Now Not Playing: a Shiv Sena Family Drama

How filmmaker Avadoot Gupte lost 40 minutes of his film, cleared by the Censor Board, to placate Uddhav Thackeray and Narayan Rane.

For someone intimate with the Shiv Sena, music director-cum-singer Avadoot Gupte should have known better. When he decided to make Zenda, a Marathi film loosely based on the party, it was two hours and 30 minutes long. The Censor Board cleared it, and the film was scheduled to release on 8 January. But now, the prints are back in the studios, where he is chopping 25 per cent, or 40 minutes, off it.

“It is like amputating the hands and legs to save the body. It is painful, but I have no option,” says Gupte. The movie’s release has been a series of twists. Soon after it was completed, confidants of Thackeray cousins Raj and Uddhav sought separate special screenings. The Sainiks demanded a 20-minute scene cut because the Sena history was being “bent to suit the filmmaker’s needs”. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists left it to Raj to decide on his negative portrayal. He announced that if Gupte could get Maharashtrian viewers into theatres by maligning him, then he would demand no cuts in the interest of Marathi cinema.

Gupte heaved a sigh of relief. He would lose only 20 minutes from the film. Two days before release came another twist with Nitesh Rane, son of ex-Sainik and current state revenue minister Narayan Rane entering the picture. He demanded another 20-minute cut because a character, Sada Malvankar, was based on his father. Rane junior threatened to disrupt the screening otherwise. Gupte had to hastily stop the release of the film and call back the prints. As revenue minister, Rane has direct control of theatres and the ability to make things difficult.

“The film can be released under police protection, but the public will not come to watch, fearing violence. It is better to make the cuts,” says Gupte. Interestingly, Gupte has written the lyrics and set to music the signature tune of the Shiv Sena. Raj Thackeray, still in the Sena then, had supervised the project.

Narayan RaneShiv SenaUddhav ThackerayZenda