Creative licence vs facts

Gurnaaz Kaur

From the day its trailer was released, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl has faced trouble. Initially, it was the nepotism fire in the Hindi film industry that made the biopic the butt of a joke and now, three days after its release, the film has been marred with controversies. Depiction of the Indian Air Force, gender bias, factual errors and what not.

Earlier this week, the Indian Air Force wrote to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). It raised objections over the presentation of gender bias in the film and said there was undue negative portrayal of the IAF. “In the aim to glorify the screen character of ‘Ex-Fit Lt Gunjan Saxena’, M/s Dharma Productions presented some situations that are misleading and portray an inappropriate work culture especially against women in the IAF,” ANI reported.

Later, the chief of National Commission for Women (NCW) Rekha Sharma insisted that film should not be streamed on Netflix due to its unrealistic portrayal of gender discrimination in the Air Force. She tweeted, “The real #GunjanSaxena must come out and clarify whether the gender discrimination shown in the movie is for real? Being from the Army background I can never imagine defense officers behaving like goons. Officer or not, women are always getting their due respect in forces.”

Wrong portrayal

Former flight lieutenant Gunjan Saxena’s colleague Wing Commander Namrita Chandi (retd) has written an open letter claiming that the filmmakers have ‘peddled lies’ in the name of creative freedom. “I have myself served as a helicopter pilot and I have never faced the kind of abuse and maltreatment as was portrayed in the movie. In fact, men in uniform are true gentlemen and professionals. They go out of their way to make lady officers comfortable and adjust.

Yes, initially there were teething troubles like no changing rooms or exclusive ladies’ toilets; yet the men made space for us. Sometimes, my brother officers stood guard outside the curtain while I changed. Never in my entire career span of 15 years have I been disrespected or mistreated,” she wrote in an open letter. Correcting the facts, Namrita said, “Sreevidya Rajan was the first lady pilot who flew to Kargil – not Gunjan.”

Even Srividya Rajan confirmed this in her Facebook post that she was the first one to be sent for Kargil operations. “In the movie, Gunjan Saxena was shown as the only lady pilot to fly in Kargil operations. This is factually incorrect. We were posted together to Udhampur and when the Kargil conflict started, I was the first woman pilot to be sent along with the male counterparts in the first detachment of our unit which deployed at Srinagar. I flew missions in the conflict area even before Gunjan’s arrival at Srinagar. After a few days of operation, Gunjan Saxena came to Srinagar with the next set of crew. We actively participated in all operations given to us which included casualty evacuation, supply drop, communication sorties, SAR, etc. The heroic acts of the protagonist portrayed in the climax never actually happened and may have been shown as part of cinematic licence,” reads a part of her post.

Nonsensical rants

To all this, Gunjan Saxena finally broke her silence and in a blog for NDTV wrote: “Let me inform readers with utmost conviction and honesty that even though cinematic liberties were exercised in my biopic by the filmmakers, what they did not miss or exaggerate was me, the real Gunjan Saxena. It was absolutely disheartening to see a small group of people trying to dent this hard-earned reputation with nonsensical rants. I was lucky and blessed to have so many firsts to my name in my years with the IAF. To list a few — first in the order of merit during my basic training and also in helicopter training, the first woman to fly in a combat zone (mentioned in the Limca Book of Records), the first ‘BG’ (a coveted flying category) among women helicopter pilots and the first woman officer to undergo the jungle and snow survival course. There are other small achievements, but those are not of much significance to my story right now.”

After the IAF raised objection over its portrayal in the film, Gunjan added in her blog for NDTV, “The IAF as an organisation is not into institutional discrimination, be it on gender or anything. I can speak for myself. When I joined there was no discrimination at the organisational level. But yes, individually, no two people are the same and some individuals adapt to change better than others. Since the bias is not at an organisational level, the experiences of different woman officers would be different. To deny it completely speaks of a feudal mindset and undermines the grit of women officers. I also combated the difficulties of prejudice and discrimination at the hands of a few individuals for being a woman. But since it was never at the organisational level, I got equal opportunities all the time.”

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