Last week, as Salman Khan unveiled the teaser of his next, Battle of Galwan, to cheers from his fans, another movie on the same subject quietly released on YouTube. Writer and director Nitin Kumar Gupta’s LAC Battle of Galwan, starring Rahul Roy, is a dramatised account inspired by the military confrontation that took place between India and China in June 2020, in Ladakh. While Gupta originally wanted the film to hit the screens on June 15, 2023, it has taken the project more than two years since to see the light of day.
“I wanted the martyrs’ families to see the film in theatres,” says the director. But that was not to be. The movie, shot in November 2020, was submitted to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in June 2022. Gupta says that in August, the CBFC screened the 83-minute single-shot film for the Additional Directorate General of Public Information committee of the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces personnel in New Delhi. It was followed by a screening for the board in the same month. In September 2022, the CBFC handed out many changes in the war drama.”
(L-R) Rahul Roy and Nishant Malkani in the film. Pics/mid-day archives, Instagram, Youtube
Gupta recounts, “They asked me to remove LAC from the title, delete references to the actual location, and reduce violence by 33 per cent — essentially asking us to dilute the reality of hand-to-hand combat our soldiers faced. The most painful was when they asked us to remove the photos of the 20 real-life martyrs from the end credits. These photos were already in public domain, with their names released by the government.” He adds that the makers had pre-emptively taken many steps before LAC Battle of Galwan rolled. “We had changed the martyrs’ names to protect the families’ privacy; we didn’t mention China directly to avoid diplomatic issues, and based our story on verified sources.”
The team submitted the modified version in September 2022. Gupta rues, “There has been no official reply from the CBFC since. For three years, I knocked on every door. The film’s digital rights [rest with] Vikram Jadhav, who is an American citizen. It was his decision to release it on YouTube on July 5.” mid-day reached out to CBFC chairperson Prasoon Joshi, who didn’t respond till press time.
A close shave
Rahul Roy, whose character in the film is inspired by Colonel Bikkumalla Santosh Babu, suffered a brain stroke during the shoot in November 2020. He was initially admitted to a military hospital in Kargil, before being airlifted to Srinagar and subsequently to Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai.
