Indian Government has flagged green signal to Hollywood film Indian Summer script of a proposed English film bringing Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten relationship in spotlight.
The government of India has ordered that Intimate scenes between characters based on its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of Britain’s last Viceroy, be deleted from a new hollywood film of their romance.
Edwina was the wife of Britain’s last Viceroy, Louis Lord Mountbatten.
All foreign films shot in India must be approved by a vetting committee which screens the script to make sure “nothing detrimental to the image of India or the Indian people is shot or included in the film”.
Eminent writer and Niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, Nayantara Sahgal said, “I don’t know what to make of these reports (on government clearing the script on the condition that intimate scenes between Nehru and Edwina should be toned down). I have heard from Alex(von Tunzelmann on whose book the film is based) just a few days back and she told me that there is no script and nothing has been finalised.”
“I have read Alex’s book. She had met me also. It (the book) does not write on the relationship but says that there was one. She told me there is no script as such and no cast and director has been chosen. It is in the process of happening and it may happen next year,” Sahgal added.
Commenting on their relationship, Sahgal said, “anybody who claims that they had a sexual relationship would be conjecturing. What they had was a long and lasting relationship of love and friendship. It was a rare relationship based on meeting of minds. They had respect and admiration for each other.”
The film, which is due for release in 2011, is based on Alex Von Tunzelmann’s book Indian Summer, The Secret History of the End of Empire, which tells the story of Nehru and Lady Mountbatten’s “intense and clandestine love affair” during the Mountbattens’ return to India for the handover and partition in 1947.
The film is expected to be shot on location in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and the capital Delhi.
IRRFAN KHAN is leading the race to play CATE BLANCHETT’s lover in this period movie.
As per the reports, Hugh Grant will play Blanchett’s husband, Lord Louis Mountbatten, in the film, scheduled for release in 2011.
One Indian film producer said the film’s chances of being shot in India will eventually depend on how sensitively the director Joe Wright portrays the founder of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.
