 1962 “almost turned Assam into another PoK ”. At least when I went to see The Accidental Prime Minister, first day first show, in the very same hall, two rows of elderly Punjabis applauded this out-and-out propaganda.