Indira rescued Benegal's film from Censor Board during Emergency

At the height of Emergency she imposed in 1975 that curbed civil liberties and censored the press, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi personally intervened to rescue the right to free expression of filmmaker Shyam Benegal.

Benegal makes this revelation in a new centennial commemorative coffee table book on the departed leader, where he speaks of how Indira Gandhi literally saved his film career from "ending abruptly".

Contributing a chapter to this book, Benegal remembers how Indira Gandhi asked him in 1975 why his film 'Nishant' (End of the night) depicting the Telengana movement had been denied a censor certificate after watching a special screening he had arranged for her after the censor board banned the film citing Emergency.

After the screening, the only comment the Prime Minister made was to ask why the film had been denied a censor certificate. She felt that denying a censor certificate to the film would make the government seem insensitive and petty.